South Florida Sun Sentinel from Fort Lauderdale, Florida • Page 43

Sun-Sentinel, Monday, September 21, 1998 Section MS ENRIQUE FERNANDEZ Commentary LA. Doctors: Touched by a physician make house calls (sometimes in and spend their leisure time hanging out with aging terminal cancer patients. Marcus Welby would feel like a selfish slacker in their company. Dr. Roger Cattan, portrayed by Olin, is the dominant personality as well as the meatiest character.

Roger is as dedicated to healing as his partners but he also yearns to be a player among the Tinseltown jet set Most of his actions are geared toward advancing this ambition. This includes the hiring of a chi-chi interior director to set up the partners' offices and a publicist to get their names into the papers. "Playing a character that is conflicted and complex is wonderful," Olin says. "One of the things that's most exciting for me about playing Roger is I'm kind of unleashed. It's all the worst things about Los Angeles that make it so much fun." Olin may be the most recognizable member of the ensemble at the moment, but if LA Doctors clicks, Roberts could become this season's hottest face on the pop culture magazines.

The baby-faced Canadian plays Dr. Evan Newman, who is short-changed by the expression "too good to be true." Evan yearns "to treat patients, not diseases. I want the practice my father had." In the opening scene, he witnesses a traffic accident. Faster than Clark Kent can become Super- PLEASE SEE DOCTORS 6D By TOM JICHA TVRadio Writer The opening line of LA Doctors ought to be "Once upon a time This is not a criticism. Some of the most beloved fairy tales of all time have begun that way.

LA Doctors is billed as a drama but make no mistake: It is as much a fantasy as Cinderella or Snow White. None of the characters could exist in the real world. Nevertheless, of all CBS's new series, it is the one most likely to be taken to heart by the audience. Viewers cherish feel-good stories with handsome, flawless heroes and warm, fuzzy endings. LA Doctors delivers on all counts.

Ken Olin, Matt Craven and Rick Roberts star as physicians disenchanted with the conveyor-belt, bottom-line medicine of HMOs. Having bolted from their previous medical group, they are intent on setting up a practice in which people are asked how they are feeling before they are asked how they are paying. They CBS photo What an operation: Matt Craven, Ken Olin, Rick Roberts are LA. Doctors. Will Grace: Just best buds ::4 ST Fear and loathing over this column Solipsism is an ill of our electronic age.

The responses to my column posted on our newspaper's Web page nudges me to think even more about myself! So here are some responses to my readers' responses on the Internet, in letters and phone calls. First, on being a "pinko rat." A pinko is a liberal who helps Communists have their way, i.e. a fellow traveler, both of them archaic insults. For the record, I feel about Communists the way I do about religious zealots and some Roman Catholic orders. They have an agenda that excludes me and my concerns.

Fortunately, one doesn't have to think much about them any more. Unless one is Cuban. The Cold War is still raging among us, and old political argot, like pinko, still has currency as pejorative. I do hope for change in Cuba sometime soon, for a day when this outworn ideological warfare is nothing but one more memory of underdevelopment. On being a "scumbag," along with other "liberal" Sun-Sentinel columnists, let me say that I feel flattered to be included in their august company, even in a reader's loathing.

But I must protest that I'm really not all that liberal. The older I get the more conservative, nay, reactionary I become. And I deplore leftist cant, particularly when it becomes part of the establishment's discourse. Now, that's sarcasm When I sang the praises of the Immigration and Naturalization Service's wretched excesses, I did have my tongue in my cheek, an attitude that some readers who wrote and called either horrified or gratified missed. Alas, our being a nation of immigrants has turned us into a nation of immigrant-haters, and I suspect that some of this self-loathing is the burden of shame -many of us bear.

That new immigrants refuse to bow to linguistic abuse irks some Americans, just as much as the refusal of African-Americans to bow to any abuse. Since I'm an immigrant, I'm rather thin-skinned on the issue, so I chose sarcasm (rather obviously, I think) in order to purge myself. Did someone notice I often write about Latino lifestyle? Duh. Maybe it has something to do with the at the end of my surname. Or my first language.

Or how I feel about my parents. But, really, wouldn't you rather know what we Latin types are thinking? Or would you rather be kept in the dark about our evil ways? Think of me as Our Man in Little Havana, The Spy Who Came In From the Frio oops! I'm using Spanish again. Well, if you learned it, then you could eavesdrop on us and you wouldn't need me at all. Column you love to hate Finally, a word of thanks to those whose comments are, well, nice. And my guilty admission that I pay less attention to you than to the harsh and angry readers.

For I feel a perverse solidarity with the readers I irritate. Like freaks, we need one another, we nasty journalists and you peeved readers. For all your negative feedback, we will not cease to bring you bad news. For all our bad news, you will not cease to read us. So let's slip into a little something in black leather and party on.

By TOM JICHA TV Radio Writer Will Grace will prove Billy Crystal wrong. Crystal declared in When Harry Met Sally that a man and a woman cannot be great friends without sex eventually getting in the way. Crystal's Harry never met Will Truman and Grace Adler. They're longtime best buds and sex has never gotten in the way: Will's gay. In this contemporary spin on the mismatched-cou-ple theme, Will and Grace aren't that mismatched.

They like the same things, including George Clooney. Both also are coming off demoralizing breakups. Will had been seeing the same guy for seven years. In the pilot, Grace is on her way to the altar until she heeds Will's advice that she could do a lot better. Their relationship is so close and trusting that, after a brief fit of petulance, she takes his words to heart.

In the second episode, the two set up house together. The concept is more credible than it might sound thanks to clever scripting, an appealing cast and the masterful hand of James Burrows. Getting Burrows to direct your pilot is the equivalent of having your house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. A nine-time Emmy winner, Burrows was co-creator, executive producer and director of Cheers. He PLEASE SEE WILL 6D Hang on to your remote control: Six new TV shows debut tonight.

Our top picks are featured here on the cover. For more reviews, see 3D, 6D. TONIGHT'S DEBUTS Eric McCormack and Debra Messing lead the appealing cast of NBC's Will Grace. Hyperion Bay (WB): Sexy soap. A former nerd who's now a wealthy computer entrepreneur returns to his hometown, reviving simmering family conflicts and a failed romance.

The Brian Benben Show (CBS): Comedy in a media setting. Demoted to a reporter's position at a Los Angeles TV station, a former anchor schemes to get his old job back, and foil his conniving replacements. THE BEST (Reviewed on this page): LA Doctors (CBS): Medical drama. Four idealistic doctors leave the world of managed care to set up their own practice where they can assist patients without worrying so much about the bottom line. Will Grace (NBC): Buddy comedy.

A gay lawyer (him) and a straight interior designer (her) depend on each other through good times and bad. THE REST (Reviewed on 3D): Conrad Bloom (CBS): More media comedy. A New York advertising whiz juggles professional and personal lives. Enrique Fernandez's column appears on Monday. The King of Queens I V2l (CBS): Blue-collar comedy.

A delivery service worker's vJr little patch of heaven a SSS basement room with the big- I I ZiiISS25-- pMw screen TV becomes a I 4" 1 crowded hell when his in- Z0' 1 laws move in. -rii INSIDE ARTSENTERTAINMENT rK hi! 1 wtlt-Jy 1 BBao I i i 1 Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Raymond J. Barry and Dylan Neal star in Hyperion Bay. I 4 -'jf 1 I 1 nbc mli- I Pianists pair up during Festival Miami's Two Piano Fest. 3D The week in soaps.

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