Copyright: Frank Bibler, 10/96


Index
TV Guide

 Friends : 05/06/1996

 Murphy Brown : 05/13/1996

 TV Season Wrap-Up : 05/20/1996

 What Happened to the Family Hour ? : 07/08/1996

 They really wanted to direct : 07/08/1996

 Lacey Chabert : 08/26/1996

 Mad About You : 09/02/1996

 Michael J. Fox : 09/23/1996

 Savannah : 10/07/1996

 Brooke Shields : 10/14/1996

 Melissa Joan Hart : 10/14/1996

 Annie Potts : 10/28/1996

 Justine Bateman : 11/04/1996

 Millenium : 11/11/1996

 New Comedies : 01/13/1997

 NBC Saturday morning lineup : 01/13/1997

 Neve Campbell : 02/03/1997

 Mary Tyler Moore : 02/03/1997

 3rd Rock : 02/24/1997

 Touched by an Angel : 03/24/1997

 Candace Cameron : 03/31/1997


Touched by an Angel

GOD AND TELEVISION

ANGELS & INSIGHTS

The creator and stars of one of America's favorite shows tell how they keep Touched by an Angel, well, heavenly

B Y  D A N I E L  H O W A R D

C E R O N E

Touched by an Angel executive producer Martha Williamson believes that angels are sent to earth by God to help those at a spiritual crossroads. By that definition, series stars Roma Downey, John Dye, and Della Reese (an ordained minister) seem to qualify as angels. Thousands of fans have written in to say they've been deeply affected by the show. And they have made CBS's Touched by an Angel TV's second-highest-rated drama, behind ER. Never has prime-time network entertainment presented God in such an unabashed and earnest fashion, with the angels guiding lost souls from the wilderness every Sunday night (8 P.M./ET), always reminding them that God loves them.

Are these actors just delivering lines? Or are they spreading God's word? Williamson and the series' stars had never sat down to compare notes on the subject until TV GUIDE brought them together to talk in Salt Lake City, where the show films.

TV Guide: Some 69 percent of Americans say that they believe in the existence of angels. What is an angel?

Roma Downey: A messenger of God. That's how it's translated.

Della Reese: An angel doesn't necessarily come with wings or a halo. In my life, it has been someone who has been there when I needed them. Sometimes I knew them. Sometimes I knew them only for a half hour.

John Dye: And the timing is such that you just know it can't be coincidental.

Martha Williamson: Biblically, angels bring messages. They bring comfort. They can bring protection. They don't heal, but they can bring healing from God. Those are the four things the angels do on our show. We also took the idea that you never know if you are entertaining an angel.

Reese: The scripture says, "Be careful who you turn away from your door, because it might be an angel unaware."

TVG: John, you were added last season as an angel of death, who appears when someone's dying, but your character's not dark.

Dye: When Martha first approached me about doing this, we agreed that there wasn't going to be any great grim reaper sort of thing. Death is the next step. It's the better step. My character has the responsibility of escorting somebody home to God.

Williamson: One of my favorite lines is from the episode "Random Acts," when John leans over a dying man and says, "Don't be afraid, because on this side there is life, and on the other side, there is life, too."

Downey: I had an extraordinary experience. I actually went to a funeral with John Dye.

Dye: Talk about stopping the room. Whoa! There was an audible intake of breath when I came in. When I leave the set, I forget there are 23 million people who watch this show. You can imagine what happens when I enter an airplane.

Reese: They relate to me on airplanes: "I know this flight is gonna be all right because we got an angel on board."

TVG: As an actor, when you say, "God loves you," do you have to believe that line to say it?

Dye: When I was first approached, I thought, "Am I really going to get on TV every week and talk about God?" That's a big, big responsibility. But I have never read one of our scripts and gone, "I just can't. This is not my ideology."

Reese: I am not only saying what Martha wrote; I am saying what I believe and what I live by.

Williamson: We all believe in what we are doing, and that's why people keep watching. If the angels on our show floated around, wiggled their noses, and granted wishes, we would not still be on the air. This show is not here to glorify angels. Maybe that was CBS's intention. It ain't what they got. We didn't give it to them, and they are darn happy we didn't.

TVG: Somebody else created the show, and Martha, you were asked to fix it. What were the original elements?

Williamson: The angels were angry people, and they didn't like one another very much.

Reese: Monica [Downey's character] had wings.

Williamson: She also raised a dog from the dead, which I had problems with. First of all, I don't believe angels that have power over death; God does. But more than that, once you raise a dog from the dead in the first episode, what do you do for an encore?

Downey: It had a lot of magic in it. I think it was aimed for a young audience.

TVG: Although now no one has wings, Angel still uses heavy symbolism -- allegories, proverbs, some critics could call them platitudes. Do you worry the show will get too heavy-handed?

Williamson: I think it can be mistaken for heavy-handed because it's so powerful. People are uncomfortable with that sort of flat-out power.

TVG: The show has also been called simplistic.

Williamson: To which I reply "Good!" Because if God isn't simple and easy for everybody, then He is for no one. What it comes down to on our show is God's truth.

TVG: What is God's truth?

Williamson: God exists. God loves us. God wants to be part of our lives.

Reese: And he has a plan.

Williamson: The Ten Commandments are a plan to keep you happy, not to make you miserable. One of the best moments was when Della grabbed the Bible out of a man's hand and said: "Give it to me! You can't hide behind this!" And that is what goes on all the time. People use the Bible to their own ends.

TVG: When you represent God on the show, is it the god of Christians? Jews? Muslims?

Reese: We don't talk about that. We talk about a Supreme Being, who loves us all. Religion is a man-made thing. We deal in spirituality. That's a God thing.

Downey: I grew up in [Northern Ireland], where people kill each other in the name of religion. I went through a crisis of faith, essentially, because of the lack of separation between church and state. If you are Catholic, it will suggest -- dictate, really -- that you think one thing, and vice versa if you are Protestant. This show was appealing to me because there was no mention of religion. This is not a religious show; this is a spiritual show. Anybody who has ever been on any kind of spiritual journey knows there is a very distinct difference.

TVG: How has this show affected your faith?

Reese: It hasn't necessarily affected my spiritual level; it has given me an opportunity to project my spiritual level.

Downey: For me, it reinforces a lot of things. It has made me a better listener. And when I say each week, "God loves you," I remind myself of that.

Dye: I think I have become more patient. I try even harder than is in my nature to see all sides of a dilemma, a problem, a fight. I grew up in the north of Mississippi, very fundamentalist, Bible-thumping, hellfire and brimstone. I went through the same thing. I said, "This cannot be the answer." I never turned away from my faith -- it was too much a part of me -- but I didn't know how to embrace it. And then this show came along.

TVG: How is Touched by an Angel different from past shows with angels?

Williamson: We take the next step. We don't treat angels as a fantasy, which most angel shows and movies do. After doing a good deed, the angel disappears into the night, and someone says, "Who was that winged stranger?"

TVG: How is Angel different from Highway to Heaven?

Reese: He [Michael Landon] could fix everything, he and his earthly buddy. They changed a person's life by fixing it. We can't fix it. We give you an opportunity to fix your life. We give you a choice.

Williamson: It's very, very difficult to write. People think it's easy because you have this built-in deus ex machina: God is going to come in and fix everything. That's not true. With any other series, you can have people talk about both sides of any question, and they end with it up in the air. Fade to black. We can't do that. We ultimately have to come to a decision from God's point of view, which is tremendously difficult sometimes.

TVG: Do your writers believe in God?

Williamson: I think we started out with a couple of agnostics. We have had Buddhists, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, almost everything.

Reese: But I don't think you could write those words, sweetheart, if you were an atheist.

TVG: There seems to be a real commercialization of angels in film and TV and books -- God sells now.

Reese: He's been selling for years. Maybe you weren't aware of it. God can sell it. Oh, yes.

TVG: But now people are selling God, and there's a difference.

Williamson: One of the reasons I believe angels are so popular today is because angels are nonthreatening. So you get angel cookbooks and home decorations, and it becomes an angel religion instead of what it's really about.

Dye: If we are being as brazen as to invoke the name of God on TV, if we're doing it poorly, I just don't think God would bless the show and allow it to continue.


Lacey Chabert

HERE'S LACEY

Party of Five's Claudia dishes about boys, family, acting, and her favorite lipstick

BY  M A R Y  M U R P H Y

Love scenes can be rough on an actress. But they can be really rough on an actress's mom. Just ask Julie Chabert, mother of Party of Five's Lacey Chabert. "I was really unhappy with the script. There was kissing. I mean, she's never done that in real life. I was going, 'Oh, my gosh! An older boy kissing my daughter!'"

Julie wanted to stop the scene, which involved Lacey's character, Claudia Salinger, making out with a boy she'd met at camp. "The sound technician was having to hold me down," she says. "Finally, he said, 'OK, you can open your eyes now.' I couldn't watch because it was my 13-year-old. I just kept saying to Lacey, 'If you don't want to do it, you don't have to.'" But Lacey did, nervously. "My palms were sweating," she says. "My heart was beating. I was really nervous. My mom said I didn't have to do it, but then I'm like, 'What? Not kiss Rider Strong? He's very cute.' And I guess I am at the age where I am starting to notice boys."

In fact, playing Claudia has given Chabert a few ideas on growing up. She's moved her dolls out of her bedroom, put up posters of boys (Brad Pitt, among others), and abandoned her crush on costar Scott Wolf. "I was in love with him at first. I used to think, maybe one day he will wait for me. But as we got to know each other, suddenly we became best buddies. You can't really marry your best friend. So I gave up on that. Not to mention that he did meet someone else."

Chabert has just driven for two hours with her mom to be interviewed, and while most adult stars wouldn't consider going out of their way, Chabert hasn't uttered a word of protest. Instead, she's open, happy, and thoughtful. A little girl -- and yet sophisticated beyond her years. As Party of Five executive producer Amy Lippman once said, "Sometimes, I think Lacey is older than I am."

Stardom, even for this grounded teen, has had its price. On-screen, she confronts grief and suffering as part of a family of kids who have lost their parents in a car crash. And in real life, she was separated from her own family for much of the time she was making the series, now in its third season on Fox.

"We lived in Mississippi and we would go back and forth," says her mother. Many weekends, Chabert and her mom flew to New Orleans, drove two and a half hours to their home in Purvis, Mississippi, and returned Sunday night. "What you do for your kids," Julie says with a sigh. After 18 months, the family moved to Southern California.

Like the fictitious Salingers, the Chaberts have faced adversity. Three years ago, Lacey's sister, Christy, 18, was diagnosed with a rare form of muscular dystrophy. "She has a great attitude," says Chabert. "She realizes it could be something worse. I think it made me want to help people. When you have somebody in your family who really is sick, you understand other people." Which has helped her portray Claudia. "Claud is so concerned with keeping the family together," she says. "I think she doesn't have a specific person watching out for her as a parent, so she feels really responsible for herself."

Day in and day out, says Chabert, there are more bright moments than not. "I love what I do. I want to do features. I want to go to college when I am older. I want to go to Paris to film school. That would be awesome. I would also like to do some directing. I asked to direct an episode of Party of Five and they were like, 'I don't think so. Not yet!'"

Like any director-in-training, she has definite likes. Take makeup. She loves it. Her favorite lipstick: MAC. Her favorite colors: Spirit, Touch, Malt, Cherish, and Haku, "which is glitter green. It is so awesome," she says. She loves shoes: Big platform shoes. Kickers. Skechers. And Doc Martens. "The silver ones are my favorites." And cars. A silver Porsche first caught her eye. But then Chabert's more pragmatic side kicked in. "Now I want a silver Miata. I realized a Mazda looks a lot like the Porsche but is cheaper."

Can boys be far behind in real life? "I haven't had a steady boyfriend, yet," she says. "But I'm looking. I haven't found the right guy yet."

Not even close? She giggles. "Maybe."


Candace Cameron

THE BIG THRILL

Her latest TV-movie involves an eerie case of mistaken identity, but Candace Cameron Bure knows just who she is

B Y  H I L A R Y  D E  V R I E S

The icy wind blowing through the picturesque Canadian fishing village of Steveston, just outside Vancouver, sends most of the cast scurrying for cover between takes. But Candace Cameron Bure, the star of NBC's movie Nightscream, ignores the cold to stay on her mark and joke with a few crew members. "I am too a coproducer," says the 21-year-old actress with a laugh, her hair snapping in the breeze. "Want to see the dollar I'm getting paid to produce?" In the midst of the good-natured exchange -- "Is it a Canadian or American dollar?" cracks her makeup person -- Cameron Bure is reminded by a fellow producer that she will film a pivotal love scene before the week is out.

"Oh, please don't let it be Friday or Saturday," she pleads. "That's when my mom's coming to the set."

Such are the growing pains of Cameron Bure's rapidly blossoming career. Youngest sister of Kirk Cameron (Growing Pains, Kirk) and best known for her role as eldest daughter D.J. Tanner on the hit ABC series Full House, Cameron Bure (she recently wed Montreal Canadiens hockey star Valerí Bure) is making that rare transition from child actor to adult star. If her name does not yet have the TV-movie marquee value of Tori Spelling or Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, two heavyweights of the made-for-television circuit, just wait. Of the four movies Cameron Bure has made since Full House, all rated in the stratosphere with women in the key 18 to 49 demographic group. One of them, She Cried No, is the top TV-movie with those viewers so far this season.

"Because Candace literally grew up on TV, she had a huge, built-in audience," says Lori Openden, senior vice president of talent and casting for NBC. "It was exactly the kind of demographics we were looking for: teenagers to early 20s."

Yet all that success has not gone to her head. Like her amiable Full House character, Cameron Bure is known in the business as one of the good guys. "She's exactly what you see on screen," says Noel Nosseck, who directed Cameron Bure in Nightscream and last year's NBC movie No One Would Tell. "She has no ego, she never complains. She even says 'Oh, my gosh' instead of 'Oh, my God.'"

Spend any time with the actress and you come away with the impression of a genuine girl next door. "Because I was on Full House for so many years, from age 10 to 18, people feel that they've grown up with me," says Cameron Bure, who possesses startling poise -- as well as a refreshing willingness to poke fun at herself. "I think women also like me because I'm not threatening," she confides during a lunch break in her trailer. "I'm not six feet tall and I don't have a great body. I mean, I have this short five-foot-two body and my boobs hit my waist."

If such a discussion seems a bit mature for her kid-sister image, consider that Cameron Bure is playing her first adult role in Nightscream, which costars Teri Garr. The film is a "Vertigo"-like thriller in which Cameron Bure plays a dual role: Drew, the mysterious young woman who turns up in a small Oregon town, and the murdered Laura Fairgate (seen in flashbacks).

"As D.J., I was a typical teenager, but in the movies I've grown up," says Cameron Bure. "I'm still not used to acting my own age, but this one is really cool because I get to play two women and no one knows if I'm faking [my identity] or if it's for real."

In all her roles, Cameron Bure tries to bring a certain spunkiness to her performance, a reaction, she says, to the tone of so many TV-movies. "Most of the women in TV-movies are victims and that can get really annoying," she says. "So I always want to play them strong because you want the audience to root for them." While Cameron Bure is comfortable playing strong women, she's less than thrilled when the script calls for a love scene; her Nightscream shoot with costar Casper Van Dien will be her first. "It's not a real love scene. I won't let it be," she says, blushing. "I don't want my parents to see that. I'm embarrassed enough when I have to kiss boys on TV. I'm married, and I feel weird when I go into the same bedroom with my husband when my parents visit."

As if on cue, there is a knock on her trailer door. It's a crew member with the score of Bure's latest hockey game. "It's 4-1, Montreal," says the assistant, "and Val got a goal."

"Oooh, thank you," squeals Cameron Bure. "That just made my whole day."

In fact, any discussion of Bure, the 22-year-old hockey player whom she married last June, causes her to practically swoon. "I love being married," she says. "I'd never really dated until I met him on a blind date two years ago. Now we talk on the phone at least five times a day."

Despite her tender years, Cameron Bure doesn't see herself as a precocious bride. "My mom was married at 19 and Kirk got married at 20," she says. "Most people wait until they're settled in their career before they get married, but I haven't led a normal life. I've been working since I was 5."

The youngest of four children, Cameron Bure was raised in Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley and began acting in local commercials as a child. She made her network debut in a guest spot on St. Elsewhere. "Kirk and I started acting at the same time," says Cameron Bure, whose father, Robert, is a gym teacher and whose mother, Barbara, runs a talent agency. "It was always supposed to just be fun. My parents always said, 'Acting is not number one, family is.'"

Cameron Bure found a similarly stable environment when she joined Full House at the age of 10. "We were like America's family show," says the actress. "It was really like my second family."

Does the former child star see children in her future? "Oh, yeah," she says, adding that brother Kirk and his wife, Chelsea, recently adopted a baby. "We really want kids," she says, "when the time is right." Already she plans to spend the summer house-hunting in Los Angeles for larger quarters. "We're looking in Santa Monica and Brentwood," she says, sounding every inch the Hollywood star. "We're getting out of the Valley."

Having sold her house in California, Cameron Bure spends most of the year living in a two-bedroom apartment in Montreal. "I lead such a different life there," she says. "I take the dog for a walk, I make Val lunch, and I go to every home game. I'm a little hockey wife."


Justine Bateman

JUSTINE TIME

She survived teen stardom -- just barely. Now Bateman's back in Men Behaving Badly

B Y  M A R K  S C H W E D

Maybe you've heard this story before: Small-town girl comes to Hollywood, and in a flash -- bingo! -- she winds up starring on a hit TV show. The gravy train is rolling. Big paycheck every week. Instant fame. Everybody wants to be your friend. And, like too many other Hollywood kids, Justine Bateman couldn't hack it. At the time, it must have seemed like a sweet deal. Who wouldn't want to pull in megabucks on Family Ties? Who wouldn't want to play pretty Mallory Keaton, loopy foil to smart-aleck brother Alex, played by Michael J. Fox? Who wouldn't want to leave Rye, New York, for a shot at the big time? But the money and the attention couldn't hide the fact that Bateman was in trouble.

"For me, it was all about fear," says Bateman, 30, who, after a seven-year absence, is back on series TV in NBC's Men Behaving Badly (Wednesdays, 9:30 P.M./ET). "My life was out of control."

To cope, some stars turn to drugs or alcohol. Bateman turned to food. She'd bake cookies for the whole cast and crew, then wind up eating them all herself. She'd binge and purge. She was uptight. She was difficult. And she had no idea that she was walking a tightrope.

"I'd have all these rules: I can have one more cookie if I go throw it all up later. Or, I can have this now if I skip lunch later. I'm talking mainly about doing stuff like not eating when I'm hungry. Or eating when I'm not hungry. Or eating more than I really want to and then trying to get rid of it." Doctors call it bulimia and anorexia. For Bateman, it was a way of life.

"There were all these feelings that I never let myself feel. And all that builds up and it never had a release. I always thought if I didn't feel something it would just go away. But instead it goes into a waiting room or something. And one day it explodes."

For more than a decade, she hid it from her family, from her friends, and from her pals on Family Ties.

"I'm sure people knew," she says now. "I'm sure people mentioned things behind my back. I just didn't care. In fact, when they'd say, 'You look anorexic,' I'd take it as a compliment."

Fox, now starring in ABC's Spin City, says he "didn't have any idea" about her problems. "I was young and scrambled myself," he says.

Michael Gross, who played Mallory's father, Steven, only knew that "there was turmoil in her life. She hid it well. At a certain age young people, particularly females, are concerned with their appearance, their weight. You add to that someone who is in the limelight on a TV show, and she's been bought hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of costumes that have to fit the same weight week in and week out, and you get a great amount of pressure. This is a tough business. Very unforgiving." And that was when she was on top, with two Emmy nominations. After Family Ties, Bateman's career stalled. She made a TV-movie about domestic violence and several instantly forgettable features.

Fortunately, this story has a happy ending. Three years ago, Bateman realized she had hit bottom. "One day, the light went on, you know?" It was enough to make her seek help in a 12-step program.

Her recovery also prepared her for a return to television, something she had been resisting ever since Family Ties went off the air. "I wanted to do theater. I wanted to do films. I didn't want to play Mallory for the rest of my life. Then, a few months ago, it just felt right to come back."

The vehicle, of course, was Men Behaving Badly. Based on the English show of the same name, the comedy stars Rob Schneider and Ron Eldard as a pair of boorish Peter Pans whose attitudes toward life (and especially women) never progressed beyond the fifth grade. As nurse Sarah Mitchell, girlfriend of Eldard's character, Bateman once again is the foil, the butt of the boys' jokes. But unlike dim-witted Mallory, Sarah knows what's going on and has a certain amount of power. "She does what she wants to," says Bateman. "And if the boys get to be too much, she leaves."

Today on the set, Bateman looks completely at ease. Where before she'd be wigging out at the prospect of facing an audience, now she's relaxed. Composed. Happy. "I don't have to be in a straitjacket between takes anymore," she says.

Friends like Fox have noticed the change. "She totally looks at peace," he says. "I'm thrilled for her. I'm glad she's happy. The thing I love about her is she's always on a journey, with work or her life."

Though she once was afraid of putting on weight, Bateman has gained a few pounds. And the compliments haven't stopped. "You know, I am having a relationship with God now," she says. "If anyone says, 'You are beautiful, you look like you're glowing,' I know it's just…it's God. A lot of things that I thought would make me beautiful didn't. Like my weight. Like makeup. A lot of things I thought were important weren't. Like auditions. Of course that is absolutely the last thing I thought would make me free. Not just make me feel free, but make me free. Have you ever been afraid to do something, like a kid riding a bicycle? Then you get a little older and you get on the bike and you have a day where you go, 'Wow, I'm not afraid of being on a bike.' I used to be terrified. But now it's just gone. That's what God has done for me."


Emmy's Happy Couple

TV'S BIGGEST NIGHT

With nominations galore, Emmy time is a merry time for Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser

B Y  M A R K  S C H W E D

With a little luck, Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt are going to be very busy on September 8. That's the night of the Emmy Awards (ABC, 8 P.M./ET), and Mad About You is nominated for best comedy series, Hunt is up for best actress in a comedy, and Reiser is not only nominated for best actor, he's also presiding over the televised event. Even if it's a slow night, Reiser and Hunt don't have much to worry about. She's coming off the blockbuster movie "Twister" and going into "Old Friends" with Jack Nicholson, and he's busy at work on a book about parenthood. How fitting, considering that their characters, Jamie and Paul Buchman, are about to face parenthood. As if that weren't enough, Mad About You is being released into national syndication this week, giving TV Guide readers a chance to catch up with the pair they voted the cutest TV couple.

TV Guide: The hours are counting down to the Emmys. Are you nervous?

Helen Hunt: I can't say I'm freaking out. I never went to my prom, so I look at it like that. I get a fancy dress and I go out.

Paul Reiser: I periodically get that nervous thing of "Uh-oh, it's coming soon." But I'm basically looking forward to it.

TVG: You've both been nominated before. Does it get any easier?

HH: The first time I was nominated for anything, it was a pretty nervous experience. But Paul will be hosting this, so that will make it fun, I think.

PR: It's certainly really nice to be nominated. In terms of winning, you can't begin to predict or get attached to it. Now having said that, I'm sure if I was lucky enough to go home with an award, I'd say, "Wow, this is so much better than just being nominated."

TVG: Was it a tough decision to host?

PR: At first I wasn't sure I wanted to do it, because it can be a thankless job [Reiser hosted the Grammys in 1995]. Because everybody's got an opinion the next morning. But I decided it's just going to be fun. In the beginning, when I started doing stand-up, the emcee was the prestige job. You were in charge of the show. But after a while, you caught on that the emcee got the job because he was the only guy who would stay late enough to lock up. As long as I don't have to lock up the auditorium, I'll be fine.

TVG: Did anybody give you the keys?

PR: Not yet, but they wanted to fit me for a smock and a broom, so I'm a little concerned. But you know what this show is about. You've got a room full of antsy people going, "Just keep it moving and get to my category, please."

TVG: We don't want to jinx you, but there seems to be a lot of heat on you both coming into these awards.

HH: I have no idea. I think they said that last year, and I didn't win. So if you thought in those terms, you'd go crazy. I think you just have to hope to have a fun evening.

TVG: Has it ever not been fun?

HH: You know, it always starts out fun, but by the end of the night, your feet are hurting a little, and you've lost, and they haven't brought your car around. And then you go to work the next day.

TVG: Do you do anything to prepare?

PR: I was hoping you had some material. You really just have to look at it and say, "How can I minimize the anxiety?"

HH: In the past I've written a list of names I want to mention, but I write it so teeny, that if someone were analyzing my handwriting, they'd see that I was ashamed that I was even entertaining the possibility of winning. If I ever won I'd never be able to read my own cheat sheet. So it sort of defeats its own purpose.

TVG: Do you have a spot picked out for the Emmy if you win?

HH: I guess I'd put it in my office [with her two Golden Globes]. It's a big thing -- you can't use it as a bookend.

PR: I haven't thought that far, to tell you the truth. I just may hold it.

TVG: An Oscar can add millions to box-office returns. What does an Emmy do?

HH: I have no idea. I'm curious.

PR: I'll tell you this. I've held an Emmy. The wings of the Emmy, they're very sharp and pointy. So, unlike an Oscar, an Emmy could blind you. An Emmy could poke an eye out. And that's something that most awards cannot do.

TVG: There will be lots of changes on Mad About You. Are you excited?

HH: Very. We have wonderful actors coming in. Carol Burnett is coming in [to replace Penny Fuller as Jamie's mom]. And Mel Brooks is showing up this month [to play quirky Uncle Phil, who hasn't seen Paul or Ira since they were boys].

TVG: The biggest news is that Jamie is pregnant. We hear you guys actually took votes on whether to do this.

HH: Yeah, we did. We went back and forth all last year. I would be encouraging it and everybody else would be against it. Then Paul turned around and I had actually changed my mind. But when [executive producer] Larry Charles said the fact that it's making us nervous is exactly why we should walk toward it, it sounded really right to me.

PR: I never really wanted to think about having a baby on the show. I would say also in my life. I always said, "Gee, I'd like to have a baby, but I can't imagine doing it." At one point, I just said, "It's time. Let's just do it." But this show is never going to be about a baby. It's going to be about the two of them -- what does a baby potentially do to a couple?

TVG: Have you picked a name yet?

PR: No, no. Those are the kinds of things that our episodes will be about. I'm working on my book now, which is about having a baby, and there's this chapter on exactly that. For months, you just can't find a name. It's always a low, quiet hum in the back of your brain. You'll be talking about politics and just go, "Susannah!" You're watching a movie going, "Dustin!" Up until literally the contractions, you're coming up with names.

TVG: Would you like a boy or a girl?

HH: I'll never tell.


Michael J. Fox

YEAR OF THE FOX

After a series of movie hits and misses, the Family Ties star hopes the future is on TV

B Y  M A R Y  M U R P H Y

Here is Michael J. Fox standing on-stage at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, rehearsing his lines for his appearance at the Emmy Awards. There is a surreal quality to the scene, for flashing across a large monitor nearby are images of Fox in his former TV incarnation -- as the charming yet calculating Alex P. Keaton on the long-running hit Family Ties. It has been seven years since Fox played Keaton, the role that catapulted him to stardom -- a stardom that led from the heights of movie success (the "Back to the Future" series) to the lows of box-office failure ("For Love or Money," "Life with Mikey," and "Greedy"). Now, he's returning to television on ABC's Spin City in a tailor-made role that could well propel him to superstardom all over again. For Fox, you can go home again -- as long as home is the three-walled set of a TV sitcom.

Several weeks earlier, sitting in the posh Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills, Fox charted his homeward journey. His latest film,"The Frighteners," had been released to mixed reviews, and he was puzzled by critics questioning his decision to do the quirky horror movie. "What do you [critics] want actors to think? Do you want them to think, 'This will be an interesting experience. This is an interesting director. I think I'll do it.' Which is where I am coming from. Or do you want actors to say, 'Hmm. Where does this fit into the career chart?' If you do, then you deserve 'Eraser.' You deserve the factory-built, fed-down-your-throat, giant mega-franchise-protecting B.S. that goes on."

Fighting words. And there's more. "I'm not out to please the critics, or you, or anybody," he says, "except myself." Can this be cuddly Michael J. Fox, the actor who seemed to suffer from terminal cuteness? You bet it is, and at 35, with lines edging those bluest of blue eyes, he has grown up.

Fox is sitting in a cushy lemon-hued chair, his hair dripping wet from a quick shower, snacking on bread sticks and sipping bottled water. It's been an exhausting day of press appearances and photo shoots. And dinner is still to come, with Jeffrey Katzenberg, the DreamWorks SKG cofounder who was instrumental in orchestrating his return to TV.

Fox began that return watching tapes in a hotel room in New Zealand where he was making "The Frighteners." "My [twin] daughters had just been born and I was halfway around the world from my family. I was lonely. People were sending me shows to entertain me. Seinfeld, Friends, Ellen, The Larry Sanders Show. I was watching this stuff, and thinking, 'Wow,' like it was really great. 'David Schwimmer is really kicking ass. Jason Alexander is so good. And Shandling and Rip Torn. This is where things are happening.' And I thought, 'Can I still do that? Yeah. I can. That's what I do. And I want to do it again.'"

At first he met with producer Matt Williams (Roseanne and Home Improvement). "I was exploring an idea with him," Fox says, "about a former hockey player who becomes a writer." Since Fox played hockey growing up in Canada, and is an ardent fan of the game, it seemed like the perfect vehicle.

"I could definitely relate to it," he says, striking a match to the first of many Marlboro Lights. He walked away from the project when he received the first script. "It wasn't what we were talking about," he says, "and so I said, 'Thank you very much. I appreciate your effort. But I can't do this for seven years. Or potentially seven years.'" Next, Fox considered a series from DreamWorks about a man who goes to work in an advertising agency that is run by his ex-girlfriend.

Then serendipity stepped in. Gary David Goldberg, Fox's former mentor and the creator of Family Ties, was having dinner with Katzenberg. "Michael had talked to me and said he was doing something with Matt Williams," says Goldberg. "I was a little jealous. Then Katzenberg says the script came in and Michael didn't like it. And so I said, 'God, it would be great to work with Michael again.' The next thing I know, Katzenberg has called Michael, and I am on a Gulfstream [jet] with [cocreator] Bill Lawrence and we are going to New York to see him."

During the flight, Goldberg decided on a concept he was sure would work: politics in New York City. Fox could be near his family, and Goldberg could draw from the political world he'd experienced as a longtime supporter of children's rights, as well as when he was called to Washington to help President Clinton sell health care reform. "What I learned dealing with political people," says Goldberg, "is that a lot of people -- and I'm not talking about the Dick Morrises -- really care. The biggest mistake would be to show these people as uncaring."

The series became Spin City, in which Fox plays Michael Flaherty, a deputy mayor of New York City (Barry Bostwick is the mayor). It's similar to the part Fox played in "The American President," that of a charming, media savvy and powerful presidential aide not unlike George Stephanopoulos. But this time he plays his character with more physical humor and a lot more edge. Flaherty gladly takes either side of an issue, and cavalierly crosses the line in his personal life, too, living with a reporter (Carla Gugino) whose beat is City Hall.

It was Fox's real-life love, his wife, Tracy Pollan, who insisted he take this role. Pollan, whom he calls "one of my fiercest protectors," sat him down last year and gave him some tough, but wise, career direction: "Listen to your ears. Don't worry about taking roles because you think you have to be responsible. If you are taking a role because you are doing it for me [and the family], then that is silly. Ask yourself, is this funny?"

Pollan admits she was anxious when the first pages of the pilot script came inching out of their fax machine. "But then I started laughing out loud -- it was the funniest thing I had read in I don't know how long. It was a perfect match for Michael." She told him,"You have to do this. You have to go back to TV."

ABC Entertainment chairman Ted Harbert was so sure that the duo of Goldberg and Fox could produce a hit that he put Spin City on Tuesdays at 9:30 P.M., behind Home Improvement. "If you read the script, you might say, 'People won't like this guy,'" says Harbert. "But when we got back the research, it said: Michael J. Fox could be the Son of Sam and he could pull it off. He exudes likability."

And not just on screen. Fox really is a warm presence, even when the interview shifts to such potentially uncomfortable subjects as a past bout with drinking. Did his drinking affect his career? "I never got to the point of most people's landmarks," he says, "where the marriage is going away, or the career is going away. I realized that it didn't fit into my life, whether I went out with the guys and ran around, or sat around at dinner with two bottles of wine. I just said, 'This is stupid. I wonder if I can not do this stupid thing anymore.'"

There were other things he had to battle: fear, insecurity, a wild streak he brought with him from childhood, when, for fun, he says, he used to duck under moving trucks. The one problem he conquered early on, he says, is a feeling of insecurity about his diminutive size, which he overcame on the playground through his physical ability. "I only got picked last once," he says. "And whoever did it regretted that they did. If somebody came up to me and said, 'OK, I don't want the little guy,' he was going to feel like an idiot when it was over."

After the failure of "Greedy" in 1994, Fox decided to take some time off. "I slowed down. I was surprised how financially secure I was. I took personal time," he says. "I did small projects. I didn't go to events. I didn't go to openings or confabs or business meetings. I changed [talent] agencies. When things came up that were satisfying, like 'American President,' it changed people's perceptions of me. What I didn't do, and this I am really proud of, is I didn't panic."

What did he learn from it?

"That I was a good actor," he says. "Not the world's greatest actor. And not the world's funniest actor. And not the world's greatest human being. Not the world's greatest father, or husband. But who can be any of that stuff? Who can be perfect? Not me."

"He is now a man," says Goldberg. "When I left him he was still becoming. Now he really is."

When Fox hears this, he smiles. "There is an old Southern expression," he says. "'You are not a man until your daddy tells you you are.' In a way it's like that. And I am pleased to have that said about me. But the truth is I have to know that myself. When we started out, he raised me in this business. But now I come back to Gary saying, 'You don't have to lead me anymore. Let's do this together.'"

With three episodes of Spin City completed, Fox has flown to Los Angeles for the Emmys. Sure he's nervous. You can see it as he stands on-stage chewing gum and rehearsing his lines. But at this point in the journey, he's also thrilled. "One of the reasons I came back," he says, "is watching the Emmys on TV. Now, I'm a host. Maybe next year," he says as a smile forms, "I'll be back as something else.

"That," says Fox, "would be the icing on the cake."


Brooke Shields

BROOKE IN BLOOM

TV's newest funny lady avoids flowery language in favor of down-to-earth dish about her boyfriend, babies, and being strong

B Y  J A N E  P R A T T

Since I was a kid, Brooke Shields has been everywhere -- from those "What comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing" ads (she says she didn't get the double entendre at the time, either), to roles in more than 20 films and TV-movies. This year, after cutting off her business relationship with her mother and lifelong manager, Teri Shields, Brooke again made news when she became engaged to tennis ace Andre Agassi. Now she's playing a magazine columnist in her own NBC sitcom, Suddenly Susan, a show nestled in the can't-miss Thursday-night spot between Seinfeld and ER.

Brooke walks into our recent meeting in Los Angeles straight from a half hour on an exercise bike, wearing jean shorts, white Keds, and a white T-shirt, and, yes, that huge diamond engagement ring. With her hair still wet and no makeup, she looks younger at 31 than she did on many of those magazine covers 15 years ago. Taken all together, this would normally make me sick, but as soon as Brooke starts talking, she's clearly a woman's woman. Or a girl's girl, continually referring to her longtime best girlfriends, insisting that her sitcom character, Susan, not become in any way a bimbo. So, of course, the two of us ran way over our allotted time in a good, long session of girl talk.

Jane Pratt: So are you crazed with work these days?

Brooke Shields: We did live radio this morning from five o'clock till eight. So I was just stunned, I was so tired. Usually I can articulate enough to get a point across. But I was in the middle of my sentences, completely losing track of what I was supposed to say.

JP: Oh, isn't that the worst?

BS: Yes. I'd find myself just talking about something else. [Laughs] "OK, she's definitely been in California too long. She's lost it." And what happens is you realize you do [magazine] covers or you do things and they happen so quickly that you didn't get a chance to really think about them before. And you think, "God, if I just had a little more time, this could have been…" Probably the perpetual perfectionist, but that's me.

JP: So, how much influence did you have on the changes that took place between the original pilot of Suddenly Susan and the revamped show that's now airing?

BS: I was very shocked, actually, when it was completely revamped. But when the first show was over, I voiced my opinions about what I thought was wrong with it. It felt a little old-fashioned. And I think it didn't work in the original pilot that the first thing she does after claiming she wants to be on her own is go out and look for guys. It was contradictory. The show's not about Susan getting a man in order to set her life straight. It's about her finding herself and being able to incorporate into that a dating life.

JP: I'm glad the show's not about, "Is this the right guy? Is that the right guy?"

BS: But you have to fight for that and remind people, because that's the easiest story to write. I haven't had that conversation lately with these new producers, but I feel like I'm going to have to now. There's always a new battle…You know, when I was younger, I used to just show up and say my lines.

JP: Was that partly because your mom was making all the big decisions?

BS: I really didn't care, to be honest. It was so much easier to have a front-runner and she would just take care of things for me. She took a lot of the craziness to herself and gave me an opportunity to really be a kid.

JP: What's your relationship with her now?

BS: I speak to her all the time. I miss her all the time. I miss just the time you had that was utopia when you were a little kid. I miss the fun we used to have. She does too.

JP: What's your mom's reaction to all your success now?

BS: She says she knew it would happen again. She's happy that people are finally believing in my talent. But it's still very melancholy because there's the desire to look over and have her give you that thumbs up in her eyes -- and I don't have that anymore. And sometimes you're tired and you just wish you had somebody to say it's all going to be fine. And you just have to go back to your dressing room and look at yourself in the mirror and say, "All right. You're OK."

JP: I think a lot of people would look at the timing and think that Andre [Agassi] may have replaced your mother in that nurturing role.

BS: People have said that. That underestimates him, plus it underestimates me. The impetus to do that naturally is there. I've gone to him and said, "Tell me how to feel. Tell me what to think." And he just will not ever appease me in that area. And it's smart, because ultimately, I wouldn't respect the answers being handed to me.

JP: Do Andre and your mother get along?

BS: Mm-hmm. He's so good with her. He just knows how to talk to her. It's that kind of thing where I'll say, "You talk to her." [She motions pushing him through a door.]

JP: Do you have any idea when and where you'll get married?

BS: Now we don't. We did originally, but this was way before there was a [TV] season. It's just so hard with our schedules. We won't be a perpetually engaged couple, that's for sure. But I've got to get this season under my belt before I can really plan.

JP: Do you and Andre want to have a big wedding?

BS: I toyed with every possible idea -- of running away, having a small one, having a big one. And hopefully I'll do this just once. So I want to wear a dress, the whole…everything. I think for my benefit, I just want to give it my best shot to have a full wedding. Hopefully it won't be destroyed by the press. Just the one day that you want to not give away to anybody else.

JP: Not to push things too quickly here, but do you and Andre want to have children?

BS: Yes. Sure.

JP: Have you talked about how many?

BS: I think men always go into the higher numbers because they're not the ones going through the actual process and they just think of a brood. It's their mentality. "Let's have more. Let's have a team!" They think in terms of teams. I think three would be great.

JP: Ideally, would you like to have children soon?

BS: I'm so ready to be a parent. I'm starting to get more settled in my life, with the show, and just with life in general. But I'd like to be married for a little while before we have kids. We still talk about it as if it's this dream -- he's going to take the little girl to go get pancakes on Sunday morning, you know, those sorts of white-picket-fence dreams that we all talk about.

Another problem, if you can say that, is the show. Because I never thought I would possibly have to plan children during hiatus. I haven't really approached them with that. I just resent having to talk to anybody about when or how I desire to have children. So I'm sure that'll be the next battle that we'll fight.

JP: The show requires so much physical comedy. Did you start working out more to prepare yourself?

BS: I just committed to really trying to get myself in the best possible shape for me -- but realistically. Not going away somewhere for eight months and eating beans. I train with a trainer. I enjoy training hard. Before I have children, I'd like to be physically the best I can be, at least once. And then after kids, I'll probably just say, "Yeah, whatever. I'm healthy." But now I want to be able to get my picture taken and feel confident, whatever my individual insecurities -- because we all have them, it doesn't matter what you do for a living.

JP: The night you and Andre met in person for the first time, after three months of getting to know each other through faxes...

BS: I must have changed my sweater 10 times. [Laughs] Because you want that sort of just-thrown-on-but-amazingly-chic appearance. And that was not possible for me to achieve, so I ended up in blue jeans and this huge baggy sweater. And I was working, so I had makeup on, and I opted for taking the makeup off. So I scrubbed my face completely, and then he showed up and, because he was doing a [television] show, he had makeup on. And I was like, "Oh, all right. It's the '90s." [Laughs]

JP: You've just made a long-term commitment to your work -- with a five-year contract for Suddenly Susan -- and a long-term commitment to your relationship. How do you and Andre find time together now?

BS: He was raised in Las Vegas, so his home is closer to me [than when Shields lived mainly in New York]. We spend weekends back and forth. It's just a matter of time management. When we're with each other, we're wholeheartedly with each other.

JP: Do you two talk on the phone a lot?

BS: Constantly. I feel if I tell him every detail of my day, it will be as if he was there. And he's the opposite of that. So it's a battle. You just have to constantly work at it. Daily. One of our rules is never going to bed angry, and I won't get on an airplane not having finished a conversation. We'll call each other back and say, "Sorry, I didn't like the way that ended. This is what I meant."

JP: Have you ever been in therapy?

BS: Actually, I started therapy almost seven years ago or so. It was in New York, so I haven't really found anybody out here yet.

JP: How long were you and Andre together before you knew, "This is someone I could be with for life"?

BS: I don't think it's a lightning bolt. We're taught that it is. We're told that the room will shake and you'll know. And it's just not like it is in the movies. It's a lot more practical than I ever thought it would be. It's taken me a while to accept it because I wanted the lightning bolts -- to be thrown for a loop. But it's just easier. It's reading the paper in silence. It's that comfort zone.

And now it's sort of like I'm having a love affair with the show.

JP: So that's Andre's competition, Suddenly Susan?

BS: Well, there has to be respect for one another, because without my work, I wouldn't be who I am, and I wouldn't be the woman he wants to be with either. And I wouldn't want to resent him, so it's a juggle. I can only imagine when the kids come, that's going to be a hard one. But I'm comforted to know that 67 years from now, when it's going to be Slightly Susan -- what would you call it, Sedentary Susan? Sediment Susan? -- then that's going to be what matters. Someone to stand next to, someone to give you a lift up and you can give them a lift up. It's a partnership.

Editor and former TV talk show host Jane Pratt will launch her new magazine, Jane, next September.


Neve Campbell

CAMPBELL'S COUP

With Party of Five and the slash hit 'Scream,' Neve Campbell is sitting pretty

B Y   D A N I E L   H O W A R D   C E R O N E

This cold, rainy Sunday morning finds Neve Campbell sinking into her puffy, white couch, sipping a mug of coffee. As she stares into the fire, she dredges up a painful memory: her worst Valentine's Day. "Oh!" says the disarmingly open actress, remembering an incident when she was 9. "We had this awful thing at school where we had cookies on Valentine's Day, and every student could buy them and send them to other class members."

She erupts in tremulous laughter. Whenever a tough subject arises, Campbell, who masterfully portrays teenage angst as Julia on Fox's Party of Five (Wednesdays, 9 P.M./ET), giggles as if in an attempt to render it harmless.

"They would call up each student every time their name came out of the box," continues Campbell, whose first name (sounds like Bev) is an altered pronunciation of her Dutch mother's maiden name. "I wasn't called up.…Wait, I was called up once because the teacher gave me a cookie. I was devastated. No one would spend five cents to send me a cookie."

That little girl has grown into a fascinating study of contrasts, marked by both success and insecurity. While many her age have just finished college, the 23-year-old former ballerina has a husband, a house, and a TV series that's a hit with young viewers. Not to mention a movie career that's heating up fast -- her current hit, "Scream," already among the 10 highest-grossing horror films ever, comes on the heels of last year's teen-witch black comedy "The Craft," which opened No. 1 at the box office. And to top it all off, she's hosting NBC's Saturday Night Live this week (February 8).

"Scream" costar Courteney Cox zeroes in on Campbell's appeal. "She had an extremely hard part in this movie, to be on the verge of fright and tears throughout, and to keep it so interesting and real at the same time," says the star of NBC's Friends. "She could do it because she's grounded. She's a centered human being."

Adds Lacey Chabert, 14, who plays younger sister Claudia on Party of Five, "She always goes for the complex, unpredictable thing, and I admire her for that."

Keeping it real may lie at the heart of Campbell's acting ability. But underneath it all, pushing her forward, lurks a fragile soul who suffered a breakdown at 14, cracking under the stress of her elite dance school in Toronto. "I remember when I realized how important it was for her to be on-stage," says her brother, Christian, 18 months her senior. Their father, a drama teacher, was directing a high-school production of "H.M.S. Pinafore" and had created a role for Christian, then 10.

"I came into the living room all dressed up in my little costume," recalls Christian, who played Teddy on NBC's short-lived Malibu Shores. "Neve broke into tears because she felt so left out. People want to wrap her up and take care of her. Maybe that's what an audience feels when they watch Neve -- her vulnerability."

That vulnerability may also be rooted in Campbell's rocky family history. Her parents divorced when she was a baby; each then remarried, then divorced again. Her father wed a third time. Though Campbell swore she'd never take the plunge, she did -- two years ago, with Canadian actor Jeff Colt, her boyfriend of five years.

Her wedding spoke volumes about her fractured past. While Campbell and Colt were in England for her role in the ABC movie The Canterville Ghost, they were married in the Registry Office of Westminster. Campbell invited only 13 people, all friends she had made on location. "No, no family," she says. "I love my family very much, and that was obviously a difficult decision. My immediate family, they're all incredible -- but not in the same room, you know?"

With her family foundation ever shifting, Campbell drew close to Christian, with whom she recently formed a theater company in Los Angeles. In that sense, she's not unlike her character on Party of Five, which is the story of five children who are abruptly orphaned when their parents die in a car accident. Campbell plays eldest sister Julia, 17, as an average American teen. Julia's nervous smile, the downward look, the slight slouch -- well, let's just say Campbell had lots of practice at them.

"I relate to a fair amount of Julia," she acknowledges. "In the beginning, she was extremely insecure, and she was the loser of the class. And at that age, I was certainly that way, as well." She pauses, then adds, "Probably still am in a lot of ways," punctuating the remark with her trademark laugh.

When it came to picking her roles in "Scream" and "The Craft," however, Campbell was no loser. "What I really loved about both the characters were their huge transitions," she says. "That's really what I look for: where I can show my stuff and bite my teeth into something, you know?"

Campbell does have one regret involving "Scream"; in the film, her victimized, virginal character says that if anyone were to play her in a movie, "With my luck, I'd get Tori Spelling." Campbell now feels bad about the quip, and she's written an apology to fellow Fox star Spelling (Beverly Hills, 90210).

"I begged [director] Wes Craven to change the line," Campbell says. In fact, they did five takes with Babe, the pig, as the punch line. Then Craven asked her to do just one take mentioning the oft-ridiculed Tori -- "to show the studio we're shooting the script," Campbell says. Of course, that's the line Craven used.

Clearly, Campbell wants to please. This is apparent as she eagerly gives a tour of her new Hollywood Hills home. After years of apartment living, Campbell couldn't be giddier.

"Ever since I was a kid I had wanted a pool," she says from the master bedroom, which opens onto a warm swimming pool steaming in the rain. "You know what else I love?" A moment later she's in the bathroom, climbing into the shower. "All the bathrooms have these windows that spin. They're, like, really cool," she says.

Campbell chose this house after looking at only 10, and it's apparent why when she bounces downstairs, through the garage, into a vast open space -- her dance studio, completed two weeks earlier. A pair of pink ballet slippers lie crumpled in the middle of the parquet floor.

"I really missed dance," says the 5'5" Campbell, sweeping into the room, her voice echoing off the mirrored walls. She tries to dance for 90 minutes a day now, for fun and exercise, whenever she has time.

Campbell's entire early life was predicated upon her becoming a professional ballerina. She joined Canada's National Ballet School at 9. With only 150 students, who practice three to five hours a day, the school turns out some of the world's top dancers. In her first year, Campbell performed "The Nutcracker" with the National Ballet of Canada.

Her goal was shattered at 14 when she was forced to quit because of injuries and back-stabbing competition. "I got to a place at that school where I hated dance, and that was really tragic for me," she says. "I had no friends, I didn't fit in, and I was living in residence. When you live with the people you don't fit in with, you're in trouble."

More than anything, Campbell longed for a "normal" high-school life. So, in 10th grade, she enrolled in a public school. But it was only a year before she missed performing and switched to an alternative school with a flexible schedule catering to artists, actors, and athletes.

She soon dropped out for good after winning a role as one of the Degas girls in "The Phantom of the Opera" in Toronto. She was 15, the youngest in a cast of adults, with whom Campbell felt a connection. Interestingly enough, the current story on Party of Five involves Julia's decision not to go to college.

"In my life, that's sort of what happened, too," says Campbell. "I was working so much during school that I wasn't happy. I've been training since I was 6, and all of a sudden I'm 15, and the member of a fantastic company. So it didn't make a lot of sense to say, 'Oh, I'm not going to take "The Phantom of the Opera" because I need to learn more about history.'"

The rest happened very quickly. After two years in "Phantom," Campbell spent a year on the syndicated TV series Catwalk. While filming the NBC movie I Know My Son Is Alive in Canada, she learned how much more money she could make in America. After the project was completed, she moved to Los Angeles for a month to test the waters, and within a week she landed Party of Five.

Now, her career is in full gear. In addition to working on her series, she's developing a movie for ABC. She was supposed to do one for the network last summer, but ABC allowed her to break her commitment and shoot "Scream," provided she produce and star in a future project. The actress wanted to do a TV-movie about Tourette's syndrome (she's the national youth spokeswoman for the disorder; Damian, one of her two half brothers, has it), but ABC passed on the idea.

Whenever Campbell does have downtime, she spends it hanging out with a close cadre of Canadian pals or enjoying time around the house with her husband. As her celebrity status grows, she increasingly values her haven with Colt, who fell in love with her before fame struck. They met while he was bartending at the theater where Campbell performed in "Phantom."

But the actress admits her attitude toward marriage has been colored by her parents' struggles, and she realizes having two performers in the family can make things tough. "Jeff and I both have a very realistic view of marriage," she says, speaking carefully. "You try as hard as you can, and you love each other as much as you can, and you hope to grow together. You hope that divorce is not an option. But if you're miserable, you know, together, then why continue?"

Whatever happens in her personal and professional lives, Campbell will now have to play it out under the glare of the spotlight -- something she says she hates. Knowing this sounds disingenuous coming from an actress, she tries to explain herself.

"I think my greatest insecurity would just be standing in the middle of the room and having everyone watching me think that's what I want," she says. "If I am interesting to you because of who I am, then that's incredible. But if I'm interesting to you only because of what I am, then let's not bother, you know?"


Magnum & Monica

WHEN MONICA MET MAGNUM

Sparks flew when Tom Selleck became Courtney Cox's squeeze on Friends. Can this relationship last?

BY HOWARD DANIEL CERONE

As Tom Selleck stands behind a flimsy kitchen door, waiting to make a live entrance on his first episode of NBC's Friends, he can think of a thousand places he'd rather be. In a dentist's chair. Lost at sea. Lying on hot coals.

The director has assured Selleck -- whose presence this January day has been kept secret from the studio audience -- that the young crowd will see him and cheer. But Selleck, a TV icon from the '80s, is not so sure. Truth be told, neither is Courteney Cox, whose character, Monica, falls for Selleck's sexy Dr. Richard Burke, an old family friend and a decidedly older man. Cox fears they won't recognize Selleck because the actors are on a temporary "swing" set, off to the side of the bleachers where the audience sits.

Minutes earlier, Cox had whispered to him: "Listen, maybe they will go nuts when they see you. But they may not see you. So don't be disappointed if they don't."

As Selleck waits, a scared sitcom amateur at the age of 51, all he knows is that he does not want to step through that door. He hears his cue, takes a breath, opens the door, and plunges into the flood of hot white studio lights.

He barely has a foot on the stage before the rugged lines of his face, the heavy mustache, and the deep, dark eyes register with the crowd. In an instant, the cavernous studio sounds like a rock stadium filled with roaring fans. Selleck calmly waits for the cheers to end, then flawlessly launches into his scene.

Flash forward three months. The on-screen romance between Selleck and Cox has ignited booster rockets on a show already orbiting at No. 3 in the Nielsen ratings. Selleck has demonstrated such natural comic timing and chemistry with Cox that his three guest spots have turned into six, including this week's season finale (Thursday, May 16), when Monica and Richard try to decide whether staying together is worth the sacrifices they'd each be forced to make.

"To go through that door meant risk," Selleck recalls, sitting with Cox on the sunny deck of a Bel Air mansion following a sultry photo shoot together. "But risk is the price you pay for opportunity. That's what I kept telling myself while I was standing there."

Selleck has not appeared in a TV series since 1988, when his eight-year run on Magnum, P.I. ended with him a wealthy man and an international star. Every year since he has been hounded by producers and studio executives eager to see him return to series television. So why now, and why Friends? "They asked me," he says with a shrug. "And I was a fan of the show, as it happened."

David Crane, who created Friends with Marta Kauffman, says Selleck was the only actor they approached. "We had to find someone genuinely old enough so that you believe the dynamic of Monica and an older guy, yet he had to be appealing and charming enough so you understood why she was with him," Crane says. "It was a really short list of possibilities, and his name was on top."

Selleck was flattered by the invitation, even more flattered when he learned that Cox, 31, would be head over heels for him on the show. "It really isn't a bad career choice to have Courteney Cox fall in love with you," he says.


Family Hour

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THE FAMILY HOUR?

Eight P.M. used to be a time that brought us all together. A mom wonders whether we can turn back the clock

B Y  J A C Q U E L Y N  M I T C H A R D

Mary Ellen, John-Boy! I swear, it's been years. Kevin Arnold! Hey, long time no see, buddy. And Angela, luminous Angela, with your so-called life -- well, we hardly knew you. They used to call it "the family hour," a pause in the day's occupation between the dinner dishes and lights out. Just another dopey programming ploy, hipsters used to say a few years back a sop to those of us out here whose idea of a good time is still pretty much confined some nights to running through the sprinkler.

True, there were plenty of shows tagged with the "f"-word (that's "family," please) that were so much syrup. There were times during the early childhood of my older daughter when I suspected that Little House on the Prairie had been given its own channel.

But other moments. Well, they just sparkled -- like those drops from the sprinkler on a summer night. And they still linger, long after the family hour itself seems to have succumbed to hip-chick cityscapes and sharpie sitcoms.

Dial back, way back. My brother and I recall looking forward to my dad's bowling night, because, with our mom, we could watch such sweet, slow melodramas as Apple's Way with Ronny Cox and Family with Sada Thompson as a mother who didn't wear size four. When I was a teen, there was The White Shadow with Ken Howard and a basketball team of mostly African-American young men who provided even tough kids with some of our most charming memories (such as their singing "My Girl" a cappella in the locker-room shower).

And, of course, there was The Waltons.

Now, I still have all my own teeth, and I loved the old Saturday Night Live parody of the Earl Hamner Jr. CBS series about a poor mountain family as much as the next wise guy. It had Grandpa Walton gathering the family and cheerfully announcing that he was senile. The fact is, however, that while some of The Waltons was a bit too granola-y, a great deal of it was restrained and well-written and well-acted, by such talented performers as Michael Learned. It dealt with the issue of raising kids to cope with poverty, ambition, racism, aging, and a whole lot of things we don't seem inclined to want to slog through these days.

And as a young mother in the '80s, I didn't feel sorted out if I hadn't come to tears at least once over Kevin's touching preteen angst on The Wonder Years. We tried not to miss the wise and wry insights of The Cosby Show. And later, Life Goes On showed us the well-earned joys of living with a disabled child. Then, for a brief shining moment, we all had a standing date for My So-Called Life. Yes, it had moments both risky and risqué. But it was indeed a family drama for a new century.

We watch Party of Five now, treasure it for its abundance of heart, and figure that its emotional highs are in direct proportion to its low ratings. How long can it last?

They have this word now -- edgy.

That's supposed to be the code for cultural cool in TV these days -- a mix of cutting-edge and sheer speed. Much of it's pretty terrific. I love those evening cop operas and hospital heroics with the hot camera angles.

But would it do any harm to try a little tenderness earlier in the evening, when some of the memories we make with our children are linked with the most powerful medium in our environment, just as they were for us with our own parents in the days of The Andy Griffith Show and The Donna Reed Show?

There exists a sort of myth that the demise of family programming reflects, well, an edginess in our culture and a rejection of sentimentality in favor of grit. But how can that be true when people would walk barefoot over the barbecue to see "Rocky 12" or the equivalent -- movies so shamelessly flag-waving and tear-jerking they would embarrass Bambi, but with just enough "action" (read "violence") that nobody has to be ashamed of being moved.

Of course, a greeting card can make you cry. And so can a symphony. One just takes more work to create and stays with you longer.

What was so great about the best of the family television shows of the past was that they weren't afraid to go beyond surface sentimentality to authentic -- and sometimes complicated -- feelings like compassion, ambivalence, and gentleness.

In an ideal world, our television shows would be able to combine the best of the past with the best of the present, adding a little tenderness to all that trendiness.

Maybe not in the same show. But why not on the same night? Then we would be able to give better support to the kind of kinder programs that once let our children go ever so gently to "good night" -- and we'd have more of them, and better.

But for now, it's not, as they say on all those 20-something, single-people shows, happening.

And so that means it's good night, John-Boy. Laura and Mary Ingalls, too.

Good riddance? Ah, there's the question: Will children miss a warmth they've never learned to treasure? Oh, well. Whatever, huh?

Good night, Kevin. 'Night, Angela.


3rd Rock

CLASSIC ROCK

How the kooky quintet from 3rd Rock creates a monster smash

B Y  J A M I E  M A L A N O W S K I

Game day for the team behind NBC's hit comedy 3rd Rock from the Sun comes on Tuesday. At about 6 P.M., a couple of hundred audience members file into a studio off Los Angeles's Ventura Boulevard and settle in to watch some of the most gifted actors on television pretend to be space aliens trying to understand human life. Filming the episode is a tedious process; capturing less than half an hour of entertainment will take nearly five hours. The atmosphere backstage isn't exactly tense; these are pros, after all. But French Stewart, Kristen Johnston, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who play aliens Harry, Sally, and Tommy Solomon, prowl around with that sort of self-conscious look people in wedding parties have just before the start of the ceremony. On the other hand, Jane Curtin, who plays Dr. Mary Albright, the human who is the object of alien commander Dick Solomon's affections, seems completely relaxed.

Oddly enough, the one who appears most taut is John Lithgow, the high commander himself. This seems strange for an actor who has distinguished himself in every medium: He has won a Tony (for "The Changing Room"), twice been nominated for an Oscar ("The World According to Garp" and "Terms of Endearment"), and, of course, captured his second Emmy last year for his work on 3rd Rock. And yet, here he is between scenes, doing that thing anxious young actors do, running his lines over and over, making sure he's got them down.

Such dedication has undoubtedly helped make 3rd Rock (Sunday, 8 P.M./ET) a winner, despite a particularly rocky inception. The series was conceived when the gold-standard sitcom producers Tom Werner and Marcy Carsey (Roseanne, Cosby, Cybill) asked Terry and Bonnie Turner -- veteran Saturday Night Live writers who also scripted the movie "The Coneheads" -- if they would like to create a show about aliens. The Turners almost immediately said no. And then they began thinking about it. "Our first rule was that they couldn't have any magical powers,'' says Terry. "They couldn't point to a lamp and make things happen.''

"Then we decided they would be outsiders who arrived here abruptly,'' says Bonnie.

"And that they would be brothers, like the Marx Brothers…''

"…which is an idea we kept even after one became a woman.''

The elements came together in 1994, when Lithgow got involved. "We always knew what Dick Solomon was supposed to be like,'' says Terry. "Tall, outrageous, gallant, gracious, part Errol Flynn, part Bugs Bunny. Suddenly, I visualized John in the role, and the character became real. I could hear him.''

ABC bought the pilot originally but lost interest and left the series hanging before finally saying adios. Not long after, NBC -- in a period that will surely go down in company history as the Era When We Could Do No Wrong -- snapped it up for a 1996 midseason debut. "I have to give the NBC executives a lot of credit,'' says Terry. "They'd come over to the set, and there'd be John singing 'Danny Boy' to a sock on his hand, and they'd go, 'Well, this is weird,' and then go away.'' The light touch obviously paid off: 3rd Rock is generally regarded as last season's only breakout hit. This season, the network moved it from Tuesday to Sunday, where it has consistently beaten Lois & Clark on, yes, ABC.

Lithgow is clearly having a good time playing physics professor/commander Solomon; he gets to be the unabashedly ardent lover, the proudly pompous papa, the half-naked, fully body-painted football fan. "Dick reacts to life like a 5-year-old,'' says Terry. "He's pure of thought and he wears his heart on his sleeve, but he's also selfish and his feelings are easily hurt. And he's out there in this brand-new world with Dad's credit card.''

"This isn't a series about aliens,'' explains Lithgow, speaking in his on-set office, surrounded by images of Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, and other comic immortals. "It's about humans. We all have developmentally predictable lives, where we learn to walk when we're 1 and learn about our bodies when we're teenagers, and so on.

"Well, these aliens are getting crash courses in all that, and it bewilders them. And it makes for just hilarious comedy.''

The morning after the taping starts off in a warm and fuzzy way, with the whole cast and staff assembling a little before noon for their first look at the next show's script. The actors cruise through the reading, whacking their punch lines like all-stars thumping pitches at batting practice. The jokes get big laughs, although with the A story calling for the aliens to take care of a baby and the B story having Dick accidentally kill Mary's pet fish, the script seems too dependent on sitcom clichés. So when the reading is over, most of the group shuffles out cheerfully, but the writers and producers stay behind for more work. "Thirty-four minutes,'' says someone who timed the reading. "I had 36,'' says another, offering even worse news for a script that has to come in at 22 minutes.

By Thursday, rewriting has eliminated the script's subplots, and the story about Sally getting in touch with her maternal side while babysitting her landlady's grandson has been polished. This is good news for Kristen Johnston, whose desire to play Sally, the militaristic security officer trapped in a woman's body, was predicated on the character's opposing natures. "I had been looking at a lot of scripts before this came along,'' Johnston says. "Not only was I blown away by this one but it was the first time I thought, 'This is my part -- no one else will get this!' I loved Sally's dichotomy, that she goes from rage and strength to this quivering…girlishness.''

One human experience the producers have yet to let Sally explore is sex; even Tommy has more seasoning. "It would be interesting,'' says Johnston. "I love what the writers have done with Sally in this department so far, making her attracted to a policeman [played by Seinfeld's Wayne Knight] not because he's handsome but because he's got a nightstick and a car with a siren.'' Could this be the premise of a Very Special 3rd Rock? "I shudder to think what Sally would do,'' she says. "It would be quite a cliff-hanger episode. 'Tune in next fall and see if Sally eats the guy afterward.'''

After lunch, the cast works on two of the show's crucial scenes, one in which the landlady's grandson disappears in a toy store and one in the Solomon apartment, where the aliens debate whether to keep the boy. The actors repeat these scenes endlessly, sharpening. Then Lithgow throws a question at Terry Turner. "Should Dick be the one to suggest keeping him?'' he asks, at which point Johnston jumps in. She and Lithgow bat some ideas around, and then Stewart questions one of his lines. Soon, the actors have unlaced and rewoven the script. In the navy, this might be mutiny, but here it's collaboration. "These aren't TV stars," says Terry, "these are actors, and everything they bring to the process just inspires all the writers here to do their absolute best.''

You can tell that Lithgow, Stewart, and Johnston have all worked in theater, where this kind of give-and-take is common. Gordon-Levitt, meanwhile, sits back, absorbing some lessons in professional behavior from the same people who have been giving him an uncommon tutorial in acting. ("You work with John Lithgow and observe what he does," says the 15-year-old, "and you can forget UCLA, forget anything -- it's all right there.'')

It's interesting that Gordon-Levitt is the only actor who has imagined what his alien's past life was like. "Tommy's the oldest,'' he says. "I think he's had a very rich life, has been all across the universe, maybe had been a high commander himself years ago, and has seen and done it all.'' Fans can expect to see Tommy facing more varied situations. "Joey is an old soul who handles his dialogue with great understanding,'' says Bonnie Turner. "So I think we'll see that Tommy has more going on than just being a horny teenager.''

By Friday, the scenes have changed again, and two of Lithgow's bigger moments are gone. The star accepts the cuts without a peep. As it turns out, he's upstaged in the next scene, too. To make up for killing her fish, Dick brings Mary a golden retriever. Dakota is making his first appearance on the set, and he's a tad uncooperative. The script calls for him to nuzzle Curtin's crotch; instead, he improvises leaps, nuzzlings, pawings. Finally, on take four, he gets the idea, poking his snout in her lap with enough vigor to send her voice into a second register.

Chalk it up to playing the human comic foil. Curtin says of her character, anthropology professor Mary Albright, "I think she's just Bud Abbott without the hat.'' Taking this job was less an artistic choice for Curtin than a personal one -- she likes working, she likes the Turners -- but it does use her talents in a way that shows she has versatility and staying power.

Friday ends with a run-through, a start-to-finish performance that provides a rough idea of what the audience will see at next Tuesday's taping. But there's still an unrefined moment in the toy-store scene: Stewart, who plays space cadet Harry, gets his hands on a mechanical parrot that repeats whatever you've said into it. Harry follows the instruction to take two steps backward, over and over…until he crashes into a display. It's typical Stewart, whose funny voice, squint, and gift for slapstick have made him a cult favorite. (For the record, the actor's eyes are heavy-lidded, but he doesn't squint, and he speaks in a normal voice. "Sometimes you just try things in auditions to stand out,'' he says, "and this time they went for it.'')

Back at the toy store, Stewart is testing the law of nature that governs how long a recording device can be in human hands before someone starts saying naughty words into it. Whatever that time is, it's no doubt shorter when the device is a goofy mechanical parrot, and it's even shorter when said parrot has fallen into the hands of a professional prankster. Stewart is now cracking everyone up by having the parrot repeat a scatological insult. But something causes him to notice the journalist who's been hanging around the set all week.

"Uh-oh,'' Stewart says, "the guy from TV Guide must be thinking, 'These people are a bunch of...''' It's clear how he'd finish the thought, but he'd be wrong. The word the guy from TV Guide would use to fill in the blank is comedians -- out-of-this-world comedians.


What I really want to do is direct

WHAT I REALLY WANT TO DO IS DIRECT

Some actors just dream of working behind the camera. Here are six who made the switch

B Y  S U S A N  S P I L L M A N

You're watching TV. The credits are rolling by. Suddenly, a familiar name flashes before your eyes, and you read, "Directed by Anson Williams." So you wonder: Could that be the same Anson Williams who used to play Potsie on Happy Days? Yes, it could -- in fact, familiar names frequently do belong to familiar faces. We asked the ones you see here to tell us how they made the trip to the other side of the camera.

Anson Williams

Best remembered as: Potsie on Happy Days

New role: Directed episodes of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, seaQuest DSV, and Fudge

On making the switch: "Thank goodness for [Happy Days creator] Garry Marshall. He made the set a film school. He said, 'Anything you want to learn, come to me,' and he arranged for you to observe."

Miss acting? "I always felt limitations as an actor. Once in a while I'll do something if someone asks, but I don't miss it as a career."

Stickiest directing challenge: "Directing 11 episodes of the Saturday-morning kids' show Fudge. There were five regular kids and sometimes 40 or more in the classroom scenes, ages 4 to 10. They work your buns off, because not only do you have to act scenes out for them, but the moment you say 'Cut,' they're off in a tree."

Philip Charles Mackenzie

Best remembered as: Clifford on the cable series Brothers and pushy real estate agent Ted Nichols on Open House

New role: Directed most episodes of Frasier last season; has also directed Roseanne and Almost Perfect

On making the switch: "On the fourth season of Brothers, I asked to direct an episode, and they let me do 10."

Miss acting? "I haven't yet. Maybe someday I'll have a yen."

Stickiest directing challenge: Niles' sword-fighting scene on Frasier. "It felt like choreographing 'Ben-Hur.'"

Michael Lembeck

Best remembered as: Max, Julie's husband, on One Day at a Time

New role: Directed most episodes of Friends last season; has also directed NewsRadio and Coach

On making the switch: "One day I came home and told my wife, 'I really want to focus on directing.'" Seconds later, the phone rang. It was Mark Ganzel, who was producing a new show called Coach, with the offer to do just that. "From then it was off to the races."

Miss acting? "I haven't even thought about it in the last eight years."

Stickiest directing challenge: An episode of Coach that involved three dogs, including "this big poodle, who was the doofiest, stupidest thing -- I fired him. Then, at the dinner break, the trainers brought all these cute puppies and a baby chimp over and had them all hugging me and licking me, begging for another chance for the poodle. We lost an hour, but it worked. I rehired him."

Peter Bonerz

Best remembered as: Jerry the dentist on The Bob Newhart Show

New role: Has directed most episodes of Murphy Brown for the past four seasons

On making the switch: "The more directing I did, the less acting I did. It's like any sport: The more you coach, the less you play."

Miss acting? "I'd love to act -- if somebody would ask me."

Stickiest directing challenge: "I directed a show for HBO that O.J. Simpson starred in and produced. You had all these 340-pound linemen who weren't actors. They were all nice guys, but they couldn't deliver lines with any credibility."

Mary Kay Place

Best remembered as: Loretta Haggers on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman

New role: Has directed episodes of Dream On, Friends, and The New Lassie

On making the switch: In the mid-'80s, Place finally decided to pursue her longtime interest in directing. She took some workshops and spent time observing other directors. In 1988, she got her first gig:directing episodes of the short-lived comedy Baby Boom.

Miss acting? She still acts. "I like switching sides, but I don't think I'd ever want to direct myself."

Stickiest directing challenge: "The time on The New Lassie when the dog got totally sick and couldn't do any of the tricks."

James Widdoes

Best remembered as: Hoover in "Animal House" and Stan Pembroke on Charles in Charge

New role: Executive producer (and sometimes director) of Dave's World; next season, he'll direct episodes of Something So Right and Boston Common

On making the switch: "It was like starting out as an actor: You kick, you claw and scratch."

Miss acting? "No regrets. Last year I performed in a benefit show with a friend. After our first number, I came backstage, turned to him, and said, 'I just hate this.'''

Stickiest directing challenge: "It was an episode of Dave's World where Dave had a nightmare that his youngest son had grown up and was now a fry cook at the Crispy Hen Chicken Restaurant. I was the nightmare son."


Melissa Joan Hart

HER MAGIC TOUCH

Melissa Joan Hart explains it all: Between her new sitcom and her steady beau, she's never been happier

B Y  S U S A N  S P I L L M A N

Melissa Joan Hart seems to have taken a big swig of a potion designed to put your life in order. The 20-year-old actress conjures one perfect take after another on the set of her new comedy, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (ABC, Fridays, 9 P.M./ET). In between, she plans a trip to Maui with a costar and exchanges a few smooches with her beau, who is visiting the set. It's hard to believe that just two years ago, when Hart finished Nickelodeon's popular series Clarissa Explains It All (which now appears in reruns six days a week on Nickelodeon), she was ready to quit show business altogether. "I think I was too young to start doing a series," says Hart, who became Clarissa when she was just 14. To make matters worse, the native New Yorker, who began her career at age 4 with a Splashy bathtub-doll commercial, was separated from her family for weeks at a time, living with a guardian in Orlando, Florida, where the show was taped. Long hours added to the strain. "I worked more than the adults," she says. "My mom and my dad on the show would be like, 'Oh, I have to get out of here, I have tee-off time in an hour' and I'd be, 'Well, I have school for the next six hours.' It was hard work and I didn't want it anymore. I wanted to have fun."

In an attempt to have a more normal life, Hart decided to trade the cameras for the classroom. She enrolled in New York University, but days before her first semester began, ABC offered her a role in the TV-movie Family Reunion and she simply couldn't resist. "Making that movie helped me realize I do love acting," she says, "and that I didn't have to play Clarissa every time I acted."

To have more control over her career, Hart formed a production company, Hartbreak Films, with her mother, Paula, who's also an executive producer of Sabrina. "We're committed to family programming and are always looking for female roles that are strong, independent, and positive," says Paula. "Girls today need strong role models who are not disrespectful and crass. I don't like a lot of what's on TV today with kids using bad language and being disrespectful to their parents and teachers. We would not have Roseanne's kids' mouths on our show."

Indeed, 16-year-old Sabrina leads a very G-rated life. She lives with her two eccentric aunts (Beth Broderick and Caroline Rhea), who are charged with teaching her the finer points of sorcery. Like the hit '60s sitcom Bewitched, much of the humor comes from watching Sabrina's spells backfire. In one episode, for example, she tells the cranky infant she's babysitting to "be a big boy" and accidentally turns him into a fully grown man. What's different, says Paula, is that "Samantha had to use her magic on the sly, while Sabrina is encouraged by her aunts to use hers to the fullest." In the Halloween episode, which features a cameo from Sally Jesse Raphaël, Sabrina wants to dress up as the talk-show host -- and her aunts help out by simply transforming her into Raphaël. Later, when Sabrina is torn between attending a family function and a classmate's costume party, she clones herself so that she can be in both places at one time.

These days, unlike when she was filming Clarissa far away from her family, Hart no longer needs to dream about being two places at once in real life. She spends a great deal of time with her mother, stepfather, and five siblings, who now split their time between Los Angeles and New Jersey. "My mother and I are very close," she says. "We enjoy working together. We protect each other. She looks out for me and I look out for her." There's plenty of company at work, too. "I met the kids from Something So Right and Mr. Rhodes," says Hart, who will be the host of ABC Late Night Halloween Jam V on October 26. "Their dressing rooms are right across from our stage. We hang out and party together."

Even Hart's long-distance steady, James Fields, a 22-year-old University of Utah student, is in town these days. The two met in Salt Lake City shooting an episode of CBS's Touched by an Angel. They've had a commuting relationship for "a year and a half, a week, and a day," she says. But now, Fields, who recently taped bit parts in two upcoming Sabrina episodes -- in one he's a nerd, in the other, a yearbook photographer -- is considering an acting career and has decided to stay until the end of the year. Hart couldn't be happier. "I have friends here, my boyfriend is here, my family is here, I'm working," she says. "For the first time, I feel like my life is almost perfect."


Mary Tyler Moore

FOREVER MARY

Our favorite icon returns to familiar turf -- a sitcom (The Naked Truth) and a TV-movie (with Edward Asner)

B Y  H I L L A R Y  D E  V R I E S

Surprised passersby stare with delight at the star they have spotted standing on a Portland, Oregon, sidewalk. But Mary Tyler Moore is oblivious to all the attention on this early fall day as she frowns at her sandal-clad feet. That she is in town filming ABC's TV-movie Payback with Edward Asner, her former Mary Tyler Moore Show costar, seems of less concern than the current state of her delicate toes. "Look at that toe compared to the other one," Moore says, wiggling the toes on her right foot. "About eight months ago, I had a pedicure where I got the tiniest nick, and six months later it erupted into a major infection, which caused me to have surgery. They weren't sure they could save the foot, let alone the toe. Now it's still swollen, so I'm probably going to have to have another procedure."

If such a revelation seems startlingly candid, consider that little over a year ago, Moore laid bare the facts of her diabetes in her autobiography, After All. The book capped her most visible year since The Mary Tyler Moore Show ended 20 years ago. She had a new series, New York News; a new film, "Flirting with Disaster"; and a public more than ready to welcome her back. Finally, the sequel to her reign as Laurie Petrie (The Dick Van Dyke Show) and Mary Richards (Mary Tyler Moore) seemed about to be written.

Now, a year later, the series is dead -- her fifth to fail since Mary Tyler Moore ended in 1977 -- and the movie, which earned some of her best reviews since "Ordinary People," didn't net her more major roles. But it did bring her back to TV, playing her "Flirting with Disaster" costar Téa Leoni's mother in NBC's The Naked Truth. "This is an answer to a dream," says Moore, who has signed on to appear in four episodes this year -- "just the way Cloris Leachman appeared semi-regularly on my series." Moore's character, Catherine Wilde, is a strong-willed if unconventional mother who, in her February 6 debut, blamed Nora (Leoni) when younger daughter Lizzie (Paula Cale) canceled her wedding and ran off to Las Vegas. "She's tough, and tough on her daughter," says Moore, who is paired with "Flirting with Disaster" mate George Segal (star of the midseason NBC comedy Just Shoot Me). "It was wonderful being with an audience again," says Moore. "This is exactly what I want to do."

Still, being an icon has its drawbacks. Despite her best efforts, Moore remains caught in a time warp, forever identified as "our Mary," as Bea Arthur once put it on Maude. As Mary Richards, Moore was TV's feminist ideal disguised as the girl next door, the forerunner of such characters as Murphy Brown, Ellen, and any number of independent TV women. When Moore visited her show recently, Rosie O'Donnell gushed, "You were my idol," summing up the adoration of an entire generation of fans. But the fact is, this icon turned 60 on December 29, and she continues to face serious health challenges.

"I think about [my health] all the time," says Moore. "As a diabetic, your organs are deteriorating at a faster rate than normal. It doesn't look bad, but diabetes is a devastating disease."

Moore would not be able, for instance, to feel a needle plunged into her feet, so damaged are they by diabetes. "I can only tell that I'm standing on the ground because I feel the weight on my bones," she says. The disease has only added to her daunting list of tribulations: her alcoholic mother, her own battles with alcoholism, her three marriages, her sister's overdose, her brother's death from cancer, and the death of her only son in a gun accident in 1980. All of it is an almost surreal counterpoint to her wealth and fame.

"I've known tremendous applause and happiness, but also tremendous pain," says Moore, who lives with her husband, Dr. Robert Levine, a cardiologist nearly 18 years her junior, in an eight-room Fifth Avenue apartment and a 123-acre country estate. "Other people get other things, other tragedies, but none of us get through this unscathed. I would love to say I believe in the hereafter, where it all evens out, but I don't. This is just my deal; this is what I got."

Despite her infected foot and the day's filming demands, Moore gamely maintains a somewhat disjointed conversation that bounces from the sidewalk to her trailer and back to the sidewalk. "Are you still here?" she marvels at one point, nibbling on some potato chips during a break. "Have one," she says amiably. "I have to have this stuff to keep up my blood-sugar level, because sometimes I can get cranky."

Indeed, Moore has acquired a reputation for being difficult, behavior that dates back to her days on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. "It wasn't that Mary's wants were met," recalls Asner. "It's that they were anticipated. I mean, the writers, Grant [Tinker], they all were right there on the set all the time so any time she had a problem, it was taken care of."

Certainly, on the Payback set Moore appears to live up to her reputation, repeatedly raising questions about lines, blocking, even lighting. Before filming a diner scene, Moore spends several long moments huddling with Asner and director Ken Cameron. "I think this is going to slow down to a screeching halt," she complains, her vehemence at odds with her frail-seeming frame. "You've got to get him moving in this scene," she says to Cameron, referring to Asner. "And please, could I be photographed on this side?" she asks, turning her face into the light. "It's always been that way, if I have a choice." Moore admits she's demanding. "I do explode sometimes, but I like to think that I do so for a reason."

She discusses all these personal issues almost breezily -- "I've told my story for years to various analysts," she says -- but the death of her only child, Richie, who fatally shot himself after a long struggle with cocaine, is one of the few subjects that brings tears to her eyes. Within three years after Richie's death, she married Levine. "My son, if he had lived, would be a year younger than my husband," Moore says. If others question the appropriateness of their age difference, Moore does not. "For the first time, I really believe I have found my life partner," she says, pointing out that she got sober during their marriage. "Robert grew up in a family where emotions were welcomed. I began to see through his eyes aspects of myself that I didn't know were there -- this rigidity, this expectation of perfection that I had for myself and others."

Standing on the sidewalk in the fading afternoon light, Moore seems very much as she once was. "I might have had more work had there not been the strong image of Mary Richards," she says. "But I'm happy without it, and it's allowed me to have a life, a happy marriage, a country house, all sorts of things I wouldn't have had if I had gone from one movie to the next.

"And there are times when I can't sleep at night, when I turn on 'Nick at Nite' and there we are," she says, her voice catching a bit. "It's been so long, now, that I can't remember the episodes. So I watch the way everyone watches, wondering what's going to happen next. And I always feel at the end of those 30 minutes that the world is a little happier place and we're all a little better off."


Murphy Brown

HER LIFE NOW

For the first time since the death of her husband, the popular star talks about her future.

When I went to Los Angeles last November, to make a guest appearance on CBS's Murphy Brown, the atmosphere on the set was calm, professional, and congenial. But every cast and crew member, every guest, was aware that the show's star, Candice Bergen, had been living for several months under the burden of the serious illness of her husband, Louis Malle. She came to work just as she always had and did her usual top-notch job of comedy, but she went home each night to a true tragedy. The famous French film director -- to whom she had been married for 15 years and with whom she had a daughter, Chloe, 10 -- had been stricken by a sinister cancer. Over a period of time, he became bedridden and could no longer speak. Last Thanksgiving, Malle died. A memorial service was held in New York City, at which we saw film of Malle at his dynamic, energetic best. There was even a clip of his performance as a guest star on Murphy Brown in 1994.

Recently, I talked to Bergen again. Once more she displayed the courage, professionalism, and intelligence that have earned her such a good reputation in a sometimes desperate business.

BY LIZ SMITH

Liz Smith: Well, how are you doing?

Candice Bergen: I'm doing better. You were so nice to come to Louis's memorial.

LS: I just loved it. I learned a lot about Louis. You were wonderful, and Chloe was wonderful. It was so great to see Louis do his acting part with you on the Murphy segment.

CB: I sort of regretted doing that because I felt, gosh, people are going to think I'm focusing on the show, or on myself. But it was really because he was so sick for so long, and he was so handsome in the show. But I was a nervous wreck.

LS: Well, of course, all of the people who were at the memorial really loved you and him. You know, even though you were weighed down with care, you didn't show it when you were working.

CB: To have a job where you spend five days a week that involves laughter, and in our case, a lot of it raucous, is an unbelievable luxury. It was a real escape for me.

LS: Is next season Murphy's last?

CB: I know I've said it before, but yes. I am glad we're doing another year.

LS: Well, it certainly settles things for you, doesn't it?

CB: Well, it does. This past year was not the year for me to end the show. I don't know how I could have gotten through it. It'll be hard enough to get through the last show next year.

I did feel a couple of years ago that it was time to fold up our tent. I thought, well, we're just not up there anymore; Murphy just can't compete. But this past year, I think we've come back. If we can get another year that's the quality of this past year, we'll be doing a lot.

We had some very nice political satire this year. We parodied the White House press corps [variety show], and did it very nicely. I just don't think there's any -- there's no show on television that is in a position to cover that kind of material like we are. And it's an election year coming up.

LS: This will be a good year for you.

CB: Yeah. We had Grant Shaud leave, who plays Miles [his last episode will air May 20], and that was a real wrench for me because I love working with him. I certainly support his decision. He's young. He's just wonderfully talented. And I think he wants a chance to do other work. But on the other hand, it gives us an opportunity to bring in a new character.

LS: Will Paul Reubens [as Andrew J. Lansing III, the network chief's annoying nephew] be back next season?

CB: I hope so, yes.

LS: Maybe he can replace Miles as FYI's producer?

CB: (laughs) That might be a little sinister. It's a very funny character they've done for him.

LS: Here's a nasty question: Who was more fun to work with, JFK Jr. or Newt Gingrich?

CB: (laughs) Well, there weren't as many women on the set when Newt Gingrich did the show, let me tell you. There were women coming out of the woodwork for John.

LS: Well, how did you get along with Newt?

CB: You know, I've got to tell you, the man -- he was completely unassuming, gracious, even though we've harpooned him every season, taking potshots at him.

LS: Did you goof around with him?

CB: The time was very short. People like that arrive sometimes minutes before they're about to shoot, and we just wanted to make him as comfortable as possible. And he was actually very funny. He had ideas of what to do -- chomping on a carrot -- and he agreed to do a line about looking into the freedom of the press. I don't think his handlers wanted him to do it and he did it.

LS: And John Kennedy?

CB: People went nuts. I had to laugh. He was so good and so fast. You know we've had such pros on, people who've been working for years, in every medium, and some have really frozen because they've never done this format before. It's difficult to be a guest. It's like jumping on to a fast-moving train, and you don't know anyone, and you have to deliver in front of an audience.

LS: They played with the audience at first, making you think he was just another secretary. They say that Murphy has had more secretaries than any boss in history. Can you think of a person who'd be a dream secretary?

CB: Well, we did talk about Dan Quayle doing it a few years ago, but then we never did.

LS: Tell me about Elizabeth Taylor when she came to do the show.

CB: We were all quaking in anticipation, because who's more of a legend than she? And she just arrived on time and was ready and funny and cute. She knew her lines, but we had them on cards in case. At that point, I was using cards, because I couldn't learn anything last year.

LS: Is there a politician you'd like on the show next season?

CB: We'd love to get Vice President Gore or the First Lady or the President. Senator Dole was on the show about three years ago and was excellent. He is funny and very dry.

LS: Well, do you think Murphy might marry at the end of this?

CB: I think it'd be nice to have Murphy deal with getting older, frankly, and not being married.

LS: I remember, you told me the poor baby has been sort of shunted onto the sidetrack. But is Murphy a good mother?

CB: Well, I couldn't stand it if she weren't, and I can't stand sending out a message that she's not. I was in agony the year after Murphy had the baby because I just couldn't bear the way she treated the baby, and how absent she was, how indifferent. It was very painful for me. I think she is an increasingly conscientious mother, and spends shorter times in the office. But we don't talk much about the baby. We had this baby and then we had to…

LS: To deal with it, just like people have to deal with babies. Do you see yourself coming back to television sometime with another series?

CB: It would be a while before I could. I'd like to see if there's some sort of comedy parts in films that I could do. I'm starting a TV-movie ["Tim," a remake of an early Mel Gibson film] this month. I suppose you'd say it's a kind of May-December relationship. But I'm very nervous about it because I've done Murphy for eight years. I haven't ever done anything else during my hiatuses because I've always been with my family.

LS: Your own life has been as demanding as Murphy's, but you managed to be a good mother with a job that is very demanding.

CB: But I'm a very different temperament from Murphy.

LS: Well, that's true. You always say you're shy and introspective.

CB: No, I don't know that I'd say that, but my priority was always very clear: that my life and my marriage came first. And then when I had a child, my child clearly came first, and even though the hours of a sitcom are ideal hours, for me it was very demanding -- sort of carrying the show and being in every scene. So I was tired all the time. And I regret for my daughter that she had a mother who came home in the afternoon as spent as I was. I don't think it's easy to do it, to have it all. I don't think people should make it out to be as breezy as they do, because it is tough.

LS: Louis was always very supportive of your work. So that must have helped.

CB: Oh, Louis loved my doing the show and he loved the show.

LS: Approaching this last season with Murphy: How fresh do you feel? You've been through a hell of a lot.

CB: Oh, I'm never tired of Murphy. Never tired of playing her, and I always sort of look to all of her strong stuff and her feisty stuff to try to carry it over into my life. Of course, really, she's a character that no one could live with. And no one has been able to. But I love living with her. She's a good companion.

LS: You've just had a birthday. 50! One magazine says "from dreamy dish to driven yuppie." What do you think about that?

CB: I'm not driven, and I'm certainly not a yuppie. I'm sort of glad to have the "dreamy dish" behind me in a way. It was only inhibiting, and I never could enjoy it. So I'm enjoying being nearly a geezer. I am so grateful to be healthy, and working, and have a rich life and a gorgeous, spectacular child.

LS: Well, I've thought about you every day since I went out there and interviewed you before Louis left us. In a way, I think you have to look at it like now you'll have another life. I mean, I know that's daunting.

CB: No, it's not daunting. You carry people around inside you. They inspire you. I sort of try to make decisions with Louis in my mind, and I try to live life for Louis. He's not here with us, and so I'm just trying to do as much with Chloe as I can and live as full a life as we can.


NBC : Saturday mornings

SATURDAY MORNING LIVE

Do NBC's high-school comedies make the grade?

B Y  V I C K I  J O

R A D O V S K Y

Toddlers have their cartoons; adults can watch news or sports. So what does that leave for teen and "tween" (9- to 12-year-old) viewers on Saturday mornings? NBC's live-action lineup of high-school-themed comedies: Saved by the Bell: The New Class, Hang Time, and California Dreams. This adolescent arsenal attracts an audience that the networks usually have trouble reaching, and it has proved a surprising success overseas.

But to the uninitiated, it's hard to tell the shows in NBC's juvenile juggernaut apart. Virtually interchangeable casts portray the same high-school stereotypes -- buxom blond cheerleader, smooth ladies' man, adenoidal nerd, etc. Our reviewer immersed herself in the so-called TNBC lineup and emerged with this independent-study report.

Saved by the Bell: The New Class

Viewers get a weekly double dose (10 and 11 A.M./ET) of the daffy doings at fictional Bayside High. The original Bell (1989-93), granddaddy of the zitcom genre and wellspring of NBC's Saturday-morning franchise, rang in the careers of Tiffani-Amber Thiessen (Beverly Hills, 90210) and Elizabeth Berkley ("Showgirls").

The New Class began four years ago, with a fresh cast plus original Bell ding-a-lings Principal Belding, played by Dennis Haskins, and student-turned-administrative-assistant Samuel "Screech" Powers, played by Dustin Diamond, whose high-pitched, nails-on-a-blackboard bleat and eye-rolling histrionics make him arguably the most annoying actor in the history of television. Each week there's a positive message: Vote instead of being apathetic; having a baby is a big responsibility; being a real hero means maintaining one's integrity; when loved ones die, they live on in your heart. Unfortunately, this wisdom is served up with all the panache of cafeteria food. Grade: D

Hang Time

Currently in its second season, this locker-room laughfest (10:30 A.M./ET) focuses on the Deering Tornados, a boys' basketball team in small-town Indiana whose star player happens to be a girl. Naturally, conflict arises. But the gimmick works, perhaps because stressing teamwork and fair play seems more natural in the athletic arena than it does in the other TNBC settings.

Coach Bill Fuller is played by former NBA star Reggie Theus, and some of the show's trademark jock cameos this year have included Olympic gold medalist Florence Griffith-Joyner, basketball champ Lisa Leslie, and NBA luminaries Muggsy Bogues and Juwan Howard.

Despite cardboard characters and gift-wrapped plots, the message of self-respect comes through loud and clear. Daniella Deutscher as hoop prodigy Julie Connor is a decent actress who also happens to be blessed with a devastating hook shot. Recently Julie learned that she doesn't need to pose as an airheaded coquette to get the cute guy. "If he can't like you for the woman you are," counseled Flo-Jo, "he's not the man for you!"

Other recent Hang Time teachings: Sacrifice is good for the soul; material things can't replace a parent's time and attention; people aren't a means to an end. The most endearing, least obnoxious of the teen trio. Grade: B

California Dreams

Combining comedy and original music, this pop cycle (11:30 A.M./ET) follows the exploits of a high-school rock band, the California Dreams. The group better get a recording contract by August, because this is the show's fifth and final season.

The band is fronted by Jim Belushi lookalike Jay Anthony Franke as lead singer/guitarist Jake Sommers, described in a press release as a "motorcycle-riding, leather-jacket-wearing, poetry-writing tough guy with a heart of gold." Jake is the foil for manipulative, cell-phone-toting band manager Sylvester "Sly" Winkle (who comes up with these names?), a refreshing departure from the usual ho-hum high-school stereotypes.

In one episode, Sly (Michael Cade) is transformed into a greedy used-car salesman, and ultimately learns not to use friends for financial gain. In another, he develops a gambling addiction and discovers the importance of honoring debts. Other recent lessons have included the hazards of drinking and driving, and the importance of maintaining friendships.

Band members actually sing rather than lip-synch, and Franke is a standout with his sensitive-rebel style, but he doesn't get a lot of help on the musical front. These bland tunes aren't even elevator-worthy. Sample lyric: "Make a stand/Change is in your hand/Just do something/You're gonna leave your mark/Just use your mind and heart." Grade: C


New Comedies

NEW SERIES

COMEDIES

Look for lots of pairs of brassy working women, some familiar faces in unfamiliar roles, and more than a few bad boys

BASICS TRAINING

After he pulled the plug on his talk show almost three years ago, Arsenio Hall pondered his next move by polling everyone from his then agent, Michael Ovitz, to his mother. "Mom got me when she quoted Jerry Seinfeld," recalls Hall, who had been considering concentrating on movies. "Why should I do a film when I do a half-hour one every week?" Hall had better-than-average reasons to appreciate Mom's advice -- she had recently survived a lengthy battle with a near-fatal illness. That made Hall think. "I went through a lot of personal changes," says Hall. "It's about back-to-basics now, and a lot of things become clear, like how much I love TV and how much I miss my audience."

Hall considered hitting the comedy circuit -- "I don't like the state of stand-up these days," he grouses -- but when word went out that he was available for prime time, he was inundated with offers from every network. After hearing one too many pitches for comedies about aliens -- "3rd Negro from the Sun to Mork and Leroy," he says with a laugh -- he signed a hefty deal at ABC to play a newlywed TV sportscaster. It seemed a good fit for Hall, who has no regrets about choosing sitcom acting over late-night hosting. "When you do a talk show, you're playing a character who is in the 'like me' business," says Hall. "But life isn't the 'like me' business. It's 'Honey, where did you put my keys?'"

ARSENIO HALL

SPRING, ABC

Stars: Arsenio Hall and Vivica A. Fox

The concept: An African-American Mad About You

The premise: High-powered Atlanta-based sportscaster -- and die-hard bachelor -- (Hall) must compromise in a new marriage to a sexy, ambitious lawyer (Fox).

They say: "There has not been a show like this about African-Americans," says series creator David Rosenthal (Ellen), adding, "but this isn't about race or even sports but universal themes of love and marriage." Will audiences buy Arsenio as anything other than a talk-show host? "He's playing a character," says Rosenthal. "Not just a version of himself."

We say: No pilot of this as-yet-untitled show was available for screening, but audiences will undoubtedly tune in to see Arsenio in his return to television. Will they stay? Playing a witty, sexy leading man is a new role for Hall, but we wouldn't bet against him. And Fox ("Independence Day" and "Set It Off") is hotter than hot.

LIFE…AND STUFF

SPRING, CBS

Stars: Rick Reynolds and Pam Dawber

The concept: Everybody Loves Raymond meets Dream On

The premise: A domestic comedy based on comic Reynolds' one-man show that explores the rough edges of family life. Black-and-white daydream sequences are scattered throughout each episode.

They say: "There are a bunch of family shows on that depict the typical sort of white-bread, totally mainstream family," says executive producer Alan Kirschenbaum. "But both Everybody Loves Raymond and Life...and Stuff are a little bit off-kilter. And there's room for both of them."

We say: Life...and Stuff presents a wonderfully warped perspective on the straight-arrow family. Newcomer Reynolds is a nimble player with a caustic overlay (perhaps too caustic), and Dawber clicks as a grown-up Mindy to Reynolds' Morkiness.

DEBI MAZAR: TALKING THAT 'NEW YAWK' TALK

The demise of L.A. Law three years ago also brought down the curtain on Denise Iannello, the tough-talking Queens-born secretary first seen on ABC's Civil Wars. But it didn't take long before Debi Mazar was offered her own series deal. After all, her portrayal of the lovably brassy New Yorker predated Fran Drescher's Nanny, and although Mazar considered herself primarily a film actress ("Batman Forever"), she had enough of Denise's street smarts to know "I was a fool not to explore doing my own series."

Now, after a few fits and starts, Mazar is playing another tough cookie, Deb DeAngelo, a temp worker from Brooklyn, on Temporarily Yours. Despite the obvious similarities to Denise, Mazar insists there are subtle but significant differences. "For one thing, her clothes are different," Mazar says with a laugh. "I don't have to wear that secretary stuff anymore." Making the transition from drama to sitcom, however, is another matter. "They always want it bigger, and I'm like, 'No!' because to me, that's bad acting," says Mazar, who admits she has quickly acquired a fondness for physical comedy. "This reminds me of Lucy, a woman who thinks she can do anything but winds up getting into a lot of ridiculous situations."

TEMPORARILY YOURS

SPRING, CBS

Stars: Debi Mazar and Joanna Gleason

The concept: The Nanny and Pearl: Take 3

The premise: Street-smart Brooklyn temp (Mazar) rubs elbows with her job agency's snooty Upper East Side owner (Gleason).

They say: Comparisons to The Nanny and Pearl seem inevitable with Mazar playing a slapstick version of wisecracking Denise Iannello (Civil Wars). "Because she's a temp, Debi will encounter a different world each episode," says executive producer Vic Rauseo, "from a mortuary to a fashion show."

We say: CBS could have a winner with Mazar's diamond in the rough. Although the premise is predictable, the writing is a cut above average, and Mazar has a definite flair for physical comedy. She also has real chemistry with Gleason, who nabs her share of laughs as the uptight boss. Bonus: Mazar has the potential to expand the network's audience by appealing to young viewers.

CHICAGO SONS

WEDNESDAYS, 8:30 P.M., NBC

Stars: Paula Marshall, D.W. Moffett, Jason Bateman, David Krumholtz

The concept: Brothers Behaving Badly

The premise: Three girl-crazy brothers with small-town, working-class roots reunite to share an apartment overlooking Chicago's Wrigley Field.

They say: "This is a world of guy's guys, where the behavior of women is confusing and kielbasa is a health food," says executive producer John J. Strauss. "These aren't sophisticated guys, so it's fun to see the world through their eyes," echoes partner Ed Decter. "With each episode they get a little better, but not so much that it stops being funny."

We say: The relationship between Bateman and Marshall, who plays a flirtatious coworker he has the hots for, is appealing, and as the enterprising youngest brother, Krumholtz is a natural scene-stealer. Neither makes up for Son's formulaic writing and flat jokes. This show needs to find a distinct voice and a lot more laughs.

SHARON LAWRENCE:

THE MAIN DISH

When Sharon Lawrence first stepped into the shower with Dennis Franz on NYPD Blue, viewers may have thought they'd seen everything the doe-eyed actress has to offer. Hardly. It wasn't until Lawrence shed her dreary D.A. duds to play a hilariously high-strung executive on an episode of Caroline in the City last winter that the ex-Broadway dancer revealed a comic streak. "That was a surprise to a lot of people," says Lawrence, who has traded in her do-gooder supporting role as Detective Sipowicz's wife, Sylvia Costas, to star as the flamboyantly over-the-top Gwen in NBC's Fired Up. "Nobody cared more about Sylvia than I did," says Lawrence, who will continue to turn up every so often on NYPD Blue. "But she was a side dish on a series when the menu is meat and potatoes."

Now Lawrence has more than enough to sink her teeth into, playing the egotistic marketing executive who's struggling after losing her job. "She's a bit like Auntie Mame and a bit like Frasier," says Lawrence, who is braced for comparisons to that other bastion of outlandish humor, Britain's Absolutely Fabulous. "Standards and Practices won't let us go that far," she cautions. But Lawrence has already tasted forbidden fruit. "Sylvia's wardrobe was so depressing," she says. "Now I'm wearing riding outfits and ostrich feathers!"

FIRED UP

SPRING, NBC

Stars: Sharon Lawrence, Leah Remini, Mark Feuerstein, Jonathan Banks

The concept: AbFab meets Caroline in the City

The premise: When a high-powered marketing executive (Lawrence) loses her job, she winds up eating humble pie in a start-up venture partnered with her old assistant (Remini).

They say: Forget long-suffering Sylvia Costas (NYPD Blue) when Lawrence turns from dowdy assistant D.A. into demanding exec. "Sharon is quite different in this," says executive producer Victor Fresco. "She's funny, but she's also playing a woman who's more than a little self-absorbed -- someone who can't believe she's gone from having dinner at the Waldorf to stuffing envelopes."

We say: Fired Up should fit comfortably into NBC's stable of sexy, brittle sitcoms. Most of the fun comes in watching Lawrence,who is virtually unrecognizable with her hair piled high and thigh-high miniskirts. Her witty sarcasm is also a welcome change from Sylvia's dour earnestness. If she seems to be working a bit too hard for some of her laughs, we say, give her time.

GEORGE SEGAL:

JUST PINCH HIM

Despite his long, impressive film career, George Segal found himself guest-starring on a sitcom last season, as Téa Leoni's dad on The Naked Truth. (He'd met her while filming "Flirting with Disaster.") And although he had worked briefly in TV, a series was the last thing on his mind. "There has been no logic to my career whatsoever," says Segal, who now stars as Jack Gallo, "a very self-involved" magazine publisher who is married to a woman his daughter's age. "At first that seemed absurd," says the 62-year-old actor, who recently married again in real life, this time to his childhood sweetheart. "But then I realized it's no more absurd than my own life, which now seems like a sitcom." If Segal is retooling his movie-honed skills for TV -- "It's like making a profound comic strip," he says -- he's had no such difficulties on the set. "This is like retirement," says Segal. "Everyone is so respectful because I'm so old."

JUST SHOOT ME

SPRING, NBC

Stars: Enrico Colantoni, Laura San Giacomo, George Segal, Wendie Malick, David Spade, Chris Hogan

The concept: Bachelor Father meets Lou Grant

The premise: A jaded journalist (San Giacomo) is forced to take a job at a glossy, Cosmo-like magazine published by her womanizing father (Segal), who is now married to one of her high school classmates.

They say: "This woman is so appalled by the superficial atmosphere she finds herself in," says creator and executive producer Steven Levitan (Frasier, The Larry Sanders Show). Levitan says San Giacomo "is the perfect combination of sexy and cynical -- and, man, does she have edge." As her rakish dad, Segal is there to prove "that older characters are not just annoying parents but can be sexy, positive people," says Levitan.

We say: With its top-notch writing and casting, this sitcom has great promise. Spade and Segal are truly hilarious, and San Giacomo is something of a revelation. It's not every actress who could be on the receiving end of a line like "Grow six inches, lose 20 pounds, and find a hairdresser who gave up cocaine with the rest of them," and come out a winner.


Annie Potts

ANNIE'S

CLASS ACT

Potts takes a shot at schoolroom drama on Dangerous Minds

B Y  C A R L A  JO  H A L L

Enough with Michelle Pfeiffer, OK? If Annie Potts had her way, she wouldn't have to talk incessantly about Pfeiffer, her predecessor as the character Louanne Johnson in the film "Dangerous Minds."

As Potts settles into the role for the small-screen version of "Minds" (Mondays at 8 P.M./ET on ABC), she wants to make it clear that the TV show "is a completely different animal. It's not the movie." But, alas, there's no escaping the shadow of the silver screen. Recently, one journalist was uncouth enough to ask Potts if viewers would find her a visual letdown after the sultry Pfeiffer. "I think the correct response to that question is just to say, 'Well, I hope not' -- in the tiniest voice possible," she says with a smile. Potts seems philosophical about the vicissitudes of her profession. "I've been here a very long time," says the 44-year-old actress, who has indeed spent nearly half her life in Hollywood, picking her way through small movie roles and earning stardom in 1986 as the sassy Mary Jo Shively in the hit sitcom Designing Women. "It's like karma. Either you're supposed to do a role or you're not."

It doesn't take 20 years in the business to recognize a plum part in the role of Louanne Johnson, the real-life ex-Marine turned dedicated teacher to a group of unruly urban high-school kids. But it did take Potts's second child, 4-year-old James, to point out to his mother how rare such a role is. "He's assigned three roles to all movies: There's a good guy, a bad guy, and a woman who waits," says Potts. "I think in film you get a whole lot more of the 'woman who waits.' There are very few women who are box-office draws. Arnold Schwarzenegger will open a picture. Steven Seagal will open a picture. Hello! It's just terrifying. Idon't know him, and I try not to react on hearsay, but his films are appalling to me. I don't like to see them. I don't like my kids to see them."

Still, Potts almost turned down the opportunity to play a woman who doesn't wait. She says she first heard about the role at her baby shower last December, when Diane Frolov, the series' executive producer, approached her about it. "I got the script and read it and thought, 'Oh, God.' I didn't want it to be so good. I didn't want to want to do it. My little baby was coming. I just wanted to sit home and play with my baby."

She smiles and looks down at her 9-month-old son, Isaac Harris -- better known as Harry -- lying placidly on her lap. He is the third (and last, she says, laughing) of her brood. Her eldest, Clay, 15, is from her second marriage to Scott Senechal, a movie assistant director. James and Harry are from her third marriage, to James Hayman, a cinematographer and television director (he has directed several episodes of Dangerous Minds).

After reading the script, Potts had her agents put out the word that she was interested. "I think the network could have cared less," she says. "I don't think I was what they had in mind. I had to audition for it. I had to sit there and pretend that all the executives from ABC and Disney were my schoolchildren. I knew I would have to go in and give the audition of my life."

If there was any hesitation on the part of executives about casting her, says Frolov, "it was probably because they were more acquainted with Annie's sitcom work and didn't know her range."

For years, Potts has been a staple of prime-time comedies -- from her seven-year stint on Designing Women to her brief run as Susan Dey's replacement on Love & War, which was canceled last year. "In terms of family, sitcoms are much more conducive to having a life," Potts says. "You work four days a week, and every three or four weeks you have a week off. It's pretty much banker's hours except for the days you shoot."

But Potts wanted more for herself as an actress: something dramatic, something real. "I didn't want to do setup, setup, punch line," she says. "Besides, I think reality is so hilarious, personally."

And Dangerous Minds presented her with a new kind of challenge. "Every frontier presented to us as children has been conquered. Communism has fallen. Space has been conquered. The only frontier left -- and, of course, the largest one of all -- is that of the human heart. It's time to come back and mine those fields.Dangerous Minds does that so well."

After Potts won the role, her husband went out and rented the movie. Potts saw 10 minutes of it, then walked away. "To completely make it my own, I felt that it was important to stick to my own script, to my own interpretation of the character." Potts also avoided consulting with the real-life Louanne Johnson -- although Johnson did call the actress after she saw her in the pilot episode. "She said I had some excellent dirty looks," says Potts, laughing.

Potts took most of her inspiration for the character from one of her favorite film roles -- Karla, the flinty Texas oilman's wife she played in "Texasville," the 1990 sequel to "The Last Picture Show."

"They're these sort of wildly confident Southern women," says Potts, herself a Southern woman who grew up in the small Kentucky town of Franklin. "Of course, underneath they are terrified and don't want to let you know that. They're fiercely loyal and committed, passionate and compassionate. The 'Texasville' character was like that about her family. But for Louanne Johnson, her family is these kids."

Unlike Pfeiffer's character in the movie, who started off unsure of herself as a teacher, Potts's character bursts through the school doors ready for battle with her belligerent students.

"That's all bravado, you know what I mean?" she says, chuckling about her character's supreme self-confidence. "My interpretation of her going in there was like the Robert Duvall character in 'Apocalypse Now' -- mortars are going off all around him, and he's heading for the beach. He's just moving in." Louanne's bluster, she adds, is worse than her bite. "I think she'll have failures, like we all do."

If Potts does have failures, she seems to have few regrets. "Texasville" was the movie she thought would make her a full-time movie actress, if not a star. She hasn't made another movie since.

"I don't have a lot of romantic notions left about how fabulous it would be to be a movie star or whatever," she says, "because I know how hard it is, and I know what the responsibilities are. It's not going to kill me if I'm not a movie star."

Of course, not being a TV star is another story, especially for a woman who still mourns the death of the short-lived Love & War.

"I loved the show and I loved the cast. It was a good gig," she says wistfully, lamenting the need for shows to have blockbuster ratings in order to survive.

"Everybody wants Friends," Potts muses. "Friends completely stumps me. I have watched it a couple of times. Maybe I'm just showing my age, but I just don't get it."


Savannah

SO SEXY...

SO SULTRY...

SO SAVANNAH

The sophomore soap that kick-started the WB network is getting back to basics

B Y  M A R K  S C H W E D

As Jamie Luner emerges from her trailer into the searing Savannah sun, everyone drops what they're doing and simply gapes. You can't blame them. Luner, the evil, bed-hopping Peyton Richards on the WB's Savannah, is at her vampy bad-girl best, propped up on a pair of spiky pumps, and squeezed into a sinfully tight electric-blue micro-mini. She sweeps her flame-red hair over her bare shoulders, grins devilishly, and bumps and grinds her way down the magnolia-lined street. The macho-man crew erupts in catcalls. "Wooo! Wooo!" they hoot. "Oh, my," director Harvey Frost mumbles to himself. "That is hot."

So hot, in fact, that a crew member scrambles to hold an umbrella over Luner's head to cool things down. Fat chance. With the second season well under way, Aaron Spelling's saucy Southern sudser is poised to out-vamp and out-camp Spelling's other hotshot soap, Melrose Place on Fox.

And for the first time, cast and crew are actually shooting in Savannah, Georgia, soaking up the mint-julep flavor of this succulent and oh-so-Southern river city. "This is the South before Sherman, you know?" says Frost. "It is astounding. You can point your camera anywhere you want and you get beautiful antebellum history. And just every single angle has something that is truly staggering about it."

Luner agrees. "You really have to come here and touch this place to get the real McCoy." Right now, the city is basking in a red-hot media glow generated by both Savannah and John Berendt's bestseller Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, a nonfiction account of some of this colorful city's more colorful denizens (like the Lady Chablis, page 19). It's an expensive proposition, bringing cast and crew down here from Atlanta, where the show is usually shot. But there's a reason: to turn up the heat on the hottest show on the WB network.

"I want to see those Southern belles sweating," says WB head Jamie Kellner. "I love that."

What he loves even more is the way Savannah has delivered the goods. Since debuting last season, the series about three beautiful Southern women has been the WB's most-watched show, although ratings pale compared to a hit show on the big networks. Nevertheless, Savannah, which moved this season from Sunday to Monday, pulls in the perfect audience for advertisers: young and female, the same women Monday Night Football can't tackle. It has also caught fire in Europe, especially the United Kingdom, where it is one of the highest-rated U.S. TV series on the air -- even doubling the numbers for the hour-long U.K. season premiere of NBC's Friends.

"I have to love all my shows, but Savannah definitely put us on the map," says Kellner. "For a fragile, brand-new baby network to get that kind of show early on -- in exactly one year -- is wonderful. And maybe a bit of luck."

But there's a price to pay for that success. This season, the stars have been given bigger trailers; a bigger, better-equipped set; and bigger paychecks (but not even close to the $100,000 per episode that the Friends stars were seeking).

Off-stage there have been changes, too. Robyn Lively and David Gail, whose characters, Lane and Dean, are just a hop-skip away from the altar this season, had a roaring summer romance that fizzled by fall. "My daddy warned me about this. He said don't fish off the company pier," says Lively, the only authentic Georgian among the cast.

And, in the first sign of trouble that usually accompanies a hit show, one star is already making noise about quitting unless her lines are beefed up. "I don't know how much longer I can take this," she huffed to a cast member, who promptly ratted her out to the press.

"They are all very competitive," says one producer. "Very competitive."

Nothing but lies, say the stars.

"Catfighting? Oh, God, no," says Luner. "Just the opposite. Nobody is caught up in that attitude, you know? We are all just so different. There is nothing to compete with at all. None of us are like that. We get along so great that when we get together it's just girl time. We giggle and laugh a lot. We love each other."

So maybe the jury's still out on the ego-tripping. One thing is for sure -- their egos are definitely being stroked by adoring fans.

"I go into the supermarket and I'm picking out oranges," says Luner, "and someone says, 'Oooooo. You are so bad!' I'm like, 'What? Should I pick the pears?' This summer I went camping with my boyfriend. I mean, I'm on the top of some mountain, sweating, in pigtails and overalls, and they are like, 'You're that girl Peyton!' And I'm like, 'Waaaaa.' They love this catty bad-girl stuff. I guess I'm going to have to get a beard and mustache."

Peyton may be the darling of viewers in the U.S., but it's Reese, the golden-haired belle played by Shannon Sturges, who is drawing raves overseas, especially in London. "Isn't it amazing? I'm their little Princess Di over there. I am the little rich girl who married the wrong guy. I love it," says Sturges, referring to the first episode of the show, where she wed a man named Travis, caught him cheating on her, then dumped him for good -- all in two hours of TV.

In fact, the actor who played Travis, George Eads, was so deliciously evil, so perfect in the role, that producers immediately wanted him for more episodes. Just one problem: They had killed him off in the premiere. And so, after some tough negotiating and a season-long wait, Eads was brought back on as Nick, the drop-dead handsome dead-ringer for dead brother Travis.

Eads' return isn't the only change. Toward the end of the season, producers realized that like Melrose Place, Savannah had lost its way, focusing on murders, kidnappings, drug busts, and paternity battles instead of what made the show so juicy to watch in the first place. "It became a detective show within a soap," says one network source. So, after wrapping up all the crime cliffhangers left over from last year, Savannah will get back to the basics starting this week: back to the women, the Southern flavor, the glamour, and, of course, the sex.

"Through and through, it's a true-blue soap," says Paul Satterfield of General Hospital and Beverly Hills, 90210 fame, who now plays conniving, double-crossing, jive-talking, back-stabbing Tom Massick. "This is a role you hope for, you pray for. It probably won't win any awards, but, God, it's fun."

Consider what some of the upcoming episodes have in store:

Peyton seduces Eleanor's husband, Charles, to get even with Eleanor for breaking up her engagement to Brian. "Sex, sex, sex," says Luner. "Just like the old days."

Lane and Dean hit the gambling tables to raise the money for their wedding, then give it all away to charity. But before they tie the knot, someone will try to bust up their love. "She's the love of my life, my soul mate," says Gail. "And if someone comes near her, I'm going to get nasty. I'm a bulldog."

Reese and Nick are destined to hook up if Peyton will stop toying with him long enough for Reese to get her hooks into him. "Peyton will flirt with a firefly," says Sturges. "She'll even flirt with her sister."

That kind of outrageous behavior would shock even the normally unflappable citizens of Savannah, who have turned out in droves today to watch the cast and crew do their job. Like the crew, they can't help but stare at Luner as she saunters down the block. Aware of all the attention, Luner plays it to the hilt. She grabs her chest, jiggles it a bit, and says in her sexiest Southern drawl, "Should it be lower?" The camera operator sighs and pretends he's fainting.

"This is exactly why I watch this show," says Claudia Walker of Orlando, Florida, who has accidentally stumbled onto the set of her favorite show while visiting her daughter. "I'm addicted."

But while the locals are happy to have the Hollywood crowd in town, there's still room for improvement. Just the other day, Beth Toussaint Coleman, who as the wicked Veronica Koslowsky is helping the crooked Edward Burton (Ray Wise) run for Senate, bumped into the city's mayor. "He said, 'You really capture the beauty of Savannah, but I don't know about all this corruption you keep putting in your show.'"

That's not the only complaint. While shopping for antiques, Lively, Coleman, and Sturges got a bit of a lecture from the store's owner. "I was just standing there looking at some stuff," recalls Lively, "and she came up to me and said, 'Don't make those accents so thick.' Like she was kind of offended. I said, 'Excuse me?' You know, they're very sensitive about that. But I'm from Georgia. So I guess my accent is OK. And I don't tell her how to run her antique store, you know?"

"We hear a lot from people in Savannah and Atlanta,"says Coleman."They are not happy with the accents. They don't feel they're dead-on."

Fortunately, it's not accurate accents or politically incorrect politicians that draw viewers to Savannah each week. It's beautifully buffed and oversexed people in an exotic setting doing outrageous things, usually to each other.

"I've been asking people what it is they love so much about this show,"says Luner."And you know what they say?First, it's the Southern charm. It's something they haven't gotten too much of. Second, it's that we're all catty. And third, it's the sex."

Lively sums it up best. "It's like Dynasty, you know,"says Lively."It's so bad it's good."


Wrap-Up

TV SEASON WRAP-UP

This season is a wrap -- let's see what happened

BY J. MAX ROBINS

Now that the 1995-96 prime-time season is over, it's time to take stock. The headline:NBC had a great year, with strong showings across the board, and Nielsen ratings up 2 percent overall (all figures as of mid-April). As for the rest of the story, the three other major networks were down. Going into the season, CBS tried a personality transplant, seeking younger audiences with shows like Central Park West. By the time that soap crashed and burned, CBS realized it had made a mistake and went back to playing to its strength, traditional, star-driven fare like Nash Bridges, with some success -- but not before the network had a 13 percent ratings slide. There were few bright spots for ABC, which saw many of its established hits drop off, almost none of its new shows catch on, and ratings plummet 9 percent. Fox was down 3 percent, as new comedies aimed at the Friends crowd failed to catch on (though the network could take some comfort in the growth of The X-Files and Party of Five). The numbers may change when May sweeps results are included, but you get the picture.

It didn't help any that the networks launched a daunting 42 new shows last fall. Who could keep them all straight? And competition from cable grew even more intense -- basic cable's overall audience increased by 16 percent this season.

Let's take a closer look at just who soared…and who sank.

THE JUGGERNAUT

NBC's Thursday shows are like the Chicago Bulls of prime time: With a lineup of ER (the No. 1 drama), Seinfeld (the No. 1 comedy), and Friends (the most imitated show on the air), it can't lose. At the beginning of the season, there was some fear that moving Friends from the cushy time slot between Seinfeld and ER to 8 P.M., when fewer people are watching, would slow it down. Ha! The Ross-Rachel romance helped boost the show from its debut season's No. 8 Nielsen ranking to No. 3 (as of May 5). Seinfeld, which had slowed creatively, seemed to hit its stride again this year, coming in No. 2 overall -- proving that it is still the master of the sitcom domain. The cast was having so much fun, they agreed to another season. And ER showed no signs of a sophomore slump; it climbed 2 ratings points in the Nielsens and, according to a study by the influential research firm Marketing Evaluations, the popularity of Sherry Stringfield, Noah Wyle, and Julianna Margulies has yet to peak.

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR

NBC put all of its promotional pyrotechnics behind 3rd Rock from the Sun. But viewers would have seen through the hype if the comedy hadn't been out of this world. 3rd Rock -- the only freshman breakout hit of the 1995-96 season -- topped its lead-in, Wings, by more than 2 ratings points and consistently landed in the top 20. In the eat-your-heart-out department: ABC passed on the show before it landed on NBC.

MIRACLE WORKER

When CBS's Touched by an Angel launched two seasons ago, TV wags said it would need divine intervention to survive. Surprise. It turned out there were millions who became converts to this update of Highway to Heaven. The show grew gradually and managed to increase its audience by 1.3 ratings points from its lead-in, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. An impressive season-long performance may find the winning cast following 60 Minutes come September.

FAMILY VALUES

After its first season, ratings alone would not have justified bringing back the critically acclaimed Party of Five. But Fox had watched Melrose Place and Beverly Hills, 90210 take time to establish themselves, so it upped the romance quotient and stayed with the family drama. The gamble paid off. The audience climbed more than 20 percent.

SUPERNATURAL COUPLES

Mix sexual tension and the otherworldly and you come up with ratings heat. Case in point: Fox's The X-Files, up 10 percent in the all-important 18-49 age group. And the "Q scores" (which measure celebrities' likability) for stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson have taken off. On Lois & Clark, Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher drew a super audience, up 8 percent, despite ABC's lackluster season and tough competition from Cybill, The Simpsons, and Mad About You.

WINNING WALTERS

This year marked Barbara Walters' 20th anniversary with ABC News, and she had more to celebrate than longevity. She scored virtually every major interview, from Colin Powell to Christopher Reeve. 20/20 was regularly in the top 10, and her specials attracted huge audiences. Walters is expected to sign a new contract with ABC that will exceed $10 million a year. Is she worth it?Consider this: According to one industry source, a 30-second ad during her pre-Oscar show goes for $350,000.

COMEBACK KID

Thanks to Don Johnson's tongue-in-cheek performance as a streetwise cop, CBS's late-season entry Nash Bridges managed to score higher ratings than Picket Fences, which it replaced, and ranked higher than its lead-in, Diagnosis Murder.

TALL TED

It reportedly cost a record $2 million to lure Ted Danson from film to NBC's miniseries Gulliver's Travels. After Gulliver was a hit -- the No. 1 mini of the season, leading NBC's other mini hit, The Beast, by a tentacle -- Danson decided to return to prime time. Next season he'll star with wife Mary Steenburgen in a CBS comedy tentatively called Ink.

HOT ICE

If it seemed like there was more figure skating than ever on TV this season, there's a good reason why: There was. Figure skating triple-axled its way to the big leagues, trailing only football in the sports ratings.

NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK

The two baby networks, the WB and UPN, each had a surprise success this year with shows that veered from the game plan. UPN was going to be the home of action/adventure, but when CBS passed on Moesha, UPN snapped it up as a midseason entry. Moesha's 3.8 rating is short of the 5.2 Star Trek: Voyager delivers, but is still a strong showing for a new network. The WB turned from its sweet sitcoms to find success in the steamy Savannah, its highest-rated show.

Better Luck Next Year

CRIMINAL CONDUCT

Critics hailed Murder One as the season's best new show. Yet airing this serial drama against ER and then ping-ponging it around the schedule was a real crime. ABC has been guilty before of launching a first-rate show -- witness My So-Called Life -- and then being unable to sell it.

DANGER ZONE

ABC's working-class heroines -- Roseanne, Ellen, and Grace Under Fire -- had better watch out. All have seen declines of more than 25 percent with a key audience, 18- to 49-year-olds. What's worse, ABC has long sold itself to advertisers as the top network for that group.

ENOUGH ALREADY

Hard to believe that Married…with Children is now the longest-running sitcom on TV. When the show debuted nine years ago on Fox, it became the brand-new network's first hit. But the ratings for Peg and Al dropped by 12 percent this season.

OVERHYPED & UNDERWATCHED

You couldn't miss hearing about it: Central Park West was going to be the show to transform CBS from the Geritol to the Clearasil Network. But it tanked with a measly 6.2 rating. A makeover included letting Mariel Hemingway go and hiring Raquel Welch and Gerald McRaney. CPW is slated for a summer run, but don't look for it in the fall.

HUDSON HAWK?

ABC was convinced that Who's the Boss? star Tony Danza would be the boss once again. But his Hudson Street numbers lagged: It delivered a 10.7 rating for the season. Once 3rd Rock came on as competition, Hudson Street was a dead end.

D.O.A.

Champs got all the breaks from ABC, including a choice slot after Home Improvement. But this buddy sitcom about a bunch of former high-school basketball champs who can't cope with middle age -- the first show produced by Steven Spielberg and friends' DreamWorks SKG -- was ill-conceived. Canceled after four episodes, it should have been called Chumps.

AFTER THE DELUGE

The popularity of Seinfeld, Friends, and Mad About You led to an avalanche of comedies about young urbanites that left viewers dazed and confused. Quickly canceled and quickly forgotten: If Not for You, Too Something, The Pursuit of Happiness, Dweebs. Forget espresso-bar chic: Next fall, look for ER and The X-Files imitators.


Millenium

HEART OF DARKNESS

Be afraid: Millennium, the season's hottest new drama, is designed to tap into your worst nightmares

B Y   M A R K   S C H W E D

Brittany Tiplady, the 5-and-a-half-year-old bundle of curls who plays the little girl on Millennium, clutches her Pocahontas and Barbie dolls close to her heart, as if hoping they can ward off the monsters that haunt her sleep. She's talking about a scene, shot weeks before, where a bogeyman clown was chasing her. Even when the work was done and she went home for the night, she couldn't shake the images. "I got kind of scared," she says. "I didn't want to go upstairs and put my pajamas on or anything. I had nightmares." To dampen her fear, her parents had a little talk with her. You know, the kind where you explain the difference between make-believe and real stuff. "They tell me there's no such thing as monsters," she says. "They tell me I'm acting like a wimp."

A wimp? "Well, sometimes I really am a wimp. But so is my mommy. She gets scared, too."

Brittany and her mommy are in good company. By most accounts, Millennium has scared the living daylights out of quite a few people with its graphic images and horrific tales of serial killers who lop off heads, sew mouths shut, hack bodies, and burn priests at the stake. And yet it premiered in its Friday-night slot -- once occupied by The X-Files -- with the highest debut Nielsen rating for any show in Fox history. Twenty-one percent of the TV sets that were on in America were tuned to Millennium's first episode. Obviously, quite a few people were lured to the dark side -- body parts and all.

"Lukewarm is not interesting to me," says scaremaster Chris Carter, the writer-producer who makes a fine living making people squirm with The X-Files and now Millennium. "It may be graphic in some cases because it must be. That's what I do."

Carter says he has no qualms about sharing his paranoid and sometimes violent vision of the world with TV audiences. "If you just deal with goodness and selflessness, it means nothing -- unless it is in jeopardy," he says. "That is what people don't understand about the violence. It is irresponsible to just set out to tell sweet stories because I think it is Pollyanna-ish and it does a disservice to the audience."

"We have to show people the dark side before the light can come out," says Bill Smitrovich, who plays homicide Lt. Bob Bletcher on Millennium. "We have to show the horror before showing that hope exists."

The horror is based on a simple premise: As the clock ticks down to the millennium -- the year 2000 -- deranged psychopaths surface worldwide to commit murder and mayhem.

Lance Henriksen stars as ex-FBI agent Frank Black, who fled Washington, D.C., to escape the depravity only to find that it followed him to his sleepy Seattle doorstep. Besides being a darn good cop, he has the power to "see what the killer sees…I become the horror -- what we know we can become in our heart of darkness." He gets tipped off to crimes by the Millennium Group, a secret organization of law-enforcement officials who believe that they "can't just sit back and hope for a happy ending." His wife, Catherine, played by Megan Gallagher (The Larry Sanders Show, China Beach), is a social worker who deals with horror's aftermath, like the child-abuse victim she counsels in an upcoming episode. Together with daughter Jordan (Tiplady), they represent the hope of humanity, the goodness in us all trying to stem the tide of violence.

Black doesn't wear a tie. Nor does he carry a gun. "I've never killed anybody on the show and I am not going to," Henriksen says. Maybe so. But people do die. And as the body count climbs week after week, the so-called aftermath of violence is there for all to see.

"Yeah, we've gotten some calls from people who find it a little rough," admits Fox Entertainment president Peter Roth. "But we've gotten an equal number of calls from those who feel it's terrific television. I count myself as one of those."

You can understand his enthusiasm. As head of Twentieth Century Fox Television, he helped Carter develop both The X-Files and Millennium. And now, as the newly installed president of Fox Entertainment Group, he knows the two shows will have a major impact on the success of his season.

With so much at stake, Fox didn't take any chances. It pumped $10 million into promoting the debut, flooding the media with promos (which were especially prominent during the World Series) and even previewing the show in movie theaters across the country, sparking a Millennium mania that drew 17.1 million viewers to Fox for the Friday-night launch. It was, without a doubt, one of the most successful marketing campaigns in recent TV history.

Still, TV critics who got advance copies of the pilot couldn't help but pose the question: Does Millennium go too far? That all depends on whom you ask. People magazine gave the show an A and raved, "With its creepy soundtrack, terrifying visuals, and ingenious plot twists, Millennium is far and away the best new show of the year." But those same "visuals" made Newsweek call for the V-chip police to cuff Carter on the spot for delivering "all the smut and violence Bob Dole warned you about -- and then some." The article was headlined: "Warning! The XXX-Files."

On the Internet, the same issues were being debated. "I just sat there saying to myself, 'This is going to be on TV?'" said one on-line observer. "I think it's great," said another. And in this week's issue, TV Guide's Couch Critic weighs in with his opinion.

The Millennium set in Vancouver is just a three-hour plane ride from Los Angeles, but it seems a million miles away from Hollywood. Here in the frigid and rainy Northwest, the cast and crew only catch brief flashes of the hullabaloo across the border. But as launch day approached, even insiders couldn't dodge the hype.

Tonight, on an out-of-the-way, Beaver Cleaver-type street, the media descends on the set for the last round of interviews before the debut. Henriksen is talking to a reporter from London, while across the street, Gallagher is answering similar questions for a Los Angeles TV crew. "Tell me about your character…what's her name?" Two "Seattle" police cars with flashing lights sit in a driveway. A giant truck holding 35,000 tons of water for fake rain cranks up its engine and moves closer to the shoot. Crew members swivel cameras on top of giant cranes and huge lights turn night into day as crowds of bystanders gather to see what's happening on their once peaceful block. A woman from the crew passes out cups of chicken soup to cut the chill. The circus-like atmosphere makes everything even more surreal.

"I'll do anything I can to help, but I just want to get back to work," mutters Henriksen, tiring of the press onslaught. "I just want to zero in." That's actor-speak for trying to focus on the character, the lines, the work. But even up here, the actors have a feeling that Millennium is going to be big.

Gallagher reports that Carter's trusted director, David Nutter, has just gotten the results of a test screening. "I'm on the phone and he tells me, 'Through the roof!' I said, 'What?' 'They were through the roof. All age groups. Women tested slightly higher than men. And 18 to 35 is…blah blah blah. They loved it!'" Still, Gallagher isn't going to get too carried away. "It's hard to know how much people are going to like being scared and challenged in this way," she says. "We'll find out."

Henriksen is also doing his best to ignore the hoopla. "What good is the hype," he says with a scowl. "It's like a drug. I don't need that." When the talk turns to fame, he bristles. "I am not a star. I am not working toward that. They are using words like that now. But those are the ones that make me go, 'Whoa! Wait a minute.' That's not what it's about."

He's been there before, when he played a cop in "Dog Day Afternoon" and the android whose body was sliced in half in "Aliens."

"I remember I was in a restaurant and a guy aimed his finger at me and went 'BANG!' I went, What the hell did he just do? Was he a hit man? Oh, that's right. 'Dog Day Afternoon.' Then after 'Aliens,' they poked me in the leg and went, 'Ah, got your legs back, pal.' I thought, This is disturbing. I couldn't go shopping anymore. I couldn't walk the street. I had to sort of disappear for a while. I'll probably have to do the same here." Nothing, of course, is guaranteed. While the debut was smashing, everyone knows the ratings may not remain at their initial high levels. "We don't expect these numbers every week," says Fox's Roth. Also to be determined is whether viewers want a steady diet of darkness and despair, topped off with a dollop of hope, every Friday night.

Nutter, who directs for both The X-Files and Millennium, echoes Carter when he says that the show's dark, violent images are necessary to counter the "fairy-tale TVworld"presented in most other shows."It is our responsibility -- our obligation -- to show just how bad it can be."

And if you're one of those who finds the show too grisly, Henriksen suggests you get over it. "Instead of having a V-chip," he says, "we should have the B.S.-chip. We need to take the B.S. off the television. This show is not B.S."

On the Internet, the same issues were being debated. "I just sat there saying to myself, 'This is going to be on TV?'" said one on-line observer. "I think it's great," said another. And in this week's issue, TV Guide's Couch Critic weighs in with his opinion.

The Millennium set in Vancouver is just a three-hour plane ride from Los Angeles, but it seems a million miles away from Hollywood. Here in the frigid and rainy Northwest, the cast and crew only catch brief flashes of the hullabaloo across the border. But as launch day approached, even insiders couldn't dodge the hype.

Tonight, on an out-of-the-way, Beaver Cleaver-type street, the media descends on the set for the last round of interviews before the debut. Henriksen is talking to a reporter from London, while across the street, Gallagher is answering similar questions for a Los Angeles TV crew. "Tell me about your character…what's her name?" Two "Seattle" police cars with flashing lights sit in a driveway. A giant truck holding 35,000 tons of water for fake rain cranks up its engine and moves closer to the shoot. Crew members swivel cameras on top of giant cranes and huge lights turn night into day as crowds of bystanders gather to see what's happening on their once peaceful block. A woman from the crew passes out cups of chicken soup to cut the chill. The circus-like atmosphere makes everything even more surreal.

"I'll do anything I can to help, but I just want to get back to work," mutters Henriksen, tiring of the press onslaught. "I just want to zero in." That's actor-speak for trying to focus on the character, the lines, the work. But even up here, the actors have a feeling that Millennium is going to be big.

Gallagher reports that Carter's trusted director, David Nutter, has just gotten the results of a test screening. "I'm on the phone and he tells me, 'Through the roof!' I said, 'What?' 'They were through the roof. All age groups. Women tested slightly higher than men. And 18 to 35 is…blah blah blah. They loved it!'" Still, Gallagher isn't going to get too carried away. "It's hard to know how much people are going to like being scared and challenged in this way," she says. "We'll find out."

Henriksen is also doing his best to ignore the hoopla. "What good is the hype," he says with a scowl. "It's like a drug. I don't need that." When the talk turns to fame, he bristles. "I am not a star. I am not working toward that. They are using words like that now. But those are the ones that make me go, 'Whoa! Wait a minute.' That's not what it's about."

He's been there before, when he played a cop in "Dog Day Afternoon" and the android whose body was sliced in half in "Aliens."

"I remember I was in a restaurant and a guy aimed his finger at me and went 'BANG!' I went, What the hell did he just do? Was he a hit man? Oh, that's right. 'Dog Day Afternoon.' Then after 'Aliens,' they poked me in the leg and went, 'Ah, got your legs back, pal.' I thought, This is disturbing. I couldn't go shopping anymore. I couldn't walk the street. I had to sort of disappear for a while. I'll probably have to do the same here."

Nothing, of course, is guaranteed. While the debut was smashing, everyone knows the ratings may not remain at their initial high levels. "We don't expect these numbers every week," says Fox's Roth. Also to be determined is whether viewers want a steady diet of darkness and despair, topped off with a dollop of hope, every Friday night.

Nutter, who directs for both The X-Files and Millennium, echoes Carter when he says that the show's dark, violent images are necessary to counter the "fairy-tale TVworld"presented in most other shows."It is our responsibility -- our obligation -- to show just how bad it can be."

And if you're one of those who finds the show too grisly, Henriksen suggests you get over it. "Instead of having a V-chip," he says, "we should have the B.S.-chip. We need to take the B.S. off the television. This show is not B.S."