The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 76

76 THE BOSTON GLOBE THURSDAY. SEPTEMBER 26. 1985 Thursday night television's five families 1' stantly cajoling, comforting, ton ing aown tantrums and cooling down the squabbles of his 10 chil IS 1 dren mil. Kenko. Belker et al.

Sometimes he even comes to their ft rescue, as he does tonight whpn a Move-like cult holds Henry Goldb- lume nostage. Not that such sublimated oar entlng and siblinp: shenanigans are the reason for the success of "Hill Street." But the characters are richly drawn albeit, by now. 7yT )(' too predictable. Like the characters of the show's chief competitor, "Knots Landing," they are like family members and friends we enjoy spending some time with once a a week. Unlike "Knots Landing" and other nighttime soaps all of which are families of the perverse the "Hill Street" characters are Jean Auel and E.L Doctorow spoke at literary brunch.

Bantam's bookish bash TELEVISION Continued from Page 73 But rarely, if at all. do they cross that line. Their concerns are human not sitcom concerns. Whether they're battling with their son's constant desire to put athletics ahead of academics, all five children's struggles with peer pressure or their own need for uninterrupted lovemaking (the Hux-tables are more whole than wholesome), this is undeniably a reality-based program. And an undeniably funny one.

Although the writing in tonight's back-to-school season opener isn't up to the usual Cosby standards, particularly in the opening few minutes, Cosby 's ability to find wit and warmth in the minutiae of family life is ever-evident, as when he consoles his youngest daughter who found the first day of school unpleasant or when, after seeing Vanessa's junior high school outfit, tries to mold her off-the-shoulder Madonna-ish dress into a turtleneck. Enough has been said about the success of "The Cosby Show" to steer clear of racial stereotypes. Let it Just be added, or repeated, that the ability of NBC. Cosby and the program's producers to make a strong, black family into the "first family" of an industry that except for "Benson" kept blacks out of leading roles is an extraordinary accomplishment. Less extraordinary is "Family Ties" at 8:30.

If viewers are attracted to the Huxtables by their wholeness, they are more likely attracted to the Keatons by their parts. Michael J. Fox is the teen- reality-based, despite the melodra matic overcoat of a police series. George Wendt plays Norm, whose "family" is "Cheers' clientele. It's doubtful that any of the soaps would feature a subplot of one of its characters sitting home alone with a flatulent dog, watching wrestling on television as Hill Street does tonight with Sgt.

Jab lonski. Without giving away too much about tonight's episode, there's a wonderfully disorienting begin ning that plays off reports about changes In this year season. This is also a program that Belker fans in particular won't want to miss. There are changes coming, however, and they're probably for the better. This is the last episode written by fired producer Steven age equivalent of a Don Johnson heartthrob, particularly after the hit film "Back to the Future." The writing isn't as good as on "Cosby" and "Cheers," but it's fairly high in quality.

Despite the reverse of the "All in the Family" division between liberal parents and conservative, materialistic children, the Keatons share with the Huxtables a lack of divisiveness that makes them a family that one can warm up to, if not wholeheartedly embrace. At 9, NBC switches from the nuclear to the "extended" family of "Cheers." The situation may change, but the audience stays the same. If singles can see what was, what might have been or what may be in "Cosby" and "Family Ties," then couples can identify in "Cheers" with the isolation of single people as well as with the '60s ideal of reaching beyond the immediate family. The people who flock to and work in the bar at Cheers are hardly communalists, but they are a family. The theme song, "You want to go where everybody knows your name," symbolizes the ties that bind this family to- Bochco, and it displays many of 3' gether.

Whether they're there to escape loneliness (Cliff), their nuclear families (Norm), to meet women (Sam, the owner) or out of some yearning for camaraderie (Diane), there is a sense of humorously desperate togetherness. Sam. and Diane may be constantly ranking each other out, and Carla may carp at everyone, but the "Cheers" people have a loyalty to each other that makes them as much of a family as most nuclear families. The same can be said of the workers of "Night Court," although it's definitely the weakest of NBC's Thursday-night lineup. The writing is barely better than mediocre, and the physical humor is usually predictable.

Thematically, however, it does keep the night going for NBC. The Night Courters, like the "Cheers" crowd, are mostly unmarried and look to each other for whatever familial succor they can find, as they do tonight when Judge Harry consoles an inebriated Bull, distraught over the death of Selma. "I don't know why we live and why we die. I do know as long as we're here we better hold on to each other as hard as we can." Well, as was said earlier, the writing ain't great. At 10 come the 13 characters of "Hill Street Blues," perhaps in its last season unless ratings return to levels of a couple of years ago.

In some ways, "Hill Street" is the most realistic family drama of all. Capt. Frank Furillo (Daniel J. Travanti) is as much patriarch of this family as Cosby is of his, con selbv lo 5:30 Th' Fr 10 PM' The comfort, the style, the wearabllity Just three reasons wny you love oeiDy classic sjf low-heeled footwear, JpfSltJ Sizes Grif 4-12 Irmly MitellM TO 3 00 more for sizes over 10 last year flaws. The multiple storylines, which seemed so fresh when "Hill Street" began, have become cliched and bothersome.

The central story In tonight's program, about the Move-like organization, is constantly interrupted, and weakened, by less gripping material. Future programs reportedly will focus on fewer stories per episode, which should help matters. It might also help if NBC switched "St. Elsewhere" to Thursday and "Hill Street" to Wednesday. The more comedic, though no less familial, "St.

Elsewhere" would be more compatible with the Thursday comedies. "Hill Street" would probably benefit from a "Hell Town," rather than "Night Court," lead-in. In any event, "Hill Street" is the program that started NBC on its road to success. It would be a shame to cut loose so valued a member of one's family. paJ 1 .1 -t 7.1 ki.l CAPE COD MARTHA'S VINEYARD 1 IsPy fc BERKSHIRES CAPE ANN NANTUCKET This Guide appears in the Globe Tuesday, Wednesday.

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617-432-5641. BANTAM Continued from Page 73 copies in print), "Yeager," the former astronaut's autobiography, and Erich Segal's "The Class." "Bantam's a good, strong house," said one literary agent. "They don't have many enemies." That's known as a compliment on Publisher's Row, and Bantam's optimism was manifest in the evening's fare, from the ice floes of salmon to the fist-sized shrimp. Mimicking trends in the industry itself, the scene at the Pierre varied from the staid to the outlandish, with entertainment reporters chasing down the likes of Christine Hefner and Barbara Taylor Bradford, and sequined turbans bumping into tweedier attire all night. The bulk of the crowd was talking trade: publicists got Ferraro, and that agents I'm the best in the and authors (who waffled between celebrity and self-effacement).

Kosinski delivered his new novel, "The Hermit," to Bantam two weeks ago, "on Friday the 13th in a Pepsi-Cola box." He spent four years writing the manuscript, which he described as his "spiritual autobiography," calling the blend of fact and fiction he incorporated therein "auto-fiction." "You pick out certain details about your life, and you make them fictional," he said. "You pick out certain fictional details about yourself and make them fact." Kosinski has been fond of toying with the boundaries between fact and fiction in previous works, so this technique seemed right up his alley. Still, he admitted feeling somewhat adrift since turning In the manuscript. "It has been such predictable, safe environment, with my typewriter, that going out it is the closest thing I can Imagine to a terrible letdown." But the Bantam gathering was an exception. "This is almost my spiritual family," he said.

"I have no children, no wife so this is like a family reunion." He surveyed the crowd. "And all of this," he grinned, "all because I Just finished my book." Bantam's anniversary party was the kickoff for a weekend of bookish events that brought thou-, sands onto Fifth Avenue for a street fair and hundreds more into midtown ballrooms and hotels for a series of authors' teas and brunches. The annual "New York Is Book Country," now in its seventh year, sprawled over 10 blocks of Fifth Avenue Sunday afternoon with an assortment of display booths (from antiquarian to mystery books) and street artists (clowns and talking dogs among them). Never mind that a few publishers resorted to other media to gain attention, with the Knopf booth hawking Julia Child on a six-hour video cooking demo and Villard luring pas-sersby with the prospect of tickets for David Letterman's show. This was an open-air market for the printed word, and the cash registers of Publisher's Row were quiet for the afternoon only bookstores were allowed to make sales while bibliophiles simply browsed and listened.

The literary brunch In the Grand Ballroom of the Plaza Hotel, cosponsored by New York Is Book Country and the New York Times, was sold out weeks beforehand to an audience of 500; proceeds, as In previous years, went to the New York Public Library. E.L. Doctorow, Auel, Irving Stone and Charles Kuralt were the featured speakers; despite Stone'9 assertion that "It fries no bananas for an author to praise his own book" (the phrase was borrowed from Camille Pissarro, the subject of his latest work), all the participating authors managed to do so In one way or another. Doctorow, who chose to read from his forthcoming novel, "World's Fair," Instead of talk DENNIS flPCIV UICT1 bedroom ocean front condo's. Private sandy beach, color cable TV, UUCnH IIOlH large sundecks, beautiful sunsets, S50-S125 nightly.

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a season specials. 775-3595 as did Irving Stone. GLOBE PHOTOS BY CHARLES RUPPMANN "The Mammoth Hunters," follows the pattern of previous works by combining prehistory and fiction, compared the present eight-hour work day to the two or three hours spent laboring in hunting and food-gathering societies. In response to a question from the audience, Auel explained how she managed to juggle writing and motherhood; she began writing at 40, she said, "out of discontent," when her five children were almost grown. Stone addressed the differences between biography and the biographical novel (the latter is his forte) and shed some light on his own research methods over the years.

For his work on Sigmund Freud, he combed the archives of a mental institution on the outskirts of Vienna; for Michelangelo, he went so far as to find out the color of the blanket under which the artist slept. A member of the audience asked Stone if it was not presumptuous to take on the identity of such exalted figures as Van Gogh or Freud. "They were not exalted when I took them on," he responded, drawing laughter, "so please have a little sympathy." About choosing the subjects for his work, Stone said that around three decades ago, "on an idle day in a misspent life." he wrote down 10 names on a sheet of paper. He has since written books on nine of them. CBS newsman Charles Kuralt.

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