Viewpoint: Lou, Carter, CHiPS

By Frank Rich

Mary's old boss makes good

It doesn't happen too often, but there are times when an ordinary man turns up as the hero of a prime-time television show. Such is the case with Lou Grant, the new CBS series (premiere: Sept. 20, 10 p.m. E.D.T.) that continues the adventures of Mary's boss at the Minneapolis TV station on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Lou Grant may not have Kojak's sexy bravado or the punk elan of TV's younger male heartthrobs, but he is someone TV viewers can actually recognize from experience: Lou is 50, overweight, smart, tired, compassionate, full of disappointments and yet sturdy enough to survive. In the never-never land of television, a man of such lifelike dimensions looks very much like a king.

Edward Asner, who plays Lou, has been developing the character for seven seasons. On Mary Tyler Moore he first played his role as another gruff but lovable TV sitcom boss--like Lucy's Gale Gordon. By the time that series concluded last season, Asner had given Lou three dimensions: he was still a comic figure, but he was also a lonely, somewhat self-destructive man. Now Asner takes the character still further. In the new series (billed as drama, not situation comedy), Lou has left Minneapolis for a job as city editor of a Los Angeles newspaper. To Lou Grant, the disheveled loner, Asner now adds Lou Grant, the self-assured, two-fisted journalist.

The whole series lives up to its protagonist. An MTM Enterprises production, it demonstrates just how satisfying American commercial television can be when producers know their subject and care about quality. The first hour-long episode tells a decent story, establishes the characters, raises some sophisticated issues about modern journalistic ethics and even gets in a few real laughs. Like its parent show, Lou Grant also portrays its newsroom setting with scrupulous accuracy. The Los Angeles Tribune, where Lou works, is a big-city paper--from its computerized typesetting consoles right down to the brusque security guards in the lobby.

Then again, everything about the show feels authentic, including the supporting cast. Robert Walden, as an over-zealous but talented investigative reporter, and Peter Hobbs, as a police-beat hack, avoid most of the acting cliches usually found in Front Page-style entertainments. Nancy Marchand plays the paper's imperious, widowed publisher as a cross between the Washington Post's Katharine Graham and Dorothy Schiff, the former owner of the New York Post. If Marchand and Asner keep up their game of verbal Ping Pong, they could become TV's Hepburn and Tracy.

No doubt some of the supporting players, like their MTM antecedents, will some day have series of their own. In the meantime, it is Asner who dominates the show. Whether Lou Grant is sitting disconsolately alone in his sterile L.A. hotel room or counseling reporters in a rundown newspaper bar, he comes across as a man who has been knocked around by the real world, rather than by writers at a Hollywood story conference. That a network would give such a creature an hour of its schedule is one of this season's major flukes.

Other prime-time contenders:

Carter Country (premiere: Sept. 15, 9:30 p.m. E.D.T. on ABC). In this ridiculous sitcom, TV does its cynical best to cash in on the popularity of Jimmy Carter. The action takes place around the police station of a small Georgia town, where the cracker sheriff (Victor French) must cope with a New York-trained black sergeant (Kene Holliday), a dumb racist deputy (Harvey Vernon) and a sex-crazed policewoman (Barbara Cason). There's also a politically ambitious mayor (Richard Paul) who looks like Bert Lance and, in the opening episode, an off-screen visit by the President himself. Surely Brother Billy will visit Carter Country before too long.

Strip away all the topical trappings, however, and you'll find a Dixie rehash of Barney Miller, the program that just happens to precede this one on ABC's Thursday lineup. Carter Country is shrewdly produced too. The cast is good, and the one-liners attack all races and creeds alike. The show does not deserve to be a hit, but, barring a sudden drop in its eponym's fortunes, it is likely to be around for more than one term.

CHiPS (premiere: Sept. 15, 8 p.m. E.D.T. on NBC). Since this series about the California highway patrol is the only new cop show of the season, prime time will soon have to live without a new cop show. Up against The Waltons and the Osmonds, CHiPS may not last out the month. Erik Estrada stars as a motorcycle cop named Poncherello ("Ponch" to friends) who bears an all too obvious resemblance to both Baretta and the Fonz. For an hour, he and his partner (Larry Wilcox) ride the Los Angeles freeways arresting or aiding motorists. Occasionally they take a break to bicker with their strident commanding sergeant (Robert Pine) or flirt with pretty girls.

Since CHiPS is aired in the family hour, its heroes never shoot their guns, but even crossfire would be preferable to the tedium this series inflicts on the audience.

--Frank Rich

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