Kay McFadden / Times staff columnist
Fox is 0 for 3 with soaper, comedies

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Most e-mailed articles

Other links Search event listings

As we were reminded last week, entertainment has tranformative powers. A bit of movie dialogue — "Win just one for the Gipper" — became the rallying cry of a presidency and an ideological motif.

This week, our attention turns to Fox television network. The waters may be less exalted, but they are ready to float three new series over the next three days.

Fox, too, has an inspirational quote: "If you've got the guts to paddle out, how bad can it really be?"

The line comes from "North Shore," airing at 8 tonight. Wednesday sees the debut of both "Quintuplets" and "Method & Red," but more on those later.

"North Shore" tries to run while the surf's up by mimicking Fox's surprise soap-opera hit, "The O.C.," which achieved the rare distinction of good ratings and critical praise.

This evening, Hawaii takes over from Orange County. While the location may be an improvement, virtually nothing else about "North Shore" is.

The setting is the Grand Waimea, an exclusive resort. The principals are hotel owner Vincent Colville (James Remar), general manager Jason Matthews (Kristoffer Polaha) and guest-relations director Nicole Booth (Brooke Burns), though there's plenty of supporting cast around to mix a drink or pout.

The show puts up a formidable front. The cleavage on display could stock an eye-candy warehouse, and it would take more to dampen a viewer's anticipation than lines like, "I'm going to Waikiki to get a bikini wax. Ya wanna get together when your shift's over?"

"North Shore" also brings a few surprises to the screen. For instance, viewers may think a luxury hotel is about comfy beds, good eats and unreasonably priced phone calls.
 
But as we learn, it's really a giant pimpatorium where sexually avid guests pester staffers whose first job is to please. Small wonder casting resembles a puu-puu platter: a short-haired blonde, a long-haired brunette, a tousled beach boy, a goateed bartender.

With the effort put into helping us tell people apart, the producers apparently had no time left for plotting, dialogue and direction.

Conflict is snatched out of thin air. People refuse to explain perfectly explicable actions just so the drama can be prolonged. The pauses are leaden, not suspenseful, as if the performers had forgotten their lines while awaiting the next cue.

Maybe they did. The acting is terrible except for Remar, who probably could play a sexy, arrogant business mogul in his sleep following "Sex and the City." The putative heartthrobs are about as hot as the forgotten pot of coffee on a back burner.

"North Shore" sets the bar so low that in retrospect, "Melrose Place" was a Flaubert-like opus on the human condition.

In a feeble effort to tap class warfare like the infinitely superior "O.C.," tonight's episode features a scene where Nicole tells Jason she dumped him because her father wanted her to marry someone "in the Fortune 500."

Presumably, the writers intended to cite the Forbes 400 list of richest individuals.

But who knows? In these days of brainless, factory-produced TV shows, it's possible they really meant she should start a publicly held corporation.

"Quintuplets," which stars comedian Andy Richter and bows at 8:30 Wednesday, is nowhere near as bad as "North Shore."

It's also nowhere near as good as "Andy Richter Controls the Universe," the quirky, imaginative and short-lived series that Fox canceled last year.

This time around, Richter plays the harassed father of teenage quintuplets, with the able actress Rebecca Creskoff as his wife.

The humor in "Quintuplets" bears little relationship to Richter's last program. Instead, its soulmate is the affable, middling "That '70s Show," a series that banks on reassuring familiarity rather than rattling surprise and has lasted a thousand seasons.

Like that show, "Quintuplets" is smartly produced. Handling a large ensemble requires skill, and the solution in tonight's episode is a presentation that comes off more as a succession of rapid-fire vignettes than an actual plot.

Richter has mastered an awkward delivery that ekes mileage from even weak punch lines. But the show by no means rests on him. I especially enjoyed actor Johnny Lewis in the role of Pearce, the offbeat, hyper-empathic middle brother.

That doesn't mean a polished, room-temperature comedy is worth your time. It depends on your tolerance level.

Lacking the inspiration of "Malcolm in the Middle" or the seething tension of "Everybody Loves Raymond," Fox's "Quintuplets" is not so much appointment TV as its summer alternative: what-the-heck TV.

"Method & Red," debuting at 9:30 Wednesday, rounds out the new launches on Fox. Unfortunately, it sputters.

The series stars real-life hip-hop stars Method Man and Redman as a pretend version of themselves. They move with their mother to a gated community in the white suburbs and immediately confront that beloved sitcom staple, the fish-out-of water concept.

Method and Red are immensely appealing, but the show's concept and execution are trite, clumsy and predictable.

Despite the occasional clever gimmick — like having a jailhouse lawyer find the flaws in an association covenant — the show banks too much on the novelty of bringing together white stiffs and hip brothers.

That angle will get old fast. Many jokes already feel ancient, as when the pair's uptight next-door neighbor can't grasp the concept of "crib" or when Method and Red try to yuck it up with phrases such as "bloody glove" and "down like Gerry Cooney."

Some of the shtick doesn't make sense. An observation about Caucasians liking fruitcake (What? Who?) ends up killing the last several minutes of the pilot.

Fresh filling, stale bread. Unlike fruitcake, "Method & Red" clearly has an expiration date.

The "Sex" files

On a happier note, 10 p.m. Tuesday marks the start of TBS' "Sex and the City," which is like HBO's "Sex and the City" except in redacted, repeat form.

OK, a slight exaggeration. While TBS has cut the raunchiest language and visuals for its TV-14 requirements, the fabled sitcom remains mostly intact.

For instance, devoted fans may notice that in the re-engineered version, Mr. Big (Chris Noth) has lost a certain middle fragment from one of his classic responses, "Abso-something-lutely." It isn't "something," and it isn't something that can be written here.

But really, the most objectionable change is adding commercials. Good for TBS, bad for fans accustomed to having their "Sex" as coitus uninterruptus.

Do I expect to be renting "Sex and the City" on DVD? Abso-something-lutely.

Kay McFadden: kmcfadden@seattletimes.com