Magnificent to see western

Two new TV series reach into the past for something new while another stretches no farther than Martha Stewart for its comedy. The results are one winner and two losers:

* "The Magnificent Seven," which began as a Japanese samurai movie and then became a popular Western film, should be watched just for the pleasure of once again hearing Elmer Bernstein's rousing theme music. Appropriated years ago for a cigarette commercial, it is restored via this CBS series to its proper place.

Bernstein, by the way, has at least two other memorable movie scores to his credit, and they couldn't be more opposite: the Wagnerian strains of "The Ten Commandments" and the gentle, childlike piano music of "To Kill A Mockingbird." But there is more to the new TV series than its music; it also restores something not seen on the tube in years: the western.

Westerns on TV have tended of late to be more pastoral, with more plows than Peacemakers in evidence, as witness "Little House on the Prairie" years ago and the current "Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman." But "The Magnificent Seven" reaches back to tried-and-true images that haven't been employed much in decades: the loner cowpoke with jingly spurs, the dusty streets, the corral shoot-out, and plenty of "yups" and "nopes."

Reflecting changing times, the seven gunmen of this series are an ecumenical and interracial mixture that includes a former Catholic priest and a black medic. Together, they provide everything you need out on the prairie, from spiritual solace to a bandage for a gunshot wound.

My wife Mary, who disdains most westerns, sat happily through the two-hour pilot of "The Magnificent Seven" and declared it had cleverly cobbled together the right elements to attract her: seven different guys for variety, lots of classic cliches that have been missing from action on the screen and that "dut-dut-dah-dut" music....

* Men dressing as women on stage is as old as Shakespeare, and previous situation comedies have used such masquerade for their plots: "Bosom Buddies" and "The Ugliest Girl in Town." But you have to reach back to the mid-fifties for the real antecedent to a new sitcom on Fox, "Ask Harriet."

The show of 40 years ago was "Dear Phoebe," starring Peter Lawford as a journalist pretending to be a female advice columnist. "Ask Hillary" has the same premise: A macho sports writer, fired by his lover-boss, puts on a dress and lipstick to win the position of an advice columnist along the lines of Abby and Ann.

But much has changed in four decades, and the Fox show is laden with so-so jokes related to sexual performance, all of them backed up with a very intrusive laugh track. It's a very unseemly package -- even with makeup and a wig.

A tough lesson from the past will probably be learned by "Ask Hillary:" All of its predecessors had very short runs....

* Making quick fun of Martha Stewart through one-liners and short skits is easy, but satirizing her at length requires some creative effort, which is not to be found on CBS's "Style & Substance."

Starring Jean Smart, this dumb comedy about a Stewart-alike and her assistant, played by Nancy McKeon, flinches from lowering the comedy hammer on Stewart, who is also a CBS employee. That hesitation short-circuits most of the laughs. Just when you think the writers are going for the jugular, they settle for a paper-cut.

So I reckon I'll mosey back to "The Magnificent Seven" and leave the womenfolk (even the ones who are really men) behind.

(01-22-98)

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