National TV Reviews & News

By ED BARK
An unsettling apprehension creeps in and quickly claims squatter's rights: Anyone who watches The Sarah Silverman Program surely is going straight to hell.

It's way too late for this reviewer, who's already both laughed and cringed his way through the first two episodes of Comedy Central's diciest effort ever. Even South Park must bow to the sheer audacity and bad taste of a show whose heroine beds the very amorous "Black God" and then dumps him in Thursday's first episode (9:30 p.m. central, 10:30 eastern).

Just to be clear, we're not talking euphemistically here. This really is an all-powerful Supreme Being from on high who had a "really, really good time" with Sarah and wants to take her on a second date to heaven, where he'll introduce her to Thomas Jefferson. Her disinterested response: "All right, so I guess I'll see you around some time."

It won't get any tamer in next Thursday's second episode, which bitch-slaps viewers with this opening ditty from the comedian also known as Jimmy Kimmel's girlfriend: "I always wake up with the morning sun. I always take my pills with herbal tea. I always never cry and I've always wondered why I always have to watch myself when I go pee. I really love my life and I'll also tell you what. If I find a stick I'll put it in your momma's butt. And pull it out and stick the doody in her eye."

That pretty much covers the landscape of a show that just doesn't give a damn whom, what or when it offends. There's value in that and box office multi-millions in Borat. But Silverman is no Sacha Baron Cohen when it comes to turning outrageousness into mega-belly laughs. She shoots and scores, but only about 20 percent of the time.

Otherwise her comedy clangs and bangs away, with a seemingly brilliant mind lurking beneath bits that should be beneath her. These include a merry farting contest at a diner between gay friends Brian and Steve (Brian Posehn, Steve Agee). Sarah gamely joins in but instead ends up singing, "I just tried to be like the others but I pooped instead." Not exactly a gas.

Sarah's character, named Sarah Silverman, is an intensely self-absorbed, jobless slacker who sponges off her nurse sister Laura (real-life sibling Laura Silverman). Thursday's opener more or less is built around the title character's attempt to buy batteries for her TV's remote control. Unfortunately for her, the entrance to Fan-Tasti-Mart is being blocked by a wheelchair race and two wisecracking cops. (Look for Masi Oka, now a hot star on Heroes, in a brief role as the convenience store clerk.)

Black God eventually gives battery-thieving Sarah a reprieve, turning the two cops into boxes of Bugles. She quickly snacks on them, which is funny. Then it's time to hit the sack with the Creator in a sequence that just might lead to no small number of thundering pulpits this Sunday. Silverman clearly could give a crap.

The second episode finds Sarah with a cold and sister Laura again providing the scratch she needs to buy some cough syrup. She happily slugs down some industrial strength, nighttime-only stuff, sending her on an inventively funny hallucinatory trip to outer space in which she meets a friendly orange Loch Ness monster.

Soon, though, we're back to fart and vagina humor. Sarah also messes up Laura's budding romance with Officer Jay (Jay Johnston). She can't stand it that her sister is going to dinner with him on a night when they always watch Cookie Party! together on TV.

Through it all, Silverman is thoroughly unafraid to make an ass of herself, both as the character she plays and the material she purveys. There's no other comic like her, which in a way is a good thing. Still, she's got balls as well as the vagina to which she regularly refers. And sometimes that's a winning combination.

Grade: B-minus

Venerable Heather Locklear kicks off Lifetime's series of four Nora Roberts tele-novels with a plucky performance in Angels Fall.
By ED BARK
Lifetime gets little love from guys, and no wonder.

Until just the other day or so, the network officially billed itself as "Television For Women" in all its print and on-air promotions. Don't get the wrong idea, though. The next round of The Ultimate Fighter isn't on the way.

"We're not backing away from our commitment to being the No. 1 network for women," says Lifetime entertainment president Susanne Daniels. "But ESPN doesn't say 'Television for Men.' And Nickelodeon doesn't say 'Television Just for Kids.' I think we stand for 'Television for Women' now so much that we don't need to hit our viewers over the head with it anymore."

Got it. So maybe this gnarly male should have his head examined for checking out Lifetime's first of four movies dedicated to bestselling novelist Nora Roberts, who grinds 'em out like coffee beans. Angels Fall, premiering Monday (Jan. 29) at 8 p.m. central, stars the still resilient Heather Locklear as traumatized Reece Gilmore.

She's on another road to nowhere when her car blows a head gasket. And of course the lone automotive repair shop in a dinky Wyoming town has to send away for parts that will take longer to arrive than Colby Donaldson on the Hollywood scene. So Reece pieces together an existence as cook at the down-the-street Angel Food Diner after two gas station guys offer a commentary on today's contemporary woman.

"Pretty thing," says one.

"Yeah," says the other. "No meat on her, though. Women nowadays, you know, they just starve off all the curves."

Locklear, 45 and looking just a wee bit chipmunk-y, does an OK job in a movie that gradually devolves from OK to hokey. There's a murder mystery afoot, but did the mentally unstable Reece witness or fantasize it? Her mind, let alone that body, are terrible things to waste. So along comes supportive, strapping "Brody" (Johnathon Schaech), a former Chicago newspaper reporter who now writes mystery novels. (Message to beleaguered male Tribune scribes in the Windy City: get the hell out now. You might end up with Heather Locklear in front of a crackling fire.)

Lifetime also is adapting Roberts' Montana Sky, Blue Smoke and Carolina Moon into movies. It's akin to what NBC used to do with Danielle Steele's potboilers before the network's moviemaking division went into eclipse. Daniels says she's happy to be in business with an author who has had 144 New York Times since she began churning them out in 1981.

"I feel like if I go to the beach and everybody is holding a Nora Roberts book, then let's make these movies," Daniels says.

Everybody knows she's not referring to men. Lifetime is still dancing with the audience that brought it to prominence, even if it's not spelling it out anymore. So ladies, start your engines. Gentlemen, go watch 24.

Grade: C

Hayden Panettiere of Heroes: A little makeup can work wonders.
By ED BARK
PASADENA, Calif. -- Hayden Panettiere, all of 17, has been in show business almost since conception.

"Eight months old I started in this nuts business," she says, referring to her first screen appearance in a Playskool commercial.

Fellow Heroes star Masi Oka, a comparatively grizzled 32, also knew the spotlight at an early age. As a 12-year-old, he appeared on a 1987 Time magazine cover titled "Those Asian-American Whiz Kids."

Still, both were far more anonymous than not until NBC's Heroes became a breakout hit this season. Panettiere's seemingly indestructible Claire Bennet ("Save the cheerleader, save the world") and Oka's time-shifting Hiro Nakamura since have catapulted both actors to full frontal fame.

Oka already will be doing a sendup of his Heroes character on Monday's (Jan. 29) episode of NBC's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. On the same night he'll be sharing scenes on a new Heroes episode with Star Trek's George Takei, who is playing Hiro's father.

"I kind of wish it was gradual, so I had a chance to like acclimate myself," Oka says at a recent NBC party. "I've come from a zero to all of a sudden a hero in many ways."


Sarah Paulson and Masi Oka on the Jan. 29 episode of Studio 60
Until Heroes, Panettiere's most visible TV role was leukemia victim Lizzie Spaulding on The Guiding Light. Much earlier, as a four-and-a-half-year-old, she played Sarah Victoria "Flash" Roberts on another daytime soaper, One Life to Live.

A small role in 2000's Remember the Titans brought her a bit of recognition, but Heroes is "the deciding factor that really got me over that hump, which often you catch yourself on."

She says this while surrounded two dozen or so TV critics after a crowded interview session packed with 10 Heroes stars and producer/creator Tim Kring.

"It's a new sort of thing," Panettiere says of the fame Heroes has wrought. "You know things are happening when you walk out of your apartment and there are two cars full of paparazzi who had followed me home. It was sort of a scary feeling . . . I didn't know whether to be completely flattered or kind of nervous about it. Then another person actually followed me all the way to work and started running red lights. I was calling my parents and going, "Oh my God!' "

She hasn't hired a bodyguard and doesn't want to go that route. "When you have them, it's almost like people want to get to you more. They fight harder and it becomes really dangerous. As opposed to if you just give yourself to the public. Then it's almost like they become your protection.

"It's not like I go wandering down dark alleys at night by myself. I usually have friends with me, and people are usually very courteous. Hopefully nobody really thinks I'm invincible and tries to do something rash."

Pre-Heroes, Oka had been kicking around in lesser fare such as One Sung Hero, God Wears My Underwear and House of the Dead II: Dead Aim. No one of any import ever praised him for this work. But at the Jan. 15 Golden Globes ceremony, "suddenly I was in the same room with all of this amazing talent. Tom Hanks came up to us and said, 'We love your show.' And Steven Spielberg, too. That's surreal."

He does miss being left alone in restaurants.

"I go out to eat by myself a lot, so I can collect my thoughts and read scripts and things. It's like my moment of zen and peace," Oka says. "But now I can't do that. People come up to you. Sometimes they'll just sit right down across from you and ask, 'Can I eat with you?' "

At least no one's asked him to time-shift yet. And Oka figures it's better to have "passionate fans" than rampant disinterest. He's still a nobody in his homeland, though, where Heroes isn't yet on home screens.

"I can still be anonymous in Japan," he says. "Which is the irony of it all."

By ED BARK
Fated to be second to The Simpsons in everything, King of the Hill returns to Fox Sunday night (Jan. 28) for an 11th under-appreciated season.

There is this, though. On last Sunday's flight home from Pasadena, our American Airlines pilot did an impression of Hank Hill to the puzzlement of some and bemusement of most. And to his credit, he nailed it.

The real Hank is Austin-based Mike Judge, who's been voicing him since King of the Hill's Jan. 12, 1997 premiere. Fox has come close to dropping the show on several occasions. But now it's back for at least one more howdy, nestled nicely between The Simpsons and Family Guy at 7:30 p.m. central, 8:30 eastern.

Fictional Arlen, TX returns to the prime-time map with an episode titled "The Peggy Horror Picture Show." It's only an OK outing, with Hank's wife, Peg (Kathy Najimy), vexed by her she-man clothing and size 16 shoes.

"You think I'm feminine, don't you, Hank?" she asks.

"Well, sure you are," he assures her. "You're a wife and a mother."

The big lug then offers to buy Peg some new footwear at her favorite Lubbock emporium, Very Big Shoes. But the place has gone out of business, and an Internet search yields just one other possibility, Clarissa's Closet. It turns out to be a Big Foot monster of a store with Size 16s galore. While shopping, Peg meets "Caroline," who unbeknownst to her is a drag queen. They become fast friends before Peg predictably gets devastated.

Mildly amusing at best, the episode never clicks its heels. Hank is only minimally in it, and a subplot with dense son Bobby (Pamela Adlon) is lame from start to stop. It doesn't yet mean that King of the Hill finally is over the hill. But this definitely isn't putting its best foot forward.

Ya just gotta do better, guys, and here's hoping you will. Otherwise it's gonna be Boot Hill for keeps.

The TV set: Eddie Murphy, Jennifer Hudson and Will Smith.
By ED BARK
Many an Oscar winner made his or her first big mark on the lowly small screen.

To name a few: Sally Field (Gidget/The Flying Nun), Clint Eastwood (Rawhide), Helen Hunt (Mad About You), Denzel Washington (St. Elsewhere), Robin Williams (Mork & Mindy), Tom Hanks (Bosom Buddies), Jamie Foxx (The Jamie Foxx Show), George Clooney (ER).

The newest nominees again include previous winner Eastwood, this time as best director for Letters from Iwo Jima. Otherwise the acting categories are strongly represented with TV expatriates looking for their first Oscars.

Leonardo DiCaprio only peripherally counts. Nominated as best actor for Blood Diamond, he logged 23 episodes in the recurring role of Luke Brower during the closing two seasons of ABC's Growing Pains. That show didn't make him a star. But it did give him a li'l leg up in Hollywoodland.

Of more interest is Eddie Murphy, who has to be the early favorite in the best supporting actor category for his showy role in Dreamgirls. He's the fifth Saturday Night Live regular to be nominated, but would be the first to win. The others are Joan Cusack (Working Girl), Dan Aykroyd (Driving Miss Daisy), Robert Downey, Jr. (Chaplin) and most recently, Bill Murray (Lost in Translation).

Will Smith, who starred for six seasons on NBC's The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, seems like a longshot to win for The Pursuit of Happyness. But the other two TV personages have solid chances to make acceptance speeches.

American Idol semi-finalist Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls) would be a surprise non-winner in the supporting actress slot. Not that Idol needs any more publicity, but a Hudson victory would further solidify the show as a starmaking ratings Goliath.

In the best actress category, Helen Mirren first hit it big on these shores as Det. Supt. Jane Tennison in a series of seven PBS Prime Suspect movies, the first in 1991. She looks like a lock for her title role performance in The Queen.

There's also Sacha Baron Cohen, who has a best adapted screenplay nomination for Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. HBO first put him on the map with Da Ali G Show. But Cohen's recent testicles/anus acceptance speech at the Golden Globes may have put Academy voters off their feed.

If not, it could be a very long night for the seven-second delay button. After all, Cohen hasn't even touched on the female anatomy yet.

Back in uniform: a paunchier "Ponch" cops to a new reality show.
Premiering: Wednesday night, Jan. 10th (7 central, 8 eastern) on CBS
Starring: Erik Estrada, La Toya Jackson, Jack Osbourne, Trish Stratus, Jason "Wee-Man" Acuna
Produced by: Tom Forman

By ED BARK
No C-list celebrities were unduly harmed during shooting of the new CBS reality series Armed & Famous.

Darn the luck. And make that D-list.

Seriously, though, there oughta be a law against making cops of Erik Estrada, La Toya Jackson, Jack Osbourne, former wrestler Trish Stratus and skateboarder Jason "Wee-Man" Acuna. All that's required of them is minimal made-for-TV training by the oughta-know-better Muncie, Ind. police department. But away we go anyway, with this desperate-for-exposure quintet grandly arriving in a limousine escorted by a caravan of marked cars.

"Who are these brave new recruits?" asks an announcer who sounds like a cross between Dragnet's late Jack Webb and the voice of God from an old Biblical epic. We then learn that one of them, La Toya, has long yearned to both work at a McDonald's and be a police officer. Oh the things they expect us to swallow.

Their training ground is a "world away from Hollywood," viewers are told. This is illustrated with video of an actual squirrel eating an actual nut. Man, they might as well be in Siberia.

Armed & Famous spends about half of Wednesday's first episode on what's billed as a rigorous training regimen. This affords Estrada a chance to loudly pass gas during a hand-to-hand combat session. Enormously amused is "Wee-Man" Acuna of Jackass fame.

"Ponch just farted," he giggles, referring to Estrada's old make-believe cop on CHiPs. The five of them then go to a laundromat, where La Toya can't quite master the dollar bill changer. She is, however, allowed to carry a firearm.

Back in training, all five recruits are required to sustain a jolt from a stun gun. Estrada sums up the experience beautifully: "Ya know, one of my testicles has enlarged from getting zapped by a Taser."

We pause briefly to remind you that Armed & Famous actually is airing on CBS, not Spike TV. You know, "The Tiffany Network."

Burly Sgt. Rick Eber says he won't tolerate any messing around by his recruits. This doesn't deter "Wee-Man" from loudly partying with a bunch of ecstatic young Muncie-ites who seem pathetically thrilled to be in his vicinity. Wow, what would happen if Joe Piscopo ever blew through Muncie? Pandemonium, that's what. Or at least that's the impression created.

Quick as a lick, the five get their badges and guns at a public ceremony attended by a cheering throng of cops and townies. Taskmaster Eber is suddenly fuzzy-wuzzy: "You guys have far exceeded anything I thought you were capable of doing."

Imagine how very, very low his expectations must have been. But La Toya's got the power, and baby, it sure beats another failed CD.

"We're going to be out there on the streets fighting for our lives and other people's," she marvels.

Each of them gets a partner, just like in Adam 12. Estrada and a comely blonde officer quickly arrest a toothless, elderly woman after a SWAT raid on her alleged drug den.

"This is the wrong way to have to meet you, Ponch," she giggles while being squeezed into a squad car. "I wouldn't miss one movie (sic) on that show."

La Toya later braves a less than five-star eatery during a dinner break with her partner.

"You're not going to find many places with tablecloths here," she says of Muncie before asking for some cover and a finger bowl, too.

The show's announcer further sets the table by intoning, "Midnight on the streets of Muncie. Crime doesn't sleep, and neither do our celebrity cops."

And so it goes, with the heartland portrayed as Hooterville on a show that might be a hoot if it weren't such a sorry sham. After a "special" Thursday episode, Armed & Famous will air weekly on Wednesdays unless someone at CBS somehow has the good sense makes a house arrest.

Otherwise it's "Holy moley, La Toya Jackson and guns!" in the words of Wee-Man Acuna.

Grade: D

Billy Bush and Donald Trump give the Peacock new plumage Sunday.

By ED BARK
Football's gone, leaving NBC's Sunday lineup in need of an extreme makeover for the second half of the 2006-'07 TV season. The night's hairs apparent are two guys who spend lots of time in the salon -- Billy Bush and Donald Trump.

The exceptionally annoying Bush (from the syndicated Access Hollywood) hosts Grease: You're the One That I Want, which gets a 90-minute premiere from 7 to 8:30 p.m. central time.

Then comes an egomaniac who needs no further introduction. NBC's sixth edition of Trump's The Apprentice shucks New York for Los Angeles in hopes of reviving interest in this flagging enterprise. It also gets a 90-minute startup (8:30 to 10 p.m.).

You're the One isn't one to resist comparisons to American Idol. It slavishly copies the Fox juggernaut in virtually every way imaginable. Let us count the ways: Three judges, one of them a sharp-tongued Britisher named David Ian. Auditions in select cities, beginning with Los Angeles and Chicago. Really bad auditioners, allowing the judges to cringe and crack wise. Eventual live voting from viewers, who will pick the next Danny and Sandy for a new Broadway production. And a host who might as well be Ryan Seacrest and no doubt wishes he was.

Bush certainly isn't self-effacing, though. He refers to himself as a "handsome devil" in Sunday's opener. Later he tells a hopeful named Vincent, "I have great hair. You have great hair. We're the great hair buddies right here."

The host can be a bridge over troubled teardrops, too, particularly when the sobbing discard is a cute would-be Sandy named Fawn. Rejected by the judges, she's embraced backstage by smarmin' Billy.

"This one I don't agree with," he tells her. "It's tough. This one is for you. That's for you. Oh my God."

What he does is hand her a tissue touched by him. Then Bush grandly implores the judges to give this piece a second chance. Which they do after ludicrously dramatic music makes it seem as though they're deciding the fate of the western world. Which come to think of it . . .

Actually, this makes One That I Want different in at least one respect from Idol. Imagine what Simon Cowell might have said if his judgment were questioned by a mere host. It might go something like this: "Get out of my sight, you silly little twit, and go change your panties while you're at it."

OK, let's not be too harsh. Actually, let's.

Two particularly obese hopefuls, one of whom moonlights as a "tap-dancing cupcake," are passed through the singing round into the dancing round. It's a transparently phony effort to show that the judges will consider more than good looks and physiques in casting Sandy. Then both of the women are shot down as being "not right" for the part. This dashes their dreams to be one of 50 contestants sent to "Grease Academy" for further schooling. Frankly, they never had even a ghost of a chance in the first place. Still, the show isn't above using the two for comic relief before giving them the old heave-ho. When you get right down to it, that's just not a very nice tradeoff, even for all that TV exposure.

The big-screen's original Sandy, Olivia Newton-John, makes a few brief appearances to essentially say nothing. Bush's co-host, Denise Van Outen, doesn't have much to do either. Nor does the city of Chicago. It gets maybe one-third the screen time of Los Angeles, where the talent is deemed much stronger.

After several weeks of this, the top 12 contestants from Grease Academy will begin performing on live shows, starting Jan. 28. That's when the American public will start winnowing the field, provided the American public cares enough to do so.

The return of The Apprentice, which the American public once cared very much about, gives Trump at least one last round of bragging rights. He's first seen on a rainy day in Manhattan, supposedly talking to his latest wife and their baby son on the telephone as he heads West to join them.

"I'm Donald Trump, and I have properties all over the place," he says with typical humility. Then he's quickly behind the wheel of a convertible while proclaiming, "I love L.A. What's not to love about great weather and an economy that's worth almost $600 billion dollars?"

His reunion with spouse Melania and baby Baron is less than teary-eyed. Big Don doesn't even touch the kid, whom Melania cradles in her arms while the nanny gets a few seconds off.

Trump has 18 supplicants this time. It's the usual crowd of self-important ass-kissers, led by a Bronx contracting company CEO named Frank. This means that Trump again has the genius to cast someone who's even more obnoxious than he is.

His boardroom now is absent helpmates Carolyn Kepcher and George Ross, who have been supplanted by Trump's daughter, Ivanka. She looks just like the old man and seems to have the same imperious ways about her. The Donald did good.

A car wash competition separates the first winning team from the losers, who have to sleep in tents until redeeming themselves. So it's a blend of Survivor and The Apprentice from the creator of both series, Mark Burnett. Or as one of the losers puts it, "The sinks don't drain. This does feel like Third World."

An exceedingly long and contentious boardroom segment finally cuts one of them loose. But not before Trump can observe, "Martin's a bit of a pompous ass."

Of course he should know. But The Apprentice still has its entertaining moments, with even Trump an easier swallow than shallow Billy Bush.

Grades: Grease: You're the One That I Want -- D+; The Apprentice -- C+

Jump back, Jack. 24's superman still cleans up pretty good.

By ED BARK
24's sixth season won't dawn until Sunday, Jan. 14, when Fox shoots it out of the gate with four hours over two nights.

Still, what's a TV critic to do upon receiving those episodes under cover of a big, white, unmarked box that also housed a 24: Behind the Scenes coffee table book? Devour 'em in one sitting, that's what. And now I'm reporting back to you with all due speed and caution.

Fox has sent these episodes out with the full knowledge that the Internet is a tattletale of immense proportions. But as the network notes in its cover letter: "Last year you complied with our request that you not reveal the most explosive plot twists in your reviews and we genuinely appreciated it. As a result, we're pleased again to offer all four (Fox's emphasis) of the opening episodes for your review."

Furthermore, classified secrets are at stake. So let's get down to it. "We ask that you refrain from mentioning a few key moments, specifically, the exact nature of how Jack is expected to 'sacrifice' himself, and what happens in the final minutes of the first and fourth hours. (Fox emphasis) We know this may prove challenging when writing your reviews, but we believe that preserving the more significant twists of 24 until broadcast is what delivers the most rewarding viewing experience."

Never mind that Fox's on-air promotions of upcoming episodes have been known to give away some of those "more significant twists." But the point is well-taken, and no honorable critic would do something like that. Who said Uncle Barky was honorable, though? So here's the . . . sorry, just kidding. Instead let's touch on some talking points and overall first impressions of Season 6:

***Agent Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) has been held under extreme duress by the Chinese government for the past 20 months. He's got the hollowed, haunted look and the scars on his back to prove it.

***Extreme terrorism again is at loose in the U.S. 24's first hour (6 to 7 a.m.) opens with a "Fox News Alert" of a bombing in San Antonio. President Wayne Palmer (DB Woodside), brother of the late president David Palmer, has been in office for just three months. His brow's already furrowed. Going unmentioned in the first four episodes are snaky former president Charles Logan (Gregory Itzin) and his wife, Martha (Jean Smart), although both are slated to return this season.

***There are too many "Fox News Alerts." Product placement is all well and good, but the people at CTU and the White House should switch the channel to CNN or MSNBC once in a while. Yeah, like that's gonna happen.

***Jack is flown back from China because who else is gonna clean up this mess? Extricating him has cost the U.S. a steep price, we're told. There are no further details, but bear that in mind as the season marches on.

***Even by 24's standards, Jack gets the quickest shave and haircut in the history of humankind. In fact it very much borders on being laughably quick in this always taut-faced thriller/chiller.

***Trailers for 24 already have shown Jack saying, "I understand what's expected of me." And "I can die for something. My way, my choice." We won't spill further details, although it's clear that Jack is emotionally spent and ready to greet the hereafter. Five seasons of mostly pure hell can do that to a man.

***The first hour spills plenty of blood, much of it Jack's. But he's not done yet, and the final few minutes are a jarring testament to that. Grisly, powerful and classic 24.

***Notable new characters introduced in the first four hours are hardline presidential advisor Thomas Lennox (Peter MacNicol) and the president's sister, Sandra (Regina King), idealistic lawyer for the hard-pressed Islamic American Alliance. The Oval Office give-and-take seems stilted in the early going. Maybe it's because both the actors and the characters are new at their jobs.

***Jack continues to see himself as half the man he used to be, even if his actions still speak louder than his words. "I don't know how to do this anymore," he says in Hour 2. And in the truly shocking Hour 4: "I can't do this anymore . . . I'm done." Don't believe him.

***Hour 2 is dedicated at its end to the Aircrew of Gunshot 66 -- Maj. Gerald "Beav" Bloomfield and Capt. Michael "Martini" Martino. Their Marine Corps helicopter was shot down over Western Iraq on Nov. 2, 2005.

***24 remains an unsurpassed, unpredictable bullet train. These first four hours of Season 6 take the series to new depths of toil and trouble, with its bent, stooped but still resilient hero fatefully on the receiving end of a new president's clarion call.

"Get me Jack Bauer. Immediately," he orders. Enough said.

John Madden and Cris Collinsworth are friends of Bill.

By ED BARK
Don't blame the messenger, say John Madden and Cris Collinsworth. Never mind that the Dallas Cowboys lost three key home games in December under the direction of a coach who's supposed to be a big-time motivator and deal-closer.

Collinsworth says it's "foolish that people would even consider trying to run Bill Parcells out of a job . . . Stability means a lot in this league."

Madden, who expects Parcells to return next season, has "never enjoyed the hunt-and-kill of a coach . . . It's not like there are a lot of Knute Rocknes out there."

They weighed in on Parcells' behalf during a Thursday teleconference tied to NBC's coverage of two NFL playoff games Sunday. Madden and Al Michaels will do the Cowboys and Seattle Seahawks at 7 p.m. central. Collinsworth is teaming with Tom Hammond on the Indianapolis Colts-Kansas City Chiefs game at 3:30 p.m.

Madden instead lays the blame for the Cowboys' late season pratfalls on quarterback Tony Romo and the defense.

"Tony Romo has to take care of the ball," he says. "I kind of agree with Bill Parcells. It's not that Tony Romo doesn't have confidence. Maybe he's over-confident . . . I think his mechanics have really gotten sloppy."

He expected the defense to play better, but says the Cowboys lack both a pass rush and a solid secondary, where they're "not very good."

Collinsworth compares Romo to a hotshot young pitcher in major league baseball. The second time around, "it gets a little tougher," he says. "Right now with Tony Romo, the ball security is becoming a real issue."

Wide receiver Terrell Owens, the Cowboys' other hot button, won't be back with the team next season even if he wants to be, Madden thinks. But in Parcells' case it's different, he says.

"As everyone knows with Bill Parcells, you never can be sure. At 65, does he have the energy and all those things? He's going to do what he wants to do, and maybe more importantly what he feels he can do. It's kind of like a player. It's not the games, it's getting ready for the games . . . A win puts those fires out (to fire him). If he beats Seattle and goes on to the next round and wins that one, hell, they'll be giving him a parade."

Dolts, Incorporated: Donal Logue and David Arquette keep screwing up in ABC's The Knights of Prosperity and In Case of Emergency. The comedies debut Wednesday at 8 and 8:30 p.m. (central time).

By ED BARK
It's going to be loser night on ABC -- ratings-wise and otherwise.

The network's two newest comedies, The Knights of Prosperity and In Case of Emergency, celebrate the timeless ineptitude of the male species, with a shapely babe thrown in as a bauble atop their dunce caps. Premiering Wednesday (Jan. 3rd), their chances of success are sub-scant or less in a time slot that once belonged to Lost and lately is a halfway house.

In Case of Emergency, lesser of the two, at least is aptly titled. This indeed is an emergency for ABC, which had hoped to keep the serial drama Day Break in place until Lost returns on Feb. 7. But the Nielsen numbers said otherwise, prompting ABC to throw these two into the breech while moving Lost back an hour (to 9 p.m. central time). It's starting to look like bad planning all around, even if a later Lost will give local late night newscasts a booster shot.

Knights of Prosperity (8 p.m.), which used to be called Let's Rob Mick Jagger, had been part of ABC's fall schedule until the network rebooted. Off-kilter but also off-putting, it stars Donal Logue as hapless career janitor Eugene Gurkin.

"It's my 20th anniversary of doing this crappy job," he proclaims while cleaning urinals.

Gurkin dreams of owning his own bar, but is basically penniless. So he concocts a plan to rob Mick Jagger's apartment while watching the old Rolling Stone showcase his digs on the E! network. Jagger has several moderately amusing cameos in the first episode, but hasn't committed beyond that. Even so, he's listed as one of Knights' executive producers, along with David Letterman and Rob Burnett (producer of Letterman's CBS Late Show). Knights' theme song is by Letterman sidekick Paul Shaffer.

Gurkin quickly recruits a band of fellow misfits after pep-talking them in front of a vintage poster of Loni Anderson in a bikini.

"I was born with a plastic fork -- in my ass! Just like the rest of you," he bellows.

OK, got it.

Gurkin's gang members at least are inventively named. There's loudmouth Francis "Squatch" Squacieri (Lenny Venito); easily irked Gourishankar "Gary" Subramaniam (Max Jobrani); nebbish Louis Plunk (Josh Grisetti) and terminally hungry Rockefeller Butts (Kevin Michael Richardson). The last recruit is saucy waitress Esperanza Villalobos (Sofia Vergara), who basically is the show's Loni Anderson.

Knights is funny in spots and also gets by without a laugh track, as does In Case of Emergency. Still, the preposterous premise already is wearing very thin by Episode 2. So is the caliber of the cameos, with Mick Jagger giving way to Sally Jessy Raphael.

ABC's followup act is harder to bear. A quartet of 1987 high school grads haphazardly reconnect at a time when their lives are sloppy messes. But In Case of Emergency is an even sloppier mess, with none of its four central characters worth rooting for or caring about.

Harry Kennison (Jonathan Silverman), a divorced greeting card writer, is first seen getting a massage parlor hand job from a woman who turns out to be his graduating class's valedictorian. She's Kelly Lee (Kelly Hu), whose regularly showcased bare midriff at least bears a little watching.

Meanwhile, financier Jason Ventress (David Arquette) is caught up in a corporate scandal. Facing possible imprisonment, he drops into a gun shop to buy a pistol he plans to put to his head.

"I'm gonna blow my brains out," says Jason.

"I've got just the thing," says the proprietor.

Oh, that is so not funny, particularly in these times. But Jason instead shoots himself in the foot, prolonging both his misery and ours.

The fourth misfit is diet guru Sherman Yablonsky (Greg Germann from Ally McBeal), whose Eating for Mommy is a big bestseller. Alas, he returns to his palatial pad to find it stripped bare by his wife, who's dumping him. This sends Yablonsky into a pastry-eating binge that's caught on tape after he steals a bakery truck.

The first two episodes are top-heavy with physical humor and assorted cuts, bumps and bruises. Silverman's character sustains a broken nose from Kelly's brutish boyfriend, who's a cop. Arquette takes a bedpan to the head and Germann has to wear an eye patch after being swatted by a purse in Episode 2.

Through it all, Silverman chews scenery with a zeal almost matched by Germann's re-addiction to junk food. He seems to think he's Jack Lemmon in a wacky feature. But it's the show that's a lemon, overreaching, over-acting, over-everything.

As with Knights of Prosperity, you wonder where this show is going. The easiest answer is off the air by February. Wednesday's twin premieres are assured of finishing no better than fourth in a time slot opposite CBS' Criminal Minds, NBC's Deal or No Deal and Fox's presentation of the Sugar Bowl game between Notre Dame and LSU.

That kind of start will ensure a quick finish for both of 'em.

Grades: Knights of Prosperity -- C; In Case of Emergency -- D