Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 19, 1995 TAG: 9508220022
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAMES ENDRST THE HARTFORD COURANT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
We'll see this fall.
A swarm of prime-time comedies populated by close-knit clusters of 20- and 30-somethings is headed your way.
Critics attending the Summer Press Tour in Pasadena, Calif., recently were quick to identify the trend as a by-rote exploitation of NBC's Thursday-night success story.
Almost as quick to deny or at least distance themselves from such associations were the stars and producers of more than a half-dozen shows lumped into the friends of ``Friends'' pack.
Maybe critics are just looking for a big trend and an easy story.
Or maybe the networks are at it again, unable to break their well-known habit of beating every original idea to death.
More likely, it's a little of both.
When ``Friends'' made its debut last fall, no one was expecting the kind of Top 10 success it now enjoys. If anything, ``Friends'' was considered indistinguishable from the now gone and forgotten ``Wild Oats'' on Fox Broadcasting.
In case you still haven't seen it, ``Friends'' is a comedy from Marta Kauffman and David Crane (``Dream On'') that follows the lives of six friends - played by Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer - who live in New York and experience the growing pains of love, sex and careers in close quarters ``at a time in life when everything is possible.''
Now let's talk about some of what's in store for the fall.
What would you say, for instance, about a show called ``Partners,'' a half hour headed for Monday nights on Fox? Especially if someone told you it was created by former ``Friends'' producers Jeff Greenstein and Jeff Strauss?
And what if someone told you that ``Friends'' director James Burrows was directing ``Partners,'' too?
And throw in a promo that refers to the characters in ``Partners'' - a two-buddies-and-a-fiancee comedy (starring Jon Cryer, Tate Donovan and Maria Pitillo) - as ``more than just friends''?
Over at ABC, stand-up comic Drew Carey, the star of ``The Drew Carey Show,'' doesn't see how his show, set for Wednesday nights, is being compared to ``Friends.'' Even if his character - an unmarried guy, working as assistant personnel director at a local department store - is constantly surrounded by a bunch of buddies.
```Friends' is a show about young, good-looking people in their 20s, and I'm in my 30s and I'm overweight and I'm not that good looking,'' said Carey, although he said he was willing to call his TV friends ``acquaintances'' if that would help.
Critics took a poke, too, at ``Can't Hurry Love,'' to be broadcast Monday nights on CBS, because Nancy McKeon (``Facts of Life'') plays a 28-year-old, upwardly mobile woman looking for love in the '90s and working for a personnel agency in New York, with friends across the hall.
Thomas Haden Church, star of Fox's new sitcom ``Ned and Stacey'' (to be broadcast Monday nights) took a similar tack.
His half hour with co-star Debra Messing is about a couple of young single people who decide on a marriage of convenience. He's doing it for his career. She's doing it for the room-and-board money.
What that has to do with ``Friends,'' said Church, a former star of NBC's ``Wings,'' escapes him. Besides, he said, ``I don't think I can believably play a senior citizen.''
In any case, no one at NBC seems too concerned.
``The strong and distinctive will survive,'' NBC Entertainment president Warren Littlefield told reporters. ``The others, the audience will cast away.''
Moving into the time slot formerly occupied by ``Friends'' on Thursday nights is ``Caroline in the City,'' a comedy starring Lea Thompson (``Back to the Future'') as a cartoonist looking for love in New York.
Directing?
James Burrows.
But it's not ``Friends,'' says executive producer Fred Barron.
``Caroline is a very successful person,'' he said ``Unlike `Friends,' where people are starting out.''
But joining NBC's Thursday night lineup after ``Friends'' is ``The Single Guy,'' with Jonathan Silverman (``Brighton Beach Memoirs'').
His show is loaded with ``Friends'' connections, a half-hour set in New York revolving around ``the last single guy in a close circle of friends.''
One of Silverman's TV friends, in fact, is a recurring character on ``Friends.''
Jessica Hecht, who plays Janeane in ``The Single Guy'' also plays Susan, lesbian lover to Ross' ex-wife, Carol, on ``Friends.''
And yet, nobody on ``The Single Guy,'' really wants to talk about both shows in the same breath.
Except executive producer Brad Hall.
``I think they ripped me off,'' he joked about his own network. ``Because years ago I wrote this thing called `Steinfeld' and then about three years ago, I wrote `Pals.'
``So you can take it from there.''
by CNB