THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 25, 1994 TAG: 9408250018
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By Larry Bonko, Television Writer
LENGTH: Long : 141 lines
IN PROGRAMS SUCH as ``Beverly Hills 90210'' and ``Saved by the Bell,'' television shows us high school as the kids wish it could be.
``The Wonder Years'' was high school as it used to be.
Now here comes ``My So-Called Life,'' which is high school as it really is in the 1990s, or at least how the executive producers and co-executive producers think it really is.
``These people are you,'' said executive producer No. 1, Edward Zwick, speaking to the 15-, 16- and 17-year-olds he hopes will tune in by the zillions to watch ``My So-Called Life.''
ABC, which has finally installed the series in its fall lineup - it's been on the shelf for more than a year - gives America a sneak peek at the angst of 15-year-old Angela Chase tonight at 8.
Chase is played by 15-year-old, Claire Danes, who has remarkable screen presence for an actress of such tender years. After the show is on the air for a week or two, I predict that every girl in high school in America will be buzzing about her.
She is them. They are her.
Danes as Angela regards a zit on the chin as the end of the world.
``It is the focus of EVERYTHING. . . . ''
She believes that if the color of your hair is holding you back in life, you should change it, which she does in episode No. 1.
The new color is Crimson Glow.
What young girl won't identify with Angela? She thinks the school cafeteria is the most embarrassing place in the whole world, the place where you pretend that you don't notice the boys noticing you.
Mothers cannot possibly understand their daughters, says Angela. What 15-year-old girl will disagree with that?
``We were considering older actresses for her role,'' said co-executive producer No. 2, Scott Winant when he met TV writers in Los Angeles recently. ``But only Claire projected the truth and honesty that we wanted to put up on the screen.''
Choosing Danes for the role meant an adjustment in the shooting schedule.
As a 15-year-old, she is limited to five hours work each day.
Her appearance here late in August is most welcome.
IT ISN'T EVEN SEPTEMBER, the traditional start of the new television season, and we already have ABC and Fox, and a famous producer, offering new programming this week. Think of it as an early gift to sofa spuds who must be weary of summer reruns by now.
Who hasn't seen the ``Seinfeld'' episodes three or four times by now?
Producer Aaron Spelling, who doesn't have enough to do with three programs on Fox, created the Spelling Premiere Network to supply independent stations with glossy programming such as ``Heaven Help Us'' and ``Robin's Hoods,'' which get going tonight at 8 on WGNT.
Come Friday night at 8 on Fox, Carl Lumbly stars as a paraplegic who creates high-tech hardware that gives him superhuman strength, speed and agility. Trouble is, in his crime-fighting gear in ``M.A.N.T.I.S,'' he looks like a bug.
``Heaven Help Us,'' which starts tonight at 8 on Channel 27, has a cuddly premise that isn't exactly new. A handsome couple (John Schneider and Melinda Clarke) get crunched in a plane crash en route to their honeymoon.
They're too young and cute to really die, so Spelling sentences the newlyweds to a high-fashion limbo where Super Angel, played by Ricardo Montalban, is the boss. If the two are to make it to heaven, they must return to Earth to help humans who are in unhappy, desperate situations.
Montalban doesn't have much to do in this series, but being in front of the camera at all is an accomplishment. A year ago, he was hospitalized with a hemorrhaging spine. He wondered if he would ever walk again, much less be working in a weekly TV series.
``I have the mind of a 30-year-old, but the body is someone much older,'' he told me in a telephone chat. It isn't easy for Montalban to commute from his home in Southern California to the Texas locales where ``Heaven Help Us'' is taped, but he makes the trip two or three times a month without fussing.
Doctor's orders.
His surgeon suggested that it would be best for the 71-year-old actor's morale to return to work. ``He said I should keep going. I'm like the old war horse who begins charging when he hears the bell. When the cameras start rolling, I forget the pain.''
Chances for ``Heaven Help Us'' to succeed and keep Montalban in the angel business? Not good unless Spelling gives Schneider and Clarke more to do than saying what a kick it is to be invisible. ``Topper'' it isn't.
For years, Spelling has been threatening to remake ``Charlie's Angels,'' and now he has done it in ``Robin's Hoods.'' Linda Purl, the marquee name in this series, plays a widow whose husband helped to rehabilitate first-time offenders by giving the parolees work in a nightclub. It just so happens that the parolees are attractive young women (Julie McCullough, Jennifer Campbell, Mayte Vilan and Claire Yarlett).
Spelling goes for that type in a big way on his TV shows.
Does feminist Purl resent that?
``Sure, he casts women in his shows who are drop-dead gorgeous. But people forget that Aaron helped start the careers of many actresses and extended the careers of others. I didn't hesitate for a minute in accepting this role. When you work for Spelling Entertainment, you work for a well-oiled machine.''
``Robin's Hoods'' has that same goofy charm of ``Charlie's Angels,'' ``Love Boat'' and ``Fantasy Island.'' While watching, you'll say to yourself, ``This gorgeous blonde in the thigh-highs is going to work as an undercover agent without drawing any attention to herself? Never!''
You laugh and stay tuned.
In contrast to Spelling's fluff, Fox brings ``M.A.N.T.I.S'' onto its schedule with a lot of serious clanging and banging.
It's action, adventure and science fiction with a load of hardware in it. The series' title comes from the machine that makes Lumbly a superhero - The Maga Amplified Neuro-Transmitting Interceptor Device, or something like that.
Lumbly, whom you may remember from the cast of ``Cagney and Lacey,'' said he is uneasy with advance publicity that has declared him black America's first TV superhero. ``The true superheroes in the black community are those who have sacrificed for their communities from the first moment they reached these shores. People who have set their own lives aside to make it better for others are the true superheroes.
``My character in `M.A.N.T.I.S' is not the first black superhero.
``Well maybe the first black fictional hero on television.''
When Lumbly's character isn't in a wheelchair, he's wearing the ``exoskeleton'' power harness, which allows Lumbly as Miles Hawkins to fight crime fearlessly with high tech.
``M.A.N.T.I.S'' is an OK adventure series with a pretty good supporting cast. It could fly on Friday nights because it's the kind of show the baby sitters might think is cool.
For sure, ``My So-Called Life'' will fly, even soar. I've seen four episodes, and each one has been better than the one before.
This is sometimes a dark, brooding series about kids with deep insecurities, which is no surprise since it comes from the people who produced ``thirtysomething.'' That show invented insecurity.
Bess Armstrong stars as Angela's mom - a mother who happens to be prettier than her daughter. That's hard to live with when you're 15.
Is Claire Danes anything like the girl she plays?
``Well, I'm also in the midst of adolescence. It's not a fun time. I think the series does mirror what I am going through. It's easy for me to relate to the scripts because they are so real.''
At the age of 15, Angela has been kissed a grand total of three times.
The absolute worst thing that can happen to her is to be asked to take part in a mother-daughter fashion show.
Angela thinks cheerleading is a mindless, sexist pursuit.
Like Danes said, this series is real. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by MARK SELIGER
Claire Danes plays Angela Chase in ``My So-Called Life,'' which
premieres tonight at 8 on ABC.
by CNB