Monday, September 24, 1984

RICK GROEN

BY RICK GROEN A couple of new series succinct only in title: Jessie (ABC) stars the erstwhile bionic woman Lindsay Wagner; Hunter (NBC) features ex-football hero Fred Dryer. By a fluke of scheduling fate, both had their lengthy premieres on the same night at the same time. To watch them simultaneously is to feel at peace in an ordered universe, to know what it's like to be wired in perfect parallel. Our fingers do a two- step across the converter's circuits, and the dance is wonderfully instructive.

Click to Jessie. An over-zealous lieutenant (Tony Lo Bianco) is causing his by-the-book superior no end of distress. Says cop: "Sure I bend the rules, but only when they get in the way of results." Click to Hunter. An over-zealous sergeant (Dryer) is causing his by- the-book superior no end of distress. Says superior: "The Review Board has barely had a chance to call your last escapade a justifiable shooting, and you're out there making like Wild Bill Hickok again." Click. Dirty Harry clone gets sent to behavioral science class for a spot of modification from Jessie (Wagner), the police shrink. They hit it off. They become partners. The macho guy and the brainy lady. Yet, under all that impressively grey matter, you know she's still a woman.

Click. Dirty Harry clone gets sent to behavioral science class for a spot of modification from Bolin, the police shrink. They do not hit it off. They become enemies. This leaves Hunter partner- less. Happily, he finds one in the Brass Cupcake (Stephanie Kramer), who ain't no lady. She says, "Spread em," and means business. Think of her as Dirty Harriet. Not to worry, though. At night, after a hard day's sniping, she snuggles up to her stuffed teddy and sighs: "Under all this grit and gristle, I'm still a woman." Click. Lieutenant and Jessie are riding along in their unmarked cruiser. They exchange banter that is meant to be funny. A code 211, armed robbery, is called in. Car chase ensues.

Click. Hunter and Cupcake are riding along in their unmarked cruiser. They exchange banter that is meant to be funny. A code 187, possible homicide, is called in. Car chase ensues.

Click. A mass murderer is on the loose. He specializes in female victims. Close-up of a sharp knife glinting in the darkness. Click. Ditto. Click. Concludes Jessie: "We're obviously dealing with a very psychotic personality here." Yes, the gal has definitely read her Freud. Click. Snaps Hunter: "We're lookin' for a guy killin' women." Seems Jes' doesn't have the market cornered on brains after all.

On to the finale. Jessie the police shrink corrals the villain. Click. Bolin, the police shrink, is the villain. In the TV biz, this is known as equal time - one rule that doesn't get bent.

And so it goes, the tube at its seamless best, episodic television that packs all the dramatic punch of a grade-school science experiment. In repose, the teacher's cardboard wheel reveals every color in the rainbow, each hue vibrantly different from its neighbor. That's the TV guide. But plug in the circuit, spin the wheel, and it's just an endless blur of white light and white knights. That's TV. That's entertainment. Two Families (tonight at 7 on CBLT) is a decidedly ordinary documentary about supposedly ordinary people - a set of ethnically contrasting clans each living in Thunder Bay. The Corbetts are native Canadians, the Erkillas are of Finnish descent, and the program cuts back and forth in what is designed to be a stirring ode to multiculturalism. It isn't.

Fortunately, however, the banal sound is sporadically redeemed by an engaging sight. Just as we're about to strangle the sonorous narrator, the camera comes to his rescue with an arresting close-up: an Ojibway grandmother, her face lined and serious, suddenly breaking out in a spate of girlish giggles, or simply a nervous bride-to-be visiting the dress store for a preliminary fitting.

And this, too, is typical of television - in the midst of all the artifice, an occasional (almost accidental) glimpse of something real, a tiny clearing in the frosted window.