THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 16, 1995 TAG: 9509140055
SECTION: TELEVISION WEEK PAGE: 01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LARRY BONKO, TELEVISION COLUMNIST
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
WHILE IT HASN'T captured the hearts and minds of viewers like the ``Who shot J.R.?'' frenzy on ``Dallas'' 15 years ago, there has been considerable interest in who gunned down powermonger Montgomery Burns on ``The Simpsons.''
The answer unfolds Sunday at 8 p.m. on Fox when ``The Simpsons'' begins a new season in a time slot that has become a fierce Nielsen battleground. ``Mad About You,'' ``Cybill,'' ``Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,'' ``Kirk'' and ``The Simpsons'' will be duking it out where once ``Murder, She Wrote'' ruled.
Fox set up the ``who shot Mr. Burns'' thing in anticipation of such a schedule crunch. It's a neat way to hook viewers at the start of the new TV season. Burns, who built a device to block out the sun in Springfield and thereby made the town dependent on him and his energy monopoly, was the subject of foul play in a dark alley.
Heck. Even Bart Simpson is a suspect.
Viewers were invited to dial a 1-800 number to help solve the mystery. So were surfers on the Internet. The clues were all over the place in the season finale last May, said producers James L. Brooks, Matt Groening and David Milkin.
They created a number of endings to foil insiders who may have considered leaking the name of Burns' assailant.
In the week ahead, the networks will break out 10 new series in addition to picking up the plots of cliffhangers in established series such as ``The Simpsons'' and ``The X-Files.'' How in the world will Agent Mulder escape his tomb in which, ugh, bodies of alien creatures have been stored?
In one of the new shows, ``Hudson Street,'' Tony Danza returns to series television after a skiing accident that nearly cost him his career if not his life. The show airs Tuesday at 8:30 and co-stars Lori Laughlin who didn't miss a beat after ``Full House'' ended its run on ABC last season.
``Physically, I'm back to 100 percent,'' said Danza when he met with members of the Television Critics Association in Los Angeles not long ago.
Danza, who played Tony Banta on ``Taxi'' and Tony Micelli on ``Who's the Boss?,'' is another guy named Tony (Canetti) in ``Hudson Street.'' He's a detective working in Hoboken, N.J., who starts dating again following his divorce.
His first date with Laughlin, who plays a liberal-minded reporter, nearly sinks their relationship when tough cop guy Canetti tells her that he thinks the First Amendment is overrated. She reacts by calling him ``a press-hating, anti-civil rights, lock-them-up-and-throw-away-the-key reactionary.''
It's the start of a beautiful friendship.
``We're trying for a sophisticated romantic comedy here, a kind of Tracy and Hepburn sexual friction chemistry,'' said co-executive producer Randi Mayem Singer. Danza, not unexpectedly, refers to ``Hudson Street'' as the best thing he's done. The man is also billed as one of the show's executive producers.
Why return to series TV so soon after the skiing accident and the wind-up of ``Who's the Boss?''
``I missed the paycheck,'' said Danza. ``And I want the challenge of going into a new series. That scares me. I like that. I like creating a new character and hoping the audience will accept me in that role.''
There's nothing special about ``Hudson Street'' except for Danza and Laughlin. Whatever it takes to capture and hold a prime-time audience, these two attractive people have in abundance. In the business, it's called a high Q rating.
Right smack in the middle of the unveiling of the new fall season, NBC takes time out for two September specials.
One is the 42nd annual Miss America pageant, live from Atlantic City on Saturday at 9 p.m. This is the telecast with a twist. Viewers will be asked to vote yes or no on the swimsuit competition by calling a 1-900 number.
Also on NBC, starting Sunday at 9 p.m., and continuing Monday at the same hour, husband and wife Melissa Gilbert and Bruce Boxleitner star in ``Danielle Steel's Zoya.'' ILLUSTRATION: "The Simpsons" start a new season at 8 p.m. Sunday on Fox.
by CNB