THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 25, 1995 TAG: 9503240065
SECTION: TELEVISION WEEK PAGE: 1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LARRY BONKO, Television columnist
LENGTH: Long : 152 lines
JUST ABOUT THE TIME ``The Twilight Zone'' was peaking on CBS in 1963, ABC launched a zoned-out series of its own, ``The Outer Limits.'' While Rod Serling lipped narration steered viewers into ``The Twilight Zone,'' creator-producer Leslie Stevens ushered them aboard ``The Outer Limits'' with a mild shock.
The picture disappeared for a moment or two followed by this announcement:
``There is nothing wrong with your TV set. We are controlling the transmission. For the next hour, we will control what you hear, see and think. You are watching a drama that reaches from the inner mind to the outer limits.''
Creepy, huh?
Three decades have passed and somebody on the other side of the screen still has control of the picture.
``The Outer Limits'' returns for 44 episodes on Showtime with a two-hour premiere Sunday at 8.
Three generations of the Bridges family do battle with fast-growing life forms that were carried to Earth in dirt and scooped up on Mars. Except for being a wee bit drawn out, the ``Sandkings'' episode is terrific science-fiction. Even better are the one-hour versions that follow.
Except for when Leonard Nimoy re-creates his role from the original series in an episode called ``I, Robot,'' Showtime has contracted for new scripts in ``The Outer Limits'' revival. Speaking of robots, the first hour-long episode, ``Valerie 23,'' is about a gorgeous companion robot played by Sofia Shinas who goes mad with jealousy. Starting with ``Valerie 23,'' the episodes begin running Friday nights at 10.
This being cable and all, the producers have license to use strong language and fleshy images. You get to see all of Shinas in ``Valerie 23.'' Steven Hewitt, executive vice president for the Showtime Entertainment Group, told a gathering of TV writers in Los Angeles not long ago that ``The Outer Limits'' in 1995 will reflect the sophistication of today's viewers.
``And we'll still have the sense of tension,'' he said.
The Sandkings premiere, in which Beau Bridges co-stars with his pop, Lloyd, and son, Dylan, is plenty tense. Beau Bridges is cast as a government scientist working on a hush-hush project that involves hundreds of dormant eggs in sand retrieved from Mars.
Just when Bridges is close to transforming the eggs into living organisms, Uncle Sam cancels the project. Bridges scoops up some sand and transfers the operation to his garage at great peril to family, friends and pets. His wife is played by Helen Shaver, with whom he teamed 15 years ago in a splendid NBC drama that was way ahead of its time, ``United States.''
``The story is kind of spooky and horrid,'' said Beau Bridges. ``But everything is so bizarre, that you almost have to laugh. There is a giggle built in. These stories will be fine for kids.''
Except when Shinas slips out of her white frock.
That's when adults should take control of the picture away from the controller. It's adult stuff.
``The Outer Limits'' is one of three new series to arrive with the start of spring. March and April used to be one vast wasteland of reruns. No longer.
On Friday night at 9, CBS breaks out a new series from Dick Wolf, who created ``Law & Order.'' The show, ``The Wright Verdicts,'' is also about what lawyers do. The hero is Charles Wright, who drives a Rolls Royce, speaks fluent Japanese, talks to himself a lot, is on a first-name basis with the governor and dresses better than Matlock. He is played by Tom Conti.
In the premiere, police find the body of a man stuffed into the trunk of his car. His boxer shorts are on backward, and there is arsenic in his bloodstream.
The cops say his mistress did him in. Conti comes to her rescue.
ABC has delayed the premiere of ``Bringing Up Jack,'' a sitcom in which Jack Gallagher plays the host of a sports talk show on radio. Instead, ABC is putting ``Coach'' in the Wednesday timeslot. ``Bringing Up Jack'' is the usual sitcom tripe. How can ABC in good conscience consider canceling ``My So-Called Life,'' a drama of high quality, while dishing out another sitcom with wisecracking kids?
If it's the last Monday in March, it must be Oscar time. May I have the envelope, please? The cable channels cash in on the Academy Award hype with special programming, including Bravo's ``Shorts First'' on Monday night at 9.
Bravo signed the irreverent Michael Moore to steal viewers away from ABC's Oscar telecast when the commercials come on.
Bravo is inviting channel surfers to click over to Bravo to see highlights of the Spirit Awards luncheon at which independent filmmakers were honored. If viewers stay with Moore and Bravo, they'll see 18 short films including one about 30 women who aspire to be ``The Perfect Woman.''
TNT's tribute to the Academy Awards started last Wednesday and continues on Sunday at 11 a.m. with a special, ``Inside the Academy Awards,'' followed at noon by films that scored big on Oscar night in 1967 (``In the Heat of the Night''), 1948 (``The Treasure of Sierra Madre'') and 1983 (``Terms of Endearment''). CNN on Sunday at 9 p.m. has scheduled ``CNN Presents: Hollywood Gold,'' with Jim Moret, who is probably happy to be away from anchoring coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial for an hour.
E! Entertainment Television is cranked up to cover what happens before the Oscars are given out on ``The Academy Awards Live Pre-Show'' Monday night at 7 and after the statuettes reach the winners' sweaty palms in ``Academy Awards Live Post-Show'' at midnight. It's the next best thing to being invited to the posh parties in Hollywood.
Joan and Melissa Rivers will be the co-hosts. On Tuesday at 10:30 a.m., E! wraps it all up with ``The Academy Awards Hightlight Show.''
And on Sunday night at 9, The Discovery Channel contributes to the March movie mania with ``A Night of Movie Magic.'' Fantastic special effects!
Beyond the Academy Awards, ``The Outer Limits'' and Charles Wright's law practice, here is what is happening on TV in the days to come:
PBS and WHRO, coming down from the pre-spring membership drive and all that polka music, get back to serious business. On Wednesday at 9 p.m., PBS begins a six-part series that celebrates women in science. ``Discovering Women'' starts out with a profile of Melissa Franklin, a physics professor who works on a machine that zaps sub-atomic particles. That's followed by the story of biochemist Lynda Jordan. This is a long way from June Cleaver's kitchen.
On Friday at 9 p.m., PBS begins a three-part series about a new independence among people with physical disabilities, ``People in Motion: An Innovation Miniseries.'' What's a greater obstacle to the 49 million Americans who are disabled? Is it the revolving doors and other physical barriers they face every day or society's attitudes? In episode No. 1, ``Ways to Move,'' PBS delivers three stories about people who feel liberated from their disabilities.
Also on PBS, Charles Dickens' ``Martin Chuzzlewit'' premieres on Sunday at 9 p.m. with Paul Scofield in the title role of the man ``with the will of iron and voice of brass.'' It's a 5 1/2-hour presentation. David Lodge, who adapted the hefty Dickens' novel for ``Masterpiece Theater,'' believes that Dickens would be writing for movies and TV if he were alive today. ``The man longed to reach huge audiences,'' said Lodge. . . . For TV that is as un-Dickensonian as you can get, MTV this weekend gives over its programming to ``Spring Break '95.'' The locale is Lake Havasu in Arizona. Martin Lawrence and Will Smith are among the celebs scheduled to take part.
The Discovery Channel offers an intriguing two-hour history lesson Sunday at 8 p.m. in ``Hitler: The Whole Story.'' See Hitler rise to power by promising the German people prosperity and law and order. . . . Actor Peter Sellers is featured Sunday night at 8 in the ``Biography'' series. Long live Inspector Clouseau. . . . Bill Maher, the sharpest, wittiest host on TV, brings his ``Politically Incorrect'' to Los Angeles starting Tuesday night at 10 on Comedy Central. Bet he'll have a thing or two to say about the Oscars. . Lewis and Dean Martin in the ``Golden Age of Comedy'' series. In this one, the boys make it big in films. . . . NBC returns ``Sweet Justice'' to its schedule Saturday at 9. A female firefighter sues her former bosses.
If you've become hooked on ``Melrose Place'' in recent months, perhaps you'd like to see what the characters were like when the series started out. No problem. Fox puts on the 90-minute pilot Monday at 8. Amy Locane, long gone from the cast, was supposed to emerge as the show's Big Star. . . . The Learning Channel on Tuesday at 8 p.m. takes viewers Way Out There into the world of space and astronomy on ``Wonders of the Universe.'' Perhaps the telescopes can locate Amy Locane adrift in the cosmos. . . . Home Box Office, which is heavy on sex and gore, shows it has a sensitive side, too, with ``Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child,'' premiering Sunday at 7:30 p.m. Lots of famous voices including Harry Belafonte, Whoopi Goldberg and James Earl Jones got involved. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Showtime launches "The Outer Limits,"...Dylan Bridges, Beau
Bridges...Lloyd Bridges...
by CNB