Time for 'Time Cop' runs out

Every autumn, like the great explorers before me, I go into unknown territory in search of worthwhile TV shows. Then, as winter nears, I despair -- not only over the onset of darkness at 4 p.m. and snow drifts up to my carotid artery but also over the desolate landscape called network television.

That's when I start reading the catechism, anxiously looking for loopholes in the Church's teaching against suicide. Surely, I say to myself, there must be exceptions for people who are forced to watch "Dharma and Greg."

Alas, there are none, so I press on with undaunted courage, pushing aside the snow and lighting up the dark in hopes that somewhere out there in the wasteland is a good TV series.

Come along with me and see if I found one:

* "Dharma and Greg" is the kind of situation comedy that makes you appreciate solitary confinement in a gulag and forced labor for so many hours a day that you fall asleep instantly, thus eliminating any chance you will even accidentally watch this show.

The annoying part of this ABC series about a mismatched couple (she is the daughter of hippies; he is the scion of blue bloods) is Dharma, played by Jenna Elfman with the sort of over-the-top cuteness that makes you want to hire a hit man. Her cutesy-poo voice and dimples grate on me like fingernails on a chalkboard.

* A lot of pre-season gaseous hype was released over "Veronica's Closet," the NBC comedy starring Kirstie Alley as the newly separated head of a lingerie company. Her years on "Cheers" earned her a free pass from the usual skepticism aimed at new programs.

As a result of that and her time slot between "Seinfeld" and "ER," Alley may be on the highway to success. But it's not because there's anything special about her show. Each half-hour so far has consisted of the main character whining about her life: Her husband left her...she's gaining weight...her hair won't stay out of her eyes.

Excuse me, that last complaint comes from female co-workers who tell me that Alley's hair-do, with its two differently colored strands that poke into her eyes, drives them nuts. They want to run up to the set and bobby-pin the errant hairs back. I just want to run up and turn the channel.

* "Time Cop" is the sort of show I'm a sucker for since it involves time travel. So, of course, it's already been canceled. I will watch anything that plays around in that dimension, even "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" (which had a very clever moment involving a note the teens left for themselves).

This ABC series starred T.W. (Time Walker?) King as a policeman with an elite government group that keeps mean old time travelers from messing with history, such as delivering atomic weapons to Hitler.

As all time-travel stories make clear, you can't fuss around with the past without affecting the future. As I used to tell my sons as we watched a baseball game and they lamented that a foul ball could have been a home run, "If you change one thing, you change them all. You might get the home run, but the player might break his leg rounding first."

Thus, as the Hitler episode unfolded, removing nuclear arms from Germany without taking care resulted in the Nazis winning the war. So back in time went the cop to straighten things out.

For people old enough to remember, "Time Cop" is sort of like "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" -- full of scientific hokum, really evil villains and happy endings.

I had time for that. The network didn't.

(11-06-97) [[In-content Ad]]