
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, January 29, 1994                   TAG: 9401290260
SECTION: SPECTATOR                    PAGE: S-17   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By JAMES ENDRST THE HARTFORD COURANT
DATELINE: PASADENA, CALIF.                                LENGTH: Medium

`MY SO-CALLED LIFE' TAKES SPECIAL LOOK AT ADOLESCENCE

ABC's "My So-Called Life" is one of the best drama series to come along in years.

That's why it's going to have a hard time getting on the air.

It's a little too good. A little too special.

The hour, an achingly warm and empathetic look at adolescent life, is the latest from "thirtysomething" creators Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz.

Intelligent, funny, sensitive and introspective, most critics who screened the pilot during the annual January Press Tour here loved the show.

Like the Emmy-winning "thirtysomething," "My So-Called Life" is about life's passages - its pains, pleasures, peculiar rhythms - all as seen by Angela Chase, a contemporary 15-year-old suburban high school student.

Claire Danes, 14, plays Angela, a young woman who is both exhilarated and exhausted by her erupting emotions. All at once, it seems, her ideas are changing, her friends are changing, her body is changing - and her parents (played by Bess Armstrong and Tom Irwin) don't seem to be able to help her.

As ABC dramatically puts it: "Even Kafka's surreal vision of the world cannot equal the confusion, the intense emotional inner depths, the exhilaration and the pain of a teen-ager dazed by the bewilderment of growing up."

The network has ordered nine episodes - a decent show of support. But ABC Entertainment President Ted Harbert told reporters he's having a hard time deciding where to put the show and that it won't be broadcast until at least this spring or summer.

"We don't have a plan," Harbert admitted, "and we picked it up without a plan, which is rare for us. . . . But there was no way that I was going to pass on this show and either let it go to another network or have it not be produced at all."

Obviously high on the show, Harbert seems to be leaning toward summer, hoping for the kind of slow-incubation success CBS had with "Northern Exposure."

As soon, that is, as he comes up with a time slot.

"I still am not sure if it's an 8 o'clock show or a 10 o'clock show. I go back and forth," said Harbert. "There are many scheduling permutations that could result in the show being in one time period or another."

by CNB