The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 132

I 'Lifepod' is 'Lifeboat' film with nary a Hitch LIFEPOD T3 Monday Night Movie Wars r. Lifepod The Fox Network is stepping up its efforts to win Monday night movie fans. Here's a sci-fi adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock's 1944 thriller, "Lifeboat." Monday at 7 p.m. on Fox. i i I i i If '-'J VI I I I Conlinuedfrom Page 3-TV dark backdrop of the galaxy.

Only one lifepod has safely escaped the explosion, housing nine survivors in an awkward-looking craft that resembles three booster rockets strapped together. With no power to go anywhere on its own, it can only drift and wait for rescuers to spot the one lonely "orbit marker" they have to signal their whereabouts. As one pessimistic survivor remarks, "It's like sending out a message in a bottle, only here the ocean is 10 billion light years across." In the Hitchcock film, the disaster is caused by a German torpedo and the unmistakable villain is a German, played by Walter Slezak, who's fished out of the sea with the other castaways. There's no war in Jr I I 4 i ft ff i Uvl 0 -5 Li ft i work in tight spaces on board spaceships. Hitchcock's film was one of those experiments in inventive ness that the cinema master en joyed so much.

His greatest chal lenge was finding ways to keep his camera busy on a single, confined set a rubber raft in a studio water tank. The "Lifepod" set isn't that small, so the close quarters never really become a liability to keeping the action flowing. Of course, Hitchcock also had another serious challenge: How to work in his usual cameo walk-on appearance without becoming a full-time cast member. He did it by posing for the "before" photo in a large reducing aid advertisement in a newspaper one of the characters is reading. The "Lifepod" director found it much easier to get on camera.

Actor Ron Silver makes his directorial debut while playing the important role of the blind survivor. The updated story-line makes good use of the imagination. In one sequence, the pod drifts into a sunless orbit and the heavy, air-conditioned atmosphere inside the main chamber starts to "snow" with tiny ice flakes that the moisture-craving survivors can gather out of the air and eat like snow cones. To generate suspense, the new story-line not only keeps us guessing about whom the traitor might be, but also raises the possibility that whoever it is might be killing them off one by one to conserve oxygen and food supplies and trying to make it look accidental. "Lifepod" isn't a big winner in the drama department there are no standout performances from the ensemble cast and the characters are pretty much one-dimensional.

But it's really nothing more than an action picture with an exotic sci-fi background. On that level, it's entertaining enough. What is impressive, though, is that Fox finally is serious about competing in the Monday night movie wars against NBC and ABC, clearly attempting to carve out its own territory with movies aimed at young, urbane viewers. Since ABC and NBC never do sci-fi films, "Lifepod" amounts to an auspicious start for Fox. i "Lifepod" isn't a big winner in the drama department.

It's really nothing more than an action picture with an exotic sci-fi background. On that level, it's entertaining enough. "Lifepod," but we soon learn the explosion was the act of a saboteur, perhaps a rebel from the planet Venus, where the powerful Earthcorps runs a colony and is universally hated by the colonists. The "Lifepod" villain isn't so easy to spot, so we spend lots of time guessing who the saboteur might be. Among the survivors are Lt.

Janna Mayvene (CCH Pounder), who's isolated from the others in the command quarters and can communicate with them only by electronic hookup; Daniel Banks (Robert Loggia), a member of the Earthcorps board who's returning from a fact-finding mission to Venus; Kane (Adam Storke), an escaped prisoner being returned to Earth; Clair (Jessica Tuck), a journalist who's taping their ordeal with her mini-cam; Miles Terman (Ron Silver), a former Earthcorps fraud inspector, embittered after being blinded in an accident; Park er (Stan Shaw), a ship-worker who suffers a severe leg injury in the explosion; Rena (Kelli Williams), a medi-tech from the Venusian colony; and Q-Three (Ed Gale), a "little person" who has been "modi fied" with robotic components to Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny play FBI agents in the new Strong teen audiences give Fox, one-hour drama "The X-Files." the future KDSM high hopes for la. tinue into the falL I've watched most of the new series, which include four comedies, two dramas, a variety show and an hourlong weekly news magazine, The Front Page." Without going into detail at this early stage, I can say for sure that you will not want to miss Fox's "The X-Files." This is a drama about two FBI agents who are assigned to extremely difficult cases. It stars the young, dynamic acting team of David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. The tension crackles in "The X-Files." The truly awful item on the Fox schedule is the comedy, "Daddy Dear FOX Conlinuedfrom Page 3-TV bility of adding a newsroom), he's irked that he can't lure any of those hefty ag-ad dollars KDSM way. "We're told that farmers like to for get farming when they are relaxing and watching their prime-time shows.

But I don't buy that," he says with a sigh. But herbicides aside, MacArthur is excited about Fox's 15 hours of prime time. Its new-season premieres began June 21 with the weekly "Fox Night at the Movies on Mondays and will con est," co-starring Richard Lewis and Don Rickles. Lewis is his usual anemic, whiny self, and Rickles, who looks like a gherkin, explodes with one ethnic slur after another. A tasteless, insulting show all around.

Fox has never risen above fourth place in the ratings. But young viewers have grown up watching its programs. Someday, today's teens will rule the airwaves. Fox may even become No. 1.

People such as KDSM general manager MacArthur will be considered pioneers. And Rickles' brief stay on Fox will be indelibly logged in the "big mistake category. Lots to Iobk forward to from Fox. 4-TV Des Moines Sunday Regbteb June 27, 1993.