TELEVISION

TV vets latch on to Lifetime chances

By JOANNE WEINTRAUB of the Journal Sentinel staff

Sunday, August 10, 2003

Two familiar faces turn up in a pair of middling Lifetime series, both of which premiered recently.

The more promising of the two is "Wild Card," an easy-to-take hour starring Joely Fisher as a former Las Vegas dancer and blackjack dealer turned sleuth and -- thanks to some young, motherless relatives -- instant mom.

Since losing her job as best friend of the title character when "Ellen" was canceled in 1998, the hard-working Fisher has appeared in no fewer than four flash-in-the-pan sitcoms. It turns out, though, that she's better suited to this sort of comic-dramatic hybrid, where her energy doesn't boil over into frantic mugging.

Zoe Busiek leaves Las Vegas for her native Chicago to care for two young nieces and a nephew orphaned by the death of her older sister. Suspicious about the car accident that claimed her sister's life, she starts looking into the details herself and uncovers a scam.

Where you or I, in this situation, might spend the rest of our natural lives fighting with the insurance company over a settlement, Zoe, being a true Lifetime heroine, is instead offered a job by said company as a claims investigator.

Her new colleagues include the tough, practical Sophia (Rae Dawn Chong) and the reformed bad boy Dan (Chris Potter, "Queer as Folk"). Dan, in accordance with Lifetime guidelines, is single and great- looking, as is Marcos (Bronson Picket), an old high school classmate turned teacher. And it won't surprise you to learn that both of the latter quickly warm to Zoe's eccentric charm.

We're in the land of wish fulfillment, where jobless women with unimpressive resumes land plum jobs and an Auntie Mom quickly wins over an impossible adolescent.

But Fisher keeps you rooting for her. When she shows up at the high school gym to chaperon a dance -- at Marcos' invitation, natch - - she looks just uncomfortable enough in her slinky dress to be plausible. And when she does battle with her new kids or one of the con artists she's investigating, she gives you the sense she's desperately improvising, as an ordinary human faced with an extraordinary challenge would do.

"1-800-MISSING" involves investigators, too: old hand Gloria Reuben ("ER," "The Agency") as Brooke Haslett, a seasoned, by-the- book FBI agent, and newcomer Caterina Scorsone as Jess Mastriani, a young woman who reluctantly lends her psychic abilities to missing- persons cases.

Brooke and Jess are your basic odd couple, opposites who both complement and conflict with one another. One's practical, one's mystical: Together, they get the job done, but not before getting on each others' nerves.

The problem is, it's hard to swallow "1-800-MISSING," unless you can swallow Jess' premonitions. And it doesn't make dramatic sense that Brooke, with her tough-chick doubt and cynicism, would swallow them -- but swallow them she does, because they turn out to be right on the money.

In its favor, the series does have some spirited exchanges between the two women, as well as some decent romantic stuff going on between Brooke and her boyfriend (Vondie Curtis-Hall, "Chicago Hope").

Short takes

-- It's an unfortunate coincidence that "Gay Hollywood" (9 p.m. Monday, AMC) involves five gay men, exactly the same number as in Bravo's "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," because the fabulousness of the latter just makes the ordinariness of the former look all the more unexciting.

In fact, comparisons aside, it's hard to know what the makers of this 90-minute special had in mind as they profiled five gay newcomers -- all of them white, boyish and blondish, as one of the group observes -- to Hollywood. The men's struggle to gain a foothold in the glass mountain of show business seems neither harder nor easier than anyone else's, so what's the point of singling them out?

-- "Blue Takes You to School" (7 p.m. Monday, repeated 9:30 a.m. Tuesday through Friday, Nickelodeon), the latest "Blue's Clues" prime- time special, is timed to ease tiny viewers through their first-day anxieties.

Puppy Blue, a seasoned school-goer, accompanies her kitten friend, Periwinkle, through his very first day in Ms. Marigold's classroom. With their bipedal pal Joe (Donovan Patton) along for additional emotional support, it all goes down as easily as chocolate milk.

E-mail: jweintraub@journalsentinel.com.

WHEN TO WATCH

What: "Wild Card" When: 8 p.m. Saturdays, repeated 11 p.m. Sundays and 8 p.m. Fridays Where: Lifetime

What: "1-800-MISSING" When: 9 p.m. Saturdays, repeated 10 p.m. Sundays and 9 p.m. Fridays Where: Lifetime

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