ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 10, 1997 TAG: 9704100011
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: TOM SHALES
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: TOM SHALES
Good news and bad news from an agent to an unemployed actor: ``The good news is I got you a job as an extra. The bad news is it's on `Leaving L.A.'''
Many of the extras on this show, you see, play corpses. ``Leaving L.A.'' is not just about leaving Los Angeles. It's about leaving ye olde mortal coil. Set in the L.A. coroner's office, ``Leaving L.A.'' is one of the most audacious, irreverent and brilliant new dramas in a long time. It takes some getting used to, but so did ``NYPD Blue.''
Premiering Saturday night at 9 and appropriately rated TV-14 (it's not for children), the ensemble drama has moments that are shocking and distasteful, but many others that are mordantly funny or even deftly moving.
The ending to the first episode is, you should pardon the expression, a killer. It turned this grouchy old critic into Mr. Misty Eyes. ``Leaving L.A.'' can really get to you in ways that most series can't, won't, or simply don't try to.
Naturally gallows humor reigns among the workers at the coroner's office. A birthday cake for a cranky pathologist is baked in the shape of a chalk outline of a dead body. On a tour of the facility, a newcomer is introduced to ``the VIP room'' where, it is boasted, such celebrity corpses as John Belushi's and Marilyn Monroe's were brought.
One young wacko in the gang wants to borrow photos of rock star Kurt Cobain's cadaver from the files so he can impress a girlfriend.
There's perhaps too much of this sort of thing, and some of it is self-conscious and smug. But the notion that people who spend their lives among the dead would have to compensate with morbid jokes is hardly arguable. And most of the wisecracks are, to coin a phrase, drop dead funny.
The two most prominent roles are Melina Kanakaredes as Libby, the new arrival at the coroner's office (an alive arrival, that is), and Christopher Meloni as a sardonic veteran. ``This job is more about the living than the dead,'' he tells her. That's because they question survivors to help determine how and why the dearly departeds got that way. Not dear, but departed.
Among the cases on the premiere is that of a woman found dead next to the swimming pool of her palatial home; her husband, a wealthy businessman, is suspected by surly cops of murder. An elderly woman in another part of town appears to have died in her sleep, but the investigator cannot understand why she has mustard in her ear.
Also, a young roller skating teacher is found dead in the middle of an empty roller rink. As his body is carted off, we are reminded of just how stiff a stiff can be.
One of the most endearing members of the staff is a dreamy-eyed flake named Tiffany (Hilary Swank), who finds joy in her job and believes death is just nature's way of saying it's time for the next plateau. Of the woman found dead in bed she tells the grieving widower, ``She's just alive in another way now.''
Less likable is the house psychic, a bossy biddy who can touch dead people's clothes and divine whether they died happy. And the head of the coroner's office is made too much of a dork. But Kanakaredes and Meloni click right away. In the weeks ahead, they could learn a lot from each other.
The show has an aerial motif. Sequences are linked by dizzying or exhilarating shots of the city from planes and helicopters. This is appropriate for a program that deals with both the here and the hereafter. ABC executives don't seem to have much faith in the series, though, or they wouldn't have buried it (ahem) on Saturday, a little watched TV night. Maybe if it draws a crowd, it will be moved to brighter quarters.
Perhaps there's no way to describe the show without making it sound, well, deadly. But it isn't. ``Leaving L.A.'' has a beating heart and a big one, and it proves you never know where a life affirming experience might await you.
LENGTH: Medium: 72 linesby CNB