Product placement visible in new show; comedy not

Jenna Elfman stars in the new CBS sitcom "Courting Alex," though at this point, executives probably should put Red Bull on the list of credits.

Last week, the energy drink had a guest mention on the premiere of sister network UPN's "South Beach." Tonight, it pops up shortly after Elfman's 9:30 debut.

Alex's nutty neighbor (Hugh Bonneville) announces he's off to a tryst with a New York Times reporter and peers into the refrigerator. "Ah, Red Bull," he says. "Should need that in about an hour."

How many product placements are contained in this moment? Is the Times pushing its journalists' sexual prowess as part of a subscription drive or to market columnist Maureen Dowd's book "Are Men Necessary?"

No, the Times reference was pure imagination. But it's getting hard to tell the difference these days. If the line between news and entertainment is blurry, the one between entertainment and advertisement is perforated.

Granted, a ragged series like "Courting Alex" allows the mind to wander, notice and speculate.

The new show pinch-hits for "Out of Practice" until March, which is like putting Carl Everett in for Greg Dobbs. "Courting Alex" fails to get a single laugh, and the only thing harder to accept than the squirrelly Elfman as a hot-shot property attorney is TV's inability to produce a hit real-estate series at a time of stratospheric interest.

This evening's pilot has a Trumped-up tale about a big development imperiled by a tavern owner's refusal to sell his building. Naturally, owner Scott (Josh Randall) proves a hunk and Alex falls for him instead of the earnest lawyer (Josh Stamberg) preferred by her dad (Dabney Coleman).

Elfman handles the thin material with nervous briskness, as if it might get by with a shove or two. But her furtive eye-darting betrays doubt. Although Alex is supposedly a workaholic, she comes off in the script as either playing hard to get or just screwed up.

The plot fails to climax when Alex skips a work meeting and gets on the back of Scott's motorcycle for a trip to Coney Island. Finis.

Beginning tomorrow night in the first commercial break after "CSI: Miami," CBS will offer a Pontiac-sponsored "micro-series" called "The Courier."

"The Courier" features an action-adventure hero, played by real-life BASE-jumping star Iiro Seppänen, who is racing to save his kidnapped wife. No preview was available, though I am pretty sure cars are involved.

The series will air in an initial 60-second installment and then continue in 40-second episodes after the first act of every 9 o'clock CBS series for six more nights, excluding Saturday and Tuesday, Jan. 31.

Viewers interested in a second, interactive story line or hoping to win a Pontiac will be advised to consult CBS.com. Or as the press release states, CBS.com "will flesh out 'The Courier's' cryptic narrative via rich video and text components."

This recalls a childhood memoir by the late humorist Jean Shepherd about mailing away for a Little Orphan Annie decoder ring. After weeks of waiting, it arrived. He eagerly tuned to the radio that evening so he could decipher Annie's secret message, which turned out to be "Drink Ovaltine."

In our allegedly more sophisticated era, "cryptic narrative" has the same purpose as a secret decoder ring — sending curious consumers to the arms of a product.

But I balk at "rich video and text components." That's an awfully fancy way of saying pictures and words. Let's not confuse the shiny wrapper of a new medium with what's inside.

The same goes for labeling TV productions as "micro-series" or "short films" when they might really be commercials.

I don't fault CBS' efforts. Advertising dollars are the lifeblood of television, and they are flowing away from the small screen to computers, cellphones and iPods.

Yet advertising is nothing without content, and content is nothing without integrity. That's as true of fiction as it is of news. When "The Courier" revs up, viewers will discover who's really in the driver's seat.

TV note: "Arrested Development" is set to go out in a burst of four back-to-back episodes on Feb. 10. Last week, Fox Entertainment President Peter Liguori said it was "highly unlikely" the yet-to-be-officially-killed series would return next fall.

Kay McFadden: kmcfadden@seattletimes.com