Good shows hard to find

Plowing my way through the new series that have cropped up this fall, I have not found much to harvest.

An exception is "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," the "Law & Order" spin-off on NBC that wisely keeps all the pluses of the original: the voice-over narration, the plunk-plunk musical sting and the lean writing that demands your rapt attention. Miss a minute of either program and you're playing catch-up the rest of the way. "SVU" isn't as good as the original, but it's better than most.

"SVU" focuses on detectives who investigate sex crimes, many of which are showing up on new sitcoms. "Ladies Man," on CBS, had an episode in which the main character's wife withheld sex from him, reducing him to a nervous wreck. As he searches for breakfast, she asks what cereal he wants. "Sex Krispies," he replies.

When a putrid line like that passes for humor, you know the end is near for civilization. It's the sort of "joke" viewers hear all the time on comedies, which go from groin gag to breast bon mot in hopes of laughs. (A recent episode of a sophomore sitcom, "King of Queens," was based on the lead character's stapling his privates to his pants. Other characters took turns looking up his shorts to survey the damage.)

"Stark Raving Mad," a would-be comedy on NBC, rushes around in hopes of creating a wacky environment that spells humor. It actually spells "n-o-t-f-u-n-n-y." The premise is that a nerdy, neurotic book editor (a sort of Niles Crane character from "Frasier") has to shepherd an off-the-wall horror novelist (think of Rev. Jim from "Taxi"). A sample scene from the premiere episode says it all: The editor discovers the novelist hanging from a rafter as if he had lynched himself.

The highly touted "West Wing," NBC's hour about the White House, is highly overrated. Advertised as an inside look at how the executive mansion works, "West Wing" can't come anywhere near the bizarre events of the Clinton Administration, despite the inclusion of a prostitute in the plot, a device so common in TV dramas that one wonders how Hollywood screenwriters spend their free time.

The characters on this series are broad stereotypes -- from the driven presidential assistant to hypocritical religious leaders (another Hollywood cliche) -- and the scripts are packed with overblown declamations delivered at high decibel levels that try to make everything seem very important. It actually seems very pretentious.

"West Wing" is noisy, but the Punctured Ear Drum Prize for the loudest new TV series goes to "Third Watch," another NBC drama, this one focusing on police, fire and emergency personnel. Howling sirens, screaming paramedics, breaking glass, gunshots and blaring music make the show difficult to tolerate aurally. If you turn off the sound and read the captioning, you discover the series takes "St. Elsewhere," "Emergency" and "Hill Street Blue" and squashes them together in a not very successful salmagundi.

A candidate for the worst new show of the season is "Snoops," an ABC series about a group of female detectives who violate every ethical and legal norm in order to achieve their goals. With its odd-angled shots and unexpected camera zooms, "Snoops" is a visual throw-back to "Mannix" and "Cannon."

The plotting is just as old-fashioned: Client comes to P.I. with problem, P.I. gets into trouble with bad guy, P.I. wins in the end just as the police arrive. Not very original, not very interesting.

(10-21-99) [[In-content Ad]]