Santa Cruz Sentinel from Santa Cruz, California • Page 71

i-- The good, the bad and the ugly on TV 10 years ago, even if Tony Randall did steal virtually every scene from him. As "Quincy" he was both amiable and repugnant, although he did break new ground of sorts, starring as the first fun-loving corpse-cutting protagonist in television history. It's hard to believe anybody was torn up when that character was put to rest after too many televised dissections and mugging contests with Sam, his reliably good-natured sidekick. It's also hard to believe anybody was exactly begging Jack to come back, but be has, and this current role is beneath even him. He plays a dad whose teen-age son (John Stamos) returns to live with him after having departed with mom eight years earlier.

He has a British housekeeper and a mundane job; his son wants to play drums for a living, but Jack wants him to go to school and straighten out instead. Hilarious premise, right? The actual show is even worse. This is one of those sitcoms where you can just see some fellow turning up the fake laugh track in the sound editing booth. None of the jokes work, most of them don't even pretend to work. For example: Jack walks in and finds his bum son making a gigantic i (f "DRESS GRAY" last, an intelligent TV drama By TOM LONG Sentinel Staff Writer TELEVISION, like life, is your basic mixture of the good, the bad and the ugly.

Fortunately, few of our lives are as filled with the bad and the ugly as TV; brave would be the man or woman who could live out their time were it as awful as ABC's Friday night lineup. Still, the medium does have its moments, even if those moments are more often than not of the fleeting variety. Sunday and Monday nights NBC offered viewers a rare treat: a serious, engrossing and intelligent drama titled "Dress Gray." This adaptation of Lucian Truscott's novel by Gore Vidal was more theatrical than filmic; it even risked one scene in which two people spoke in a room for a full 10 minutes without interruption or diversion, making the wild assumption that the American public could go that long listening to intelligent dialogue without a car crash or punch-out In fact, nary a punch was thrown or a car demolished throughout the four-hour TV movie; instead the teleplay revolved around the murder and rape of a neurotic military cadet. Probably the most fascinating thing about the movie was that the most developed and interesting character was the murdered man, who was found drowned less than 15 minutes into the piece. By surrounding the victim's mental imbalances with those who became caught up in his story, Vidal kept things both tense and believable, and loaded the narration with meaning without ever coming off heavy-handed.

The acting was uniformly fine particularly Hal Holbrook as the iron-willed cadet commandant and Alec Baldwin as the accused cadet and the story never dragged, despite its theatrical orientation. "Dress Gray" was one of those amazing television events that actually exceed expectations, unless you count all the shows that turn out to be even worse than you thought they would. The only depressing aspect to this presentation was the fare that preceded Monday's conclusion, two new sitcoms. What was most depressing was the fact that the sitcom's will continue to plague viewers while "Dress Gray" was the sort of event that only graces the small screen once or twice a year. Since these two will be around for at least a while, since they are both somewhat indicative of replacement shows, and also since they presented such gross contrast to the intelligence of "Dress Gray," they must be looked at by your faithful TV critic.

That doesn't mean yon have to look at them; I get paid for this: "YOU AGAIN" What an awful way to start an evening. Or end an evening. In fact, what a Just plain awful show. Jack Klugman was acceptable as Oscar Madison in ''The Odd Couple" At 2S. He's not only not funny, he's not the right age.

But then nothing is right about this show. Avoid at all costs. "VALERIE" NBCs 8:30 p.m offering Monday isn't quite as bad as its p.m. offering, but then that would be tough. Still, "Valerie" seems to be a show with nowhere to Coin an obvious bid to capitalize on -the rash of "family" shows Cosby Snow," "Family Ties," the abytsmal "Growing currently enjoying popularity, perennial almost-star Valerie Harper has returned from her "Rhoda" reruns to boys whose airline pilot hubby is gone a good deal of the time.

The show opens with one of these reassuring families-can-overcome-everything-togetber theme songs done by Roberta Flack (it talks about taking things "step by step" and finding "love" at home) and then proceeds to set Harper up in a series of wisecracking situations. The formula is the same as elsewhere; Valerie faces a problem with one of her kids or hubby or work, resolves same problem at end of show in heartwarming manner, in between zingers are shot every which way. There is talent involved in this show Harper has been very good at times in her career, and teen-age son Jason Bateman (late of last years "It's Your would probably be filling Michael J. Fox's shoes right now if Michael J. Fox hadn't already filled them; he's got a sly way of deftly directing things with a glance and his delivery is almost always on the money.

Unfortunately, actors need scripts and situations to make things hap-In all honesty, I don't understand the success of the other shows of this ilk "Cosby" has Cosby, "Ties" has Fox, but aside from the obvious talents they both come off as dull shows to me, unrealistic and completely predictable. "Valerie" may very well fit In among these other hits, although its doubtful it has a chance with "You Again" as its lead-in. But even if it does become yet another safe hit, seeing it contrasted to "Dress Gray" only points out bow much more television could be if it weren't so cerned with being "YOU AGAIN" Avoid this show at all costs ON TV ALL IS FORGIVEN," Thursday at p.m., NBC To tell you the truth, this is something of a longshot pick; another new sitcom coming in at the end of the season. The difference is that it was developed by the same folks responsible for "Cheers" and features three very talented players Terence Knox (Dr. Peter White, the drug-crazed rapist from "St Elsewhere), Bess Armstrong (the films "The Four Seasons" and "High Road to and the wonderful Carol Kane (everything from "Young Frankenstein" to The talent alone has to make it worth a chance; besides, it's sandwiched between "Cheers" and "Hill Street Blues." pen, and even though the writing for "Valerie" is serviceable there are some laughs it would seem as if the entire situation itself was bom stagnant Where are these people going to go? Why will we care about them in two years? What will set this show apart? But then perhaps the point is that the show doesn't want to be set apart; it would prefer to Mend in with those other nits and wait to go into reruns and earn all involved trackloads of money.1 sandwich; there's nothing funny about this but the soundtrack is suddenly filled with a gale of laughter.

The humor (or lack of is all on this level: the son gets a job as a waiter and spills things (ha, ha, ha); Jack gets forced into a date with bis boss's ugly sister (ha, ha, ha); the British housekeeper rolls her eyes at virtually everything (ha, ha, ha, ha). It's all a bit embarrassing, really. Just as bad is the casting of Stamos as Kingman's son; he's obviously supposed to be a scruffy teen-ager (he whines about his allowance and has a hole in the knee of s.1- u.u Tii tttA emv trrwrta aVhiTrcSlooo mar.