Santa Cruz Sentinel from Santa Cruz, California • Page 71

Spotlight- -Santa Cruz Sentinel Friday; March 14, Stay tuned The good, the bad and the ugly on TV 10 years ago, even if Tony Randall By TOM LONG did steal virtually scene from Sentinel Staff Writer him. As "Quincy" every he both was amiable and repugnant, although he TELEVISION, like life, is your did break new ground of sorts, starbasic mixture of the good, the ring as the first fun-loving corpsebad and the ugly. Fortunately, few of cutting protagonist in television hisour lives are as filled with the bad tory. and the ugly as TV; brave would be It's hard to believe anybody was the man or woman who could live out torn up when that character was put their time were it as awful as ABC's to rest after too many televised disFriday night lineup. sections and mugging contests with Still, the medium does have its Sam, his reliably good-natured sidemoments, even if those moments are kick.

more often than not of the It's also hard to believe anybody fleeting variety. Sunday and Monday was exactly begging Jack to come nights NBC offered viewers a rare back, but he has, and this current treat: a serious, engrossing and in- role is beneath even him. He plays a telligent drama titled "Dress Gray." dad whose teen-age son (John This adaptation of Lucian Stamos) returns to live with him Truscott's novel by Gore Vidal was after having departed with mom more theatrical than filmic; it even eight years earlier. He has a British risked one scene in which two people housekeeper and a mundane job; his spoke in a room for a full 10 minutes son wants to play drums for a living, without interruption or diversion, but Jack wants him to go to school making the wild assumption that the and straighten out instead. Hilarious American public could go that long premise, right? listening to intelligent dialogue The actual show is even worse.

without a car crash or punch-out. This is one of those sitcoms where In fact, nary a punch was thrown you can just see some fellow turning or a car demolished throughout the up the fake laugh track in the sound four-hour TV movie; instead the editing booth. None of the jokes teleplay revolved around the murder work, most of them don't even and rape of a neurotic military pretend to work. cadet. Probably the most fascinating For example: Jack walks in and thing about the movie was that the finds his bum son making a gigantic 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 you have to look at them; I get paid for this: 0 "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" "DRESS GRAY" At last, an intelligent TV drama boys whose airline pilot hubby is gone a good deal of the time.

The show opens with one of these reassuring families-can-overcomeeverything-together 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 hapIn 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 how much more television could be if it weren't so concerned with being Spotlight ON TV 'ALL IS FORGIVEN," Thursday at 9:30 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 chance; besides, it's sandwiched between "Cheers" and "Hill Street "YOU AGAIN" Avoid this show at all costs sandwich; there's nothing funny 25. He's not only not funny, he's not about this but the soundtrack is sud- the right age. denly filled with a gale of laughter. But then nothing is right about this The humor (or lack of) is all on this show. Avoid at all costs.

level: the son gets a job as a waiter "VALERIE" NBC's 8:30 p.m and spills things (ha, ha, ha); Jack offering Monday isn't quite as bad as gets forced into a date with his its 8 p.m. offering, but then that boss's ugly sister (ha, ha, ha); the would be tough. Still, "Valerie" British housekeeper rolls her eyes at seems to be a show with nowhere to virtually everything (ha, ha, ha, ha). go. really.

In an obvious bid to capitalize on It's all a bit embarrassing, Just as bad is the casting of Show," "Family the the rash of "family" shows Klugman's son; he's ob- Cosby abyssmal "Growing curStamos as viously supposed to be a scruffy rently enjoying popularity, perennial teen-ager (he whines about his al- almost-star Valerie Harper has relowance and has a bole in the knee of from her "Rhoda" to the guy sports turned reruns one of his haircut jeans). and But looks to be at least star as a working mother of three a $40 pen, and even though the writing for "Valerie" is serviceable there are some laughs it would seem as if the entire situation itself was born 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 blend in with those other hits and wait to go into reruns and earn all involved truckloads of money?.