ABC's police shrink show seems a little hyperactive

Monday, July 23, 1984

Los Angeles CA -- LOS ANGELES (AP) - Jessie, ABC's new fall series starring Lindsay Wagner as a police psychiatrist, was going to be different. It was not going to be another hour of shooting galleries and demolition derbies.


But in the introductory credits on the first show, while the theme song is still playing, four police cars come flying through the air.

How did Jessie get side-tracked? It starts with ABC. The network that caters to younger viewers wanted a police-psychiatrist series, but then turned it into another cop-chase- crash show by requiring at least one action sequence in each 15-minute segment. ''They bought a police show with a psychiatrist, and that's the rub - that's why their requirements were so specific,'' said Richard St. Johns, one of the show's executive producers. ''Psychiatrists don't normally get involved in a lot of action, and ABC was concerned we'd be too cerebral.'' The directive changed the tone and thrust of the series, said the other executive producer, Eric Bercovici. ''They have given us a difficult puzzle to solve dramatically,'' he said. ''The action sequences can't come out of the blue. They have to be incorporated into each story. That's what we're wrestling with.'' In the first episode, Dr. Jessie Hayden (Wagner) walks unarmed into a violent hostage situation, rides in the shotgun seat during a high-speed car chase and is attacked by a knife-wielding rapist.

Sound familiar? It does to Bill Cosby, who is returning to prime-time TV this fall in a family comedy on NBC because he's concerned that the medium has become dangerous to his family's health.r Said Cosby: ''If I see one more car go sideways, go two blocks and run through a building and a man drops to his knees (with) a .357 Magnum and a hooker talks to a black pimp and then the end of the story comes . . . ''We have about six television sets,'' added Cosby, ''so it's less expensive to do a TV series than throw them all out.'' Even producer Aaron Spelling, who has seven series, including The Love Boat, T.J. Hooker and Dynasty on ABC, said he wouldn't make two of his former shows, the violent S.W.A.T. and Strike Force, day. ''I'm stunned by how many action-adventure shows are on,'' he said. ''I want to make shows that my kids (ages five and 10) can watch.'' Lewis Erlicht, president of ABC Entertainment, said ABC's quota of four action segments only applies to Jessie because of its more pedestrian concept.

Without the required action, he said, the show ''would be intellectual and not as commercial as it should be.'' Action doesn't have to be only high-flying cars, he said. It could also be character confrontation and tense dramatic scenes, such as the hostage situation. ''You can't just have an hour of people talking to prove a point,'' Erlicht said. ''It has nothing to do with being too cerebral; it has to do with pacing.'' Actually, it has a lot to do with audience expectation and the reluctance of ABC to deviate from proven formula.

Wagner said audiences have become ''trained to respond to certain things, so the networks say let's put some more of that on . . . Does that really mean it's what they want?'' Wagner's co-star, Tony Lo Bianco, who plays a hard-boiled police lieutenant and her hard-driving tour guide in the car chases, said the networks have ''trained the dog,'' but added: ''We have to keep up the fight. We are the conscience of the people.'' That means accepting the shackles today for a freer hand tomorrow.

Said Bercovici: ''It all boils down to this: if the show is a hit, you can do anything you want.''