The Sacramento Bee from Sacramento, California • 75

Television F4 Religion F5 Comics F6 The Sacramento Bee Saturday September 15 1984 mm i gloom over empty nest Parents all over the country are dropping their freshmen children off at colleges and universities and finding out how painful it is to let go Jody Powell former aide to President Jimmy Carter here shares his feelings at saying goodbye to his daughter i i i I i i i A cute kid a crazed doc vice cops 2 out of 3 bad By Bob Wisehart PefcTV Critic Three new TV series premiere this weekend and the way they shape up two out of three bad take look Punky Brewster Poor little Punky Brewster has been discarded by her parents and left to cope with the mean old world armed only with her pigtails immense brown eyes and tte cutest little smudged puss since Alfalfa ran around with Little The kid deals in tough luck also on KCRA Channel 3 at 7:30 pm Sunday which means opposite NBC should be arrested for cruelty to children At the tender age of 7 Punky (Soleil Moon Frye) is abandoned by her mother who probably works in the NBC programming department and is discovered hanging out in a vacant apartment In the same building 'resides Henry Wamimont (George Gaynes the white-haired letch in a crabby widower who lives alone and enjoys the company 1 Any bets on who finds Punky? Oh yeah Did I mention that Punky has a dog? A cute dog? that? For some reason you surprised? Warnimont sustains his crabbiness am not a Hank I am a for not quite three minutes before he melts all over the camera what a mess! and decides that spunky Punky needs the kind of upbringing only he can provide So together they resolve to face the world and help NBC try to make a dent in the ratings of takes on Mike Wallace I tell you going to be brutal And you thought human sacrifice was passe? "I want to seem unduly observes Dr Howard Sheinfeld with cool professionalism as he eyes a patient that And so it goes on where life is lived and duty satisfied with an exacting blend of quiet desperation and blatant hysteria the kind of place where the head nurse is named Thor (Conchata Ferrell delightful as ever) and the neighborhood drunk has a permanently reserved bed premieres Sunday at 8 pm on KXTV Channel 10 In the first show the hospital supervisor is played by Marcia Strassman be Mary McDonnell thereafter Based on the long-running Chicago play Emer- gency has a lot going for it not the least of which is Elliott Gould in his first TV series As physicians go Sheinfeld (Gould) will never be cofifused with Marcus Welby This is a man who is moti-' vated less by the milk of human kindness and more by an empty wallet A perpetually exhausted ear- nose-and-throat specialist he moonlights in the emergency room of Clark Street Hospital in order to keep up alimony payments to his first wife separation payments to his second wife and still support himself and a son His marital wars include everything but mushroom clouds As Sheinfeld beams "The one thing more important to me than love and hate is In show George Jefferson of (Sherman Hemsley) lends his usual windy bluster to the goings-on as he wanders in to visit his niece (Lynn Moody) Hemsley necessary (is he ever?) but he Special to The Bee Elliott Gould plays Dr Howard Sheinfeld in his first TV series Soleil Moon Frye left and Cherie Johnson star in hurt anything either Though Gould was hot as an actor can be in the early-and mid-1970s his career has fallen on hard times lately which explains what doing in a TV series But whether playing an anti-hero or an out- and-out jerk Gould still has a way of turning tension into a kind of frayed on-the-edge-of-sanity comedy We know cope no matter what but at times a very close call I want to overpraise Not everything works some of the one-liners are lame indeed but it does have potential though I wonder what will happen when they start grinding it out every week Even so on Sunday night this is worth checking into Miami Vice I was surprised how much I liked "Miami I was also surprised why I liked it On one level your basic tough- cops show Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) and Ricardo Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas) are undercover vice detectives for the Miami Police Department and their beat is the seamy side of life If a cop-show cliche that crammed into two- hour pilot on at 9 pm on KRCA Channel 3 I know what it could be And yet it works anyway thanks to a wry and savvy style and some of the hottest video techiques ever seen on series TV Often on this series happening as important as how it looks and sounds Whole sequences are done in the style of music videos and give the show a smashing narrative drive Another plus is the way "Miami blends the professional and personal lives If it resembles "Hill Street in that way and only that way this is no copy no coincidence executive producer Anthony Yerkovich produced "Hill in its second year It would be safe to call the characters colorful and probably a bit overdone Crockett is a former college See NEW SEASON page F4 ipiPiwnnwwu'iiiMiM mi By Jody Powell Special to The Bee ART OF IT was that it all happened so fast Not just the 17 years and nine months but those last few days too On Friday morning he was hustling to get home from Dallas By that night they were in Williamsburg Va And 42 short hours later they were on their way back to Washington But this time the was one short left their only daughter at William and Mary and that young mother and father were having trouble talking past the burning lumps in their throats Her father in particular had not acquitted himself well at the final leave-taking gotten the electric fan for her dorm room assembled with no serious problems despite difficulty in locating the English instructions among the French German Spanish and Urdu But then there was nothing else to do except go What he would have given for a faucet to fix perhaps the dorm needed rewiring maybe a last check of the stereo anything to delay that final hug and goodbye In the end he handled it just about the way he knew he would: a lame attempt at a joke made even less funny by the noticeable break in his voice right in the middle Then he stood looking out the window and wiping his eyes while mother and daughter said their goodbyes in that tender and practical way that women have A predictable turning back at the door for one more embrace then the humiliating walk to the car The other girls on the hall to their credit smiled sweetly but did not stare or giggle perhaps out of respect for their own stumbling red-eyed fathers who had made the same trek over the past few hours Perhaps something to the idea that good for men to show their emotions and all but it fails to take into account how absolutely ridiculous a sniffling choked-up 40-year-old man can look walking through a dorm on an August morning By ABOUT HALFWAY through the drive back mother and father were able to talk bravely about the "fre that now resulted from their childless home a miserable doomed-from-the-start attempt to make something cheerful out of unmitigated heartache The refuge turned into a vicious trap once they realized that even though they could now go places and make plans at the last minute most of their friends could not their children were still at home where they ought to be And what sort of daddy would trade his daughter for the right to take off for the mountains or a sushi bar on short notice anyway? It has now been two whole days The mother is holding up pretty well she has had experience with these father-daughter relationships The father and still moping around like a sick cat wont to get misty at the drop of a hat: a line in a television movie a story in the paper even one of those horrid tuneless songs he used to despise so much Oh what give to hear that miserable excuse for music blaring out of her bedroom again nothing reasonable about it He knows what feeling is a good bit of guilt for the time he spend with her and the things he had always meant to do and say And it's more than a little bit selfish Watching her grow up has been the principal joy of almost half his life Now that pleasure belongs to others roommates professors boyfriends and he knows they appreciate it possibly understand what a rare and wonderful thing it is and she is And he help resenting every single one of them Yes proud of her and not really worried about how she'll make out far and away more mature and sophisticated than he was when he headed off to school She's shown that in a thousand ways including the phone call on Monday afternoon ostensibly to ask him about an answer given on an English validation test but actually as both of them knew to check up on her ol' dad and let him know nothing terrible had happened to her in the past 26 hours Of course weekend is less than four weeks away and fall break three weeks later and then Thanksgiving and Christmas The drive is only three hours And yes he'll get over it He really does believe that business about letting go in order to hold on and not going to be finding an excuse to go down to see her every other weekend He knows that the leave-taking and her life thereafter were the goal of those 17-plus years and learn to take delight in watching her accomplishments from a distance begin to think about the wonderful and exciting times that lie ahead of her and to take an excessive amount of credit for her successes All that will come in time But right now Claiie my God he misses vou so And he Intends to be miserable and brokenhearted for just a few more davs if all riVit if yty I '-it I i A 7 Philip Michael Thomas left anc from the cast of Rock group Cars receives best video award 'Tve never been to the Grammy and much better than the American Music Award much more Asked if he thought the award would generate more record sales Ocasek said think it will translate into money at all" Huey Lewis who performed during the show said the broadcast proved "MTV is a real force in the music industry but I want to add rock and roll is not about awards not why everybody is here tonight I think because you get to meet everybody I got to meet Tina Turner" Turner whose career is at an all-time high said her success "was an awful lot because of MTV They contributed tremendously to my comeback" David Lee Roth of Van Halen whose "Jump" won the best stage nerformance award told the television audience doesn't matter whether you win or lose It's how good you The Beatles and director Richard Lester who made the Beatles first two films were honored with a Video Vanguard award for their contribution to the new industry Quincy Jones who produced Michael Jackson's album was given a special achievement award for his career By Frank Spotnitz NEW YORK (UPI) The rock group the Cars took the Best Video of the Year award in the first annual MTV video music awards Friday but Herbie Hancock's high-tech swept the other categories taking five awards The awards ceremony was held in Manhattan's art deco Radio City Music Hall and the audience in the huge theater was like a who's who of rock roll The show broadcast over the MTV video cable channel included comedian Dan Aykroyd and singer Bette Midler as hosts with Eddie Murphy Joe Piscopo and New York Mayor Edward Koch also making appearances The Might Think" won the top award for the best video of the year while Hancock made the most trips to the stage Cyndi Lauper who was nominated for nine awards took home the best female performance for "Girls Just Want to Have David Bowie won the top male honors for "China The Texas trio ZZ Top won two awards including best group video for "Legs" and best direction for "Sharp Dressed Man" Diana Ross went to the stage three times to pick up awards for Michael Jackson including best overall performance best choreography and choice of the best video of the year Each of the winners was given a silver statuette of a spaceman the MTV logo but many of the pop stars In attendance conceded the award was secondary Ric Ocasek the lead singer for the Cars said I In accepting the award Jones thanked the late Count Basie and called him "a mentor a father a friend He was truly original and most of all he was a perfect example of a person who at least tried to show me how to be a decent human be- lag" Cyndi Lauper won for Just Want to Have Fun I.