Finale? Look Out for That Cliff!

New York Times - May 19, 2000
CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK By CARYN JAMES

LAST month Al Gore sat on a couch in the study of the Vice President's official residence and said with great urgency: "Get in the tube, dummy! We only have a few seconds before the universe is destroyed." He had already made his position on the destruction of the universe clear: "As an environmentalist, I'm against that."

Mr. Gore gives a droll reading while playing himself on the animated comedy "Futurama," set in the year 3000. In Sunday's time-traveling season finale, the hero, a pizza delivery guy named Fry, has stumbled back to his original home in 1999, distorting history, creating a rip in the space-time continuum and making a final big bang imminent. Mr. Gore is trying to get Fry to re-enter the cryogenic tube that took him to the future and so save the world (not a bad thing to have on your résumé if you want to be president).

Matt Groening, the creator of "Futurama" and the mastermind behind "The Simpsons," recalled how the guest shot came about. He had read that Mr. Gore was a fan of both shows and called the vice president's staff to ask if he would be willing to play a nerd.

In Sunday's episode, Mr. Gore arrives with a band he calls his Vice Presidential Action Rangers (also doing their own guest voices), including Uhura from "Star Trek" (Nichelle Nichols) and Stephen Hawking. "Aren't you that physicist that invented gravity?" Fry asks. "Sure, why not," says Mr. Hawking.

Who knows whether Mr. Gore's guest spot will endear him to voters besotted with pop culture, but his presence has inspired one of the wittiest episodes that this uneven year-old series has done. The Gore portion of the episode hints that a more topical spin and sharper, irreverent writing (Mr. Hawking uses his wheelchair as a lethal weapon) could make this series as funny as it should be.

"Futurama" joins a flood of season finales this weekend, with subjects ranging from a day at the beach to sexual slavery. Together, they reveal a great deal about the possibilities and limitations of network television. By the time this largely lackluster season ends on Wednesday, we'll have seen shows that define the border of network daring ("Sopranos" envy only goes so far), as well as finales that hint at the struggles of aging dramas and the potential of still growing comedies.

On tonight's finale of "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit," the main plot involves a wealthy businessman (Andrew McCarthy), who keeps his wife and their young housekeeper in mental and physical slavery.

But the more gripping subplot is smartly self-referential: the detectives in the show's sex-crimes unit undergo psychological testing to see how they are enduring relentless encounters with rapists and pornographers. Eliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) is a family man; his partner, Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), is a result of her mother's rape. The psychologist wonders if they or their colleagues are ready to snap (the answer creates a cliffhanger).

This series raises a similar issue with viewers: how dark can a weekly series be? Though it has been a ratings success since moving to Friday, the show's premise might be called "another week, another pedophile." When the series is good it is extraordinary. On last week's episode (more compelling than tonight's), a television newswoman reported that she was the recent victim of an unknown rapist; at the end, she was killed by a bomb placed in a box of flowers at her door. As taut and gripping as that episode was, the bleakness built into the series makes it hard to think about tuning in every week.

Villains and Victims

There is a difference between the darkness of "Special Victims Unit" (a conventional show about unmistakable heroes and villains) and the riskiness of the season's two new standouts, "The West Wing" and "Judging Amy," terrific shows that have consistently become better. Their daring comes from the complex humanity of the characters and the ambiguity attached to the thorny political and social issues they face.

Yet whether that complexity comes from the White House staff or the family court rulings of Judge Amy Gray (Amy Brenneman), both series tie things up with fluffy resolutions. President Barlett (Martin Sheen) on "The West Wing" marches in with his rousing "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" ending; and though the heroine on "Judging Amy" faces hard decisions, her mother, Maxine (Tyne Daly), always knows best.

The irony is that while these tacked-on endings are jarring in dramatic terms, they may also be the sops that make the shows palatable to the broadest possible audience. In the compromised landscape of network television, conventional cliffhangers and feel-good endings may buy "Amy" and "West Wing" the freedom to be tough-minded the rest of the time.

Until the final minutes of each episode, these two shows are fiercely intelligent. "The West Wing" (which ended its season on Wednesday) has even created drama out of the hour-by-hour details of poll results. And it is especially good at the small touches that define fraught working relationships.

When C. J. (Allison Janey), the press secretary, complained to Leo (John Spencer), the chief of staff, that he had not let the president know about her contribution to a discussion, he says, "Don't do this, C. J."

Mr. Spencer's delivery subtly captures not only the condescension and sexism behind the remark, but also the extent to which those attitudes are unconscious, knee-jerk reactions in this boys' club. Though President Barlett remains a know-it-all, the character has cultivated a dry wit. The finale, in which an assassination attempt left viewers wondering who, if anyone, has been harmed, was the kind of explosive action the series rarely indulges in.

Yet it worked.

Next Tuesday's finale of "Judging Amy" explodes atypically too, with the threat of violent action. But the episode also plays to the series' great, week-after-week strengths. An innocent overheard conversation between Amy and Bruce (Richard T. Jones), her court services officer, leads to charges of improper behavior against them. "A white female judge and a black male C.S.O.," Bruce says. "I'm surprised we lasted this long." What could have been lurid soap opera is handled with savvy realism here. The final episode leaves more than their professional fate hanging: Maxine has been having a romance with a wealthy businessman, whose son crudely interferes, and one of Amy's rulings may have deadly repercussions.

Saying So Long

Other daring series were simply in the wrong place this season. The medical drama "Wonderland" was canceled by ABC after two episodes, leaving a hard core of followers wondering where it went. The ratings were atrocious for a network show, but some viewers loved it. (Every television reporter, editor and critic has heard from friends and viewers who were passionate about "Wonderland," which rarely happens when a show is pulled.) "Wonderland" might have done fine on cable, where a smaller, devoted audience is enough.

Similarly, the canceled police series "The Beat" might have done better on a real network rather than on UPN, the wrestling netlet. The show wasn't breaking ground (and as it went along relied less on its gimmick of switching back and forth between film and video). Yet it worked as a lively version of the genre.

Other new shows turned out to be less daring than they promised. "Once and Again," though renewed for next season, has already petered out dramatically.

Lily and Rick (Sela Ward and Billy Campbell), the divorced parents who find each other, have become tiresome and annoying. The secondary characters are much more absorbing, and the show picks up conspicuously when they become the focus: the children are believably difficult and confused; so are Lily's sister, who fell for a married man, and Rick's ex-wife, who fell for a younger man. (Maybe Rick and Lily should just run off-screen together, leaving the show in better shape.)

It took "Once and Again" just a few months to age badly. Better series take years before those signs show, and "The Practice" is approaching that point. The season's best episodes came in a recent story line in which Ellenor (Camryn Manheim) tried to save a man from death row. The least compelling elements involved the wedding of Bobby and Lindsay (Dylan McDermott and Kelli Williams). Sunday's exceptional finale displays the series' continued power, in an emotionally strong story about a woman (Marlee Matlin) on trial for shooting the man who raped and killed her 7-year-old daughter. The show's weariness is apparent in the wedding plot, which is wrapped up with a surprise that seems forced.

The danger for series like "The Practice" became evident in a recent episode in which Eugene (Steve Harris) wonders yet again why he defends guilty lowlifes. How many times can the lawyers on "The Practice" ask that question? How many trials can the doctors on "E. R." (which ended its season last night) endure? Do we believe that John Carter (Noah Wyle) became a drug addict because he was stabbed by a patient? Or is he just another victim of the writers' desperation?

"The X-Files" finale on Sunday (not available for preview) will not mark the end of the series or of David Duchovny's appearances, though both were possibilities. Mr. Duchovny will return for half of next season.

In a turn both brilliant and obvious, aliens reportedly will abduct his character on Sunday's finale and he will be lost in space at the beginning of next season.

But like "E.R." and "The Practice," "The X-Files" has outlived its best days; now if these shows become a subject of conversation, it's only for viewers to say they have gone downhill. Well, D'oh!

While many dramas have aged badly, a block of finales on Sunday displays the rich long-term possibilities of well-written, irreverent comedies. "The Simpsons" may be a decade old, but it is still consistently among the best-written shows on television, its wit apparent in such tiny details as the phrases Bart writes as punishment on the blackboard in each week's opening credits. "I will not make art out of dung," he wrote one week.

Sunday's finale is a parody of VH-1's "Behind the Music," which takes a backstage view of the Simpsons' dysfunctional route to sitcom stardom in "Behind the Laughter." In this version of history, presented with the cliched, overwrought narration of the VH-1 series, when "The Simpsons" series faltered, "Fox put the show on hiatus and replaced it with hidden-camera footage from the dressing room at Ann Taylor" in a reality special called 'Peepin' It Real.' "

"King of the Hill" has improved its sly, tongue-in-cheek humor about a propane salesman in Texas and his family, making the Hill family laughable without being unlikable. Sunday's finale takes them to a country music festival loaded with guest voices, including Randy Travis's. But last week's episode was funnier, with Sydney Pollack as a podiatrist who puts Peggy Hill's size 16 feet on an Internet site for foot fetishists.

'Malcolm' and Michael

It's easier to be irreverent with cartoons than live actors, but the season's best new comedy, "Malcolm in the Middle," has flourished by creating a perfect balance of realism and comic exaggeration.

The series quickly moved beyond the idea that Malcolm, the middle child (played with endearing mischievousness by Frankie Muniz), is a genius. The appeal of the show is that this family is typical in its shouting, squabbling and mean tricks.

It even gets away with a mother (Jane Kaczmarek) who dishes out lovingly vicious punishments. On Sunday's episode, while the rest of the family goes to the beach, the youngest child, Dewey (Erik Per Sullivan), is left behind with the baby sitter (Beatrice Arthur), who ends up doing a stellar flamenco with him.

Not every finale says something about the broad television landscape, of course. The hourlong season finale of "Spin City" on Wednesday finds a deft way to write the indispensable Michael J. Fox out of the series. The episode could have been mawkish, because Mr. Fox chose to leave after announcing that he has Parkinson's disease. But the series has always been written with a touch of sophistication that raised it above most sitcoms. Though the final episode has moments of undeniable emotion, it relies on hard-nosed political reality to send Mr. Fox's character, the deputy mayor, out of his job and out of the series.

Though Charlie Sheen will join the cast next year, playing a new character, Mr. Fox's departure is sure to transform "Spin City" into something different. He managed to blend an upscale aura and laserlike comic timing with a down-to-earth appeal; mixing the exceptional and the ordinary, risk and insurance, is apparently what it takes to make a network success.


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