Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 28, 1995 TAG: 9509280010
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TOM SHALES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Her latest attempt, ``New York News,'' an hourly drama starring Moore as the editor-in-chief of a Manhattan-based daily, premieres on CBS (WDBJ, Channel 7) tonight at 9. An appropriate theme song for the show would ask, ``Who used to be able to turn the world on with her smile?'' Moore doesn't do much smiling anymore. Her character is known around the office as The Dragon, and people seem to quake in fear at her approach.
Viewers won't quake but they won't light up with glee, either. Who wants to see Mary Tyler Moore as a surly old grouch?
Moore's fabulous success as star and guiding spirit of ``The Mary Tyler Moore Show'' in the '70s continues to haunt her. Moore's sitcom isn't just fondly remembered; it's still playing every night in reruns on cable's dearly beloved Nick at Nite. But ``New York News'' would be a wobbly vehicle for anybody, former America's Sweetheart or not.
Obviously the series resembles ``Lou Grant,'' the drama that starred Edward Asner in the character he played on Moore's old show. It attempts to portray the hurly-burly of newspaper life, but the hurly is pretty feeble and Moore is no fun when trying to be burly.
The adventures of the assembled reporters and editors seem hackneyed and shopworn. Every reporter at the paper is either a career-obsessed egomaniac or a pious do-gooder who thinks journalism's job is to save the world. Both cliches are somehow embodied in Gregory Harrison as Jack Reilly, a combination of Woodward, Bernstein, and Albert Schweitzer, with a little menopausal hunkiness thrown in.
Others in the cast include Joe Morton as a hard-driving editor, Melina Kanakaredes as a hard-driving reporter, Kelli Williams as a hard-driving intern, and Madeline Kahn as a backseat-driving gossip columnist.
Kahn's character is so bossy and blabby that she causes a cabdriver to get into an accident while en route to the office. She leaves the cab with a well-deserved black eye, then spends the rest of the episode moaning that she can't possibly show her face that night at Barbra Streisand's big Carnegie Hall concert. This is a problem? Why, one wonders, doesn't she just wear a fancy eye patch? Well, as it turns out, she does, so one can stop wondering.
The gossip columnist's plight is the show's comic subplot. Other story lines, presumably meant to be taken seriously, include one reporter's investigation of corrupt firemen, another's of corrupt policemen getting cozy with hookers, and the flinty intern's attempt to get a big story about cabdriver grievances. She ends up getting scooped by TV reporter ``Vicki Chung.'' Gee, that name sounds kind of familiar.
In recent interviews, Moore has expressed the desire to abandon her cheery, chirpy image and play roles that are grittier and saltier. In keeping with this, apparently, the opening-night script includes a four-letter scatalogical term not normally heard on network TV. Thankfully, Moore is not the one who says it. But maybe next week.
And then there is the very delicate matter of Moore's appearance. She does not look good. It would certainly be unfair to expect her not to grow older. But you have to wonder why she would decide to adopt a helter-skelter hairstyle that makes her look like she just emerged from shock therapy.
Sad to say, Moore can't take a nothing show and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile. ``New York News'' isn't nothing, but it comes close. In one scene, Moore and Kahn discuss newspapering and Moore says, ``A more dog-eating, back-biting, soul-stomping business I don't know of, do you?'' Actually, Mary, yes: The network television business, especially when it comes up with shows as weak and false as ``New York News.''
by CNB