High Time For Prime Time

The holidays have always been the time for rehashing. Fromperennial Christmas favorites like It’s a Wonderful Life, AChristmas Story and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” tothe maddening plethora of year-end specials that try to boil downthe last 365 days into a easily consumable top 10 list,there’s not much of note to tune in for. This season was nodifferent.

If that weren’t enough to make us all feel like we shouldbe doing something else, like spending time with family orsomething, most of our regularly scheduled programs checked out forholidays.

Even the inevitable “out with the old” and “inwith the new” that came with the passing of Christmas and NewYear’s left me cold. The resumption of new programming on thenetworks has provided quite a few disappointments. And just so youdon’t feel like you’ve all missed out, here’s aquick recap:

The less than ‘Angel’ic HBO miniseries

Was I the only person in America who found Mike Nichol’sadaptation of Tony Kushner’s play “Angels inAmerica” tepid and ill-suited to its medium? In the reams andreams of year-end top 10 lists for television, almost every criticin America is raving about this six-hour HBO miniseries, whichaired in early December and is currently in re-runs.

While it did feature an all-star cast and was feeding off themomentum of one of the most critically acclaimed theatricalproductions in recent history, it just fell flat on the smallscreen.

To its credit, the program’s title credits featuring acloud-covered fly-over of the American continent ending in CentralPark were amazing, Patrick Wilson turns in an excellent performanceas a frustrated Mormon husband coming to terms with hishomosexuality and Al Pacino (as a bulldog New York lawyer diagnosedwith AIDS) is finally playing someone besides himself.

But the visual effects, including several scenes of angelsripping through ceilings and hospital walls, were justlaughable.

The rest of the casting seemed a concerted effort to attach bignames to the project. Mary Louise Parker, a brilliant actress,seems to be fast on her way to becoming Hollywood’s go-to galfor drug-addled suburbanites. Meryl Streep performs three smallturns as a rabbi, a judgmental Mormon mother and Ethel Rosenberg— neither worthy of much attention. And Emma Thompson iscompletely wasted as an angel that seems to have confused repeatedpronoun usage with gravitas.

Big names, poor production, uninspired adaptation? Sounds like agold mine for the sadly deceased genre of epic TV miniseries, but Iexpected more from HBO.

I, I, I, I, I, I didn’t like it.

Kicked to the ‘Curb’

Another HBO favorite, “Curb your Enthusiasm,” isback for a third season, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. Forthose of you who’ve somehow missed out on former Seinfeldwriter Larry David’s misanthropic program, now’s theperfect opportunity to experience some of the tightest sitcomwriting on television.

The genius of David’s show has always been his ability toskewer the absurdities of social niceties like the tour of the homeexpected upon moving into a new place or the obligatorystop-and-chat when you run into an acquaintance on the street.Larry, to the bafflement of his wife Cheryl (Cheryl Hines) andmanager Jeff (Jeff Greene), serves as our vicarious id.

But what made prior episodes genius may be falling by thewayside as Larry moves further from everyday experience. Thisseason’s story lines include a gift his wife promised him ontheir 10th anniversary (a one-time affair with another woman) andan invitation from Mel Brooks to join the cast of “TheProducers” in New York.

And part of the show’s delightfulness has always been itsability to resolve every disparate thread into a pitch perfectcomic punch line at the end, the first episode’s doctordrooling, avoidance of a handshake after a sneeze and odd karaokemoment seemed a little forced. Perhaps the show’s writersneeded to focus too much on exposition. I haven’t written itoff yet, but again, I expected more.

Sydney Bristow’s baby

Making fun of “Alias” (ABC) is a bit like crackingracial jokes. Sure this Mission-Impossible-meets-FelicitySunday-night-thriller is corny with a capital C, but while it maybe OK for me, as a die-hard fan, to joke about its far-fetched plotlines and overly dramatic acting, the second you make a slur,‘them’s fightin’ words.

Somehow, though, the show has managed to snag thousands of loyalviewers who are willing to followsuper-spy-and-part-time-grad-student Sydney Bristow (JenniferGarner) laughing into the apocalypse.

After discovering that her roommate had been killed by asuper-evil terrorist organization and replaced by an evil clone atthe end of last season, Sydney killed her and supposedly diedherself only to wake up two years later in the streets of HongKong. She’s spent most of this season trying to recover hermemories to find out what happened to her, while trading verbalspars with her former lover’s new wife (Melissa George) anduncovering the DNA of an ancient prophet. (See what I mean?)

Anyway, Bristow fans were finally treated to the big revealSunday only to find out that another super-evil terroristorganization had kidnapped our favorite spy in order to harvest hereggs so she could breed the “ultimate weapon ofdestruction” when they were fertilized with this ancientprophet’s DNA. Perhaps the uninitiated won’t be able tounderstand the line where the endearingly unbelievable turns intocomplete crap, but Sydney’s done one roundhouse kick too manyand found herself on the wrong side.

Sunday’s episode ended in Sydney frying her harvested eggsand preventing the end of the world once again, so hopefullythey’ll drop this Polanski-esque storyline and move on.

Here’s for better TV watching in the New Year!

“Curb Your Enthusiasm” airs at 8:30 p.m. on Sundayon HBO, “Alias” airs at 8 p.m. Sunday on ABC (Ch. 8)and “Angels in America” is in reruns on HBO channels.Check listings for details.