Chicago Sun-Times: Let's give nobody a hand for Lifetime achievements

lead character is applauded at or near the end of the story.

It usually means that the manipulative people making the movie or TV show fear you won't think to applaud their hero without prompting. And they're usually right.

Lifetime's new "Wild Card"--an "Erin Brockovich" knockoff starring Joely Fisher as a blackjack dealer-turned-insurance-investigator thrust into the role of single parent--is plenty of things. But ovation-worthy isn't one of them.

The (STAR)(STAR)1/2 "Wild Card" is one of two lady-crusader series Lifetime is trotting out this weekend. Its 8 p.m. debut Saturday is followed at 9 by the (STAR)(STAR) premiere of "1-800 Missing," an "X- Files"-like pairing of a skeptical FBI agent (Gloria Reuben) and some young woman (Caterina Scorsone) who, ever since she was clipped by lightning, has had dreams that reveal where missing people are being kept.

No need to clap here, either. It plays its worn-out gimmick as well as it can, but when all is said and done, we're still talking about a gimmick and the cliche of mismatched investigators.

(Whatever you do, don't pick up the phone and call 1-800-M-I-S-S- I-N-G. The title number is a $3.99-per-minute psychic hotline, and it's one thing to be robbed of an hour by a mediocre TV show and quite another to actually have to shell out cash for the mistake.)

"ER" vet Reuben is still a talent to be reckoned with, but Scorsone is anything but, and the writing in support of the two is so- so at best.

"Wild Card," on the other hand, is downright gregarious in trying to woo viewers. Co-creators Lynn Marie Latham (a former head writer on "Port Charles") and Bernard Lechowick ("Wolf Lake") don't miss a trick. Neither does Fisher. But it only works if you don't notice you're being prodded.

No one can blame Fisher for trying extra hard to please. After successive series busts "Baby Bob," "Danny," "Grosse Pointe" and "Normal, Ohio," she has to be wondering whether it's her skills or her inability to judge material that's dragging her down.

It's not enough that Fisher's Zoe Busieck is returning home here to tend her dead sister's young kids. She's also fighting the insurance company over her sister's fatal accident. The company, relying on what proves to be a suspect police report, denies a $15,000 claim and sets Zoe off to show the crash wasn't her sister's fault.

When she's not busy investigating her sister's case, Zoe picks up a pair of possible suitors, saves one kid from the date-rape drug, calms another who blames himself for his mother's death, helps the third child with a school project and, of course, looks for a job, though it's pretty clear where she'll end up.

The bad people fall like dominoes--paving the way for civil suits that would pay far more than the $15,000 policy and leave the youngsters set for life if only someone would suggest litigation-- and reaches a crescendo with the applause of insurance personnel curiously pleased to see their firm hand out cash it didn't want to pay.

At your house this may be complemented by the sound of one hand clapping. Or a click of the remote.