THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 11, 1996 TAG: 9607110033
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Bonko
LENGTH: 88 lines
``L.A. FIREFIGHTERS,'' according to Fox, is a deadly serious drama about unsung heroes who almost daily face life and death situations.
So why are the firefighters on duty at station No. 6 in downtown Norfolk laughing as they watch ``L.A. Firefighters'' unfold on the TV screen before them?
This isn't a sitcom. This isn't ``Married With Children.'' This is a series that's supposed to be about humanity, bravery and other heavy stuff.
Fox says it's ``brutally honest.''
But the firefighters at station No. 6, led by battalion chief M. Kresovich, find the series a riot.
``If this series is a brutally honest depiction of firefighters, then `Melrose Place' is a brutally honest depiction of life in an apartment complex,'' said the battalion chief.
In real life, it's not likely you'll see male firefighters smooching with female firefighters while on duty - snuggling against the hoses. It happens all the time on ``L.A. Firefighters.'' What's worse is that the smooching is between a married firefighter and one of the single women with whom he works.
In real life, you're not likely to see a battalion chief with a serious drinking problem lead his men and women into action when the alarm sounds. On ``L.A. Firefighters,'' everyone looks the other way as battalion chief Dick Coffey snorts booze from a bottle in the filing cabinet when he's on duty.
``That may have been going on 20 and 25 years ago,'' said one Norfolk firefighter. ``But it wouldn't be tolerated today.''
The Fox series, which wound up a summertime trial run on Monday, is fiction, and as such, is expected to stretch the truth. That's TV. It's done on ``ER'' all the time. That series makes life in the emergency room look like a bloodless, beautiful ballet at times.
Here's the difference between these two shows: The ``ER'' producers have never said that ``ER'' was the real thing. Twentieth Century Fox Television, on the other hand, promised ``a brutally honest look at life in the firehouse'' before ``L.A. Firefighters'' signed on.
Brutally honest?
You won't see any of the female firefighters in Norfolk lounging about in their underwear as does Christine Elise as Erin Coffey in ``L.A. Firefighters.''
Gail Montgomery, who was working at Station No. 11 in Norfolk the other day, said, ``Women walking around in underwear just doesn't happen because it would be an insult and a distraction to the other firefighters.''
While the Norfolk firefighters' criticism of ``L.A. Firefighters'' is relatively mild - it's too Hollywood, too glamorous, suggested Kresovich - the show has been brutally thrashed in the city where it's filmed. The Los Angeles County Firefighters Local 1014, calling for viewers to boycott Fox sponsors, say they find the show ``dangerous, immoral and unprofessional.''
What starts the Norfolk firefighters chuckling are the technical glitches on ``L.A. Firefighters,'' from showing the men and women practically flying up ladders despite the fact they have about 40 pounds of equipment on their backs, to scenes of fires that have hardly any smoke. And the actors often plunge into harm's way without masks to help them breathe easier.
``That's pretty stupid,'' said one of the Norfolk firefighters.
Now that ``L.A. Firefighters'' has finished its summer run without lighting up the ratings - it came in No. 80 in the Nielsens - Fox said it will soon haul the show into drydock and make major changes. How about replacing Elise in the lead role with an actress who can act? This woman has come far in TV with little ability.
Kresovich and the others at Station No. 6 say they'll give ``L.A. Firefighters'' another look when and if it comes back to Fox on Sundays at 7 p.m. in the fall. Fox executives are shocked at the beating the show has taken from critics and stunned because hardly anyone is watching what was supposed to be Fox's next big franchise series.
But Kresovich isn't expecting much from the new ``L.A. Fire-fighters.''
``If Hollywood showed what a dirty, dingy, dangerous, difficult job that firefighting really is, I doubt if anyone would watch. They couldn't take it. And if they showed you the amount of smoke that fires really create, you couldn't see the actors.''
``L.A. Firefighters'' is all that the firefighters here and in Los Angeles say it is. It's an inaccurate portrayal of life in the firehouse. The series is also bad television - poorly scripted with too many actors who were hired for their looks and not how well they can deliver dialogue.
``Emergency,'' an earlier series on NBC (1972-77) about the same department of Los Angeles firefighters, evolved into a campy hour when Kevin Tighe and Randolph Mantooth became the Laurel and Hardy of the station. Even so, ``Emergency'' is a watchable series. (WWOR carries it on cable weeknights at 6).
I can't say that about ``L.A. Firefighters.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by FOX
Jarrod Emick strikes a heroic pose as Jack Malloy on Fox's
low-rated, critically panned "L.A. Firefighters." by CNB