Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 6, 1994 TAG: 9408080011
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MANUEL MENDOZA DALLAS MORNING NEWS
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Long
Later, after he suddenly drops her - probably scared off by her emotionally complicated need for affection - the oldest sister in the upcoming Fox drama "Party of Five" tells her 16-year-old brother, "I want you to say something to make me feel better ... God, there's no one to tell me what to do."
Like so many children across the country, the fictional Salingers have no one to tell them what to do. Theirs is one of two new programs that focus on kids rearing themselves.
In both the hourlong "Party of Five" (9 p.m. Mondays) and the ABC sitcom "On Our Own" (7:30 p.m. Sundays), large families who have lost their parents in automobile accidents struggle to stay together.
Two other shows on ABC's fall schedule also comment on the perilous position of children in an era rife with broken homes, violent streets and self-absorbed adults.
The producers of "thirtysomething" have turned their dramatic focus on the younger generation with the story of a teen-age girl coping with adolescence in "My So-Called Life" (8 p.m. Thursdays). And comedian Steve Harvey has been cast as the witty disciplinarian with three sons in the sitcom "Me and the Boys" (8:30 p.m. Tuesdays).
"A lot of kids are in trouble because nobody ever took the time to say, `Hey, you shouldn't do this, I believe in you, I care about you, I'm coming to see about you,' " Harvey says in an interview at the Universal City Hilton, where the networks are introducing their fall programs to TV critics.
Cover stories on today's teens in the current issue of Utne Reader paint a grim picture of Generation Why. "Three-quarters of the deaths of young people from 10 to 24 - a total of 30,000 each year - occur not from diseases but from preventable causes," says the lead article, reprinted from Rolling Stone. Suicide, murder, abuse, AIDS, drug addiction, neglect and hopelessness plague youth, possibly as never before.
While it's TV's job to twist reality into uplifting or comedic or melodramatic entertainment, especially if that reality is too downbeat, good television has long tried to incorporate social upheavals into its storylines, however indirectly.
Unlike a film, which is typically the vision of a solitary artist - the director - TV sees itself as the stitching in the mass cultural fabric. And lately, kids in peril have been woven into that fabric. We've come a long way from "The Brady Bunch."
Every episode of "Me and the Boys" contains moral lessons, Harvey says. In the pilot, his character imparts to his kids the importance of studying and of obedience to elders with sweetness and light humor.
"I figure if I give them enough trouble at home," he jokes, "they won't go out looking for it."
"On Our Own" plays it more broadly. Starring six members of the singing, dancing and extremely winning Smollett family, ages 18 months to 17 years, the action revolves around stand-up comic Ralph Harris as the oldest brother. He is willing to do anything, including dressing in drag a la "Mrs. Doubtfire," to keep the family together.
"This is real life," says co-producer Robert Boyett, who also has worked on the ABC family shows "Full House," "Family Matters" and "Step by Step." "I mean, it's amazing the decisions that 12-year-old kids and 9-year-old kids have to face in today's world. ... I mean, they're thinking about major issues at a very young age."
The best of the Kids in Peril lot may be the slow-paced, calmly edited "Party of Five," a realistically written piece of television that has critics scratching their heads about how such a show landed on the hyperbolic Fox network.
Co-creator Amy Lippman, who has written for "L.A. Law" and "Sisters," says the idea actually came from Fox entertainment president Sandy Grushow.
"He was interested in telling a story about five kids living on their own. ... We were interested in telling a story that was, I think, possibly grittier than Fox originally saw the idea. And I think it's to their credit that they liked what they saw and stood behind it.
"I think Chris [Keyser, her writing partner] and I feel very strongly that there is something relatable in the idea of absent parents. And that our understanding of this generation, because it is our own, is that kids are most likely to turn to each other, to turn to siblings, to answer questions and solve problems."
Though the Salingers of San Francisco are not poor and their parents are dead, not absent by choice, many of the issues that arise out of poverty and neglect crop up. Bills need paying, the baby needs a nanny and everyone needs nurturing.
"I grew up very quickly and I learned a lot," says Neve Campbell, who plays the troubled 15-year-old Julia and is herself the product of parents who split up when she was young. And on the show, "even though we've gone through a tough time, we're going to laugh and learn, learn in a different way - the hard way."
by CNB