Word: shades
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...stars cannot redeem bad sitcoms. This season has already brought us Burt Reynolds sleepwalking through the overrated CBS comedy Evening Shade. Now Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neal have set back their careers about 10 years (three for her; seven for him) by fronting another grueling CBS entry, Good Sports. Fawcett plays Gayle Roberts, a veteran anchor for an all-sports network run by a Ted Turner-like mogul. O'Neal is "Downtown" Bobby Tannen, an ex-football star fallen on hard times, who is brought in to be her on-air partner. Their bickering, Moonlighting-style relationship is signaled...
...prefaced by the term "real" says a lot about what we normally eat. "Real" bagels remain round and slightly misshapen because they aren't kept in plastic bags and mass-processed at the Lender's factory. "Real" rye bread is sort of oblong, not square. "Real" cheesecake is a shade of yellow between lemon squares and the Hollandaise they try to serve with brocolli spears...
...search for innovation, the networks this fall tried musical shows, with little success. In development for next year are several prime-time animated series (if nothing else, they will look different). Another attention-getting ploy: big stars. Burt Reynolds is back this fall in Evening Shade, and Farrah Fawcett, Ryan O'Neal and Jonathan Winters are among the stars who have shows being readied for mid-season. Most of all, say network programmers, they are looking for high-quality shows that audiences will tune in on no matter how stiff the competition. "We still have a Field of Dreams mentality...
Network programmers like to think of themselves as wacky guys. Just look at the shows they put on the air. In NBC's The Fanelli Boys, four grownup brothers move back to Brooklyn to live with . . . their mother! In CBS's Evening Shade, a man is nonplussed when his wife tells him she's pregnant; he's already had a vasectomy! (Rim shot.) In Fox's Good Grief, Howie Mandel plays a nutty guy who does TV commercials for (hold on to your hats) a mortuary...
This sort of stage artifice is Betrayal's central problem: every poignant gesture is extended beyond its natural limits, every subtle shade is obliterated by the stark interpretation. Even the harsh lighting creates a visual over-simplification on the stage. Betrayal is a first-rate script with an ingenious plot, and the acting in this production is generally admirable. But its black and white interpretation leaves us longing for a touch of gray...