Slim pickings among series

Seen any good TV lately?

Not if you've been watching many of the new shows which have debuted this fall. By and large, they add up to a pretty dismal collection of sitcoms and dramas.

Here are snapshots of what I've been forced to view:

* "Dellaventura," starring Danny Aiello as a cop-turned-PI, is such a throw-back that you want to throw it back -- to the drawing board. Aiello has said that he would like nothing better than to recreate "Kojak." Well, he has, but that's like taking pride in resurrecting bell-bottoms.

Set in a New York City populated by hipsters and mobsters, the program seems stranded in a very sad time-warp as the elderly and overweight hero waddles around town acting tough and taking meetings with Mafia dons that continue the myth of them as honorable men....

* "Meego," the CBS sitcom about an alien who becomes a nanny for a group of children, is so unashamedly silly that it gets away with its broad humor and bad puns.

Bronson Pinchot plays the alien, apparently after watching every episode of "Mork & Mindy" he could find and memorizing Robin Williams' antics.

The result is a goofy mix of special effects, lovable dogs and a six-year-old boy you want to hug. It almost makes you forget that the first episode of the series, aimed at little kiddies, contained three jokes about male genitals. If those are eliminated in future segments, the result will undoubtedly be something children will enjoy and parents might even venture to snicker at....

* "You Wish" is basically the same show as "Meego." In this ABC version, a genie (this time male and not showing his navel) comes into the lives of a mom and her children, offering to take over their housework and homework with tricks.

The genie is so oily and irksome that you keep praying he will be re-bottled and tossed into the Red Sea (or wherever genies issue from). In other words, break it up; there's nothing to see here....

* "Hiller & Diller," a situation comedy on ABC, has all the qualities of a cold sore: It is annoying and lasts far too long.

Richard Lewis and Kevin Nealon play successful comedy writers with unsuccessful families. Maybe the fictional writers should replace the real ones who turn out this program, which manages to be both charmless and humorless -- despite the presence of comedians, children and a premise that is as old as "The Dick Van Dyke Show."...

* "The Tony Danza Show" on NBC asked this question: If a small child has been diagnosed by a doctor as both paranoid and suffering from hypochondria, is it amusing?

As stupid as that was, it didn't match the conceit that Tony was afraid of computers and beepers, and considered them threats to existence. As a sketch, that premise might be funny. As a representation of a character in a series, it was lazy.

The show won't be missed.

(10-30-97)

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