Starz's new series 'Crash' an accident waiting to happen

Premium-cable Starz tries to get in on the cable programming boom by taking the feature film "Crash" and turning it into a TV series.

It would seem to be a natural. Not only did "Crash" win the Oscar, but it had a big, intermingling, "Hill Street Blues"-style cast that would seem made for the complications of weekly series television.

Yet, permit me to present a few qualms. First, even though it won the Academy Award as best picture, "Crash" isn't a very good movie. It's pat and cliched in its characters, and it's more contrived than a Dickens novel in the way it bounces those characters off each other. (Matt Dillon's racist cop just happens to save the life of the black woman he's previously insulted; yeah, right.)

What's more, writer-creator Paul Haggis has never been that adept at series TV, as anyone who remembers his flop "EZ Streets" can attest. (It starred Joe Pantoliano as a Chicago-style mobster who played 12-inch softball - with a glove; yeah, right.) And Haggis, while retaining his producer credit, doesn't even have that much to do with the series, where the writing has been turned over to creator Glen Mazzara and the team of Ted Mann and Randy Huggins.

That said, "Crash" could still pay dividends as a series, because the weekly format frees it from having to pack so many coincidental-beyond-belief interactions into a two-hour format. It can unreel more smoothly and, more important, realistically.

Unfortunately, it doesn't put that additional freedom to use when it debuts at 9 p.m. Friday on Starz. It opens with Dennis Hopper's eccentric music producer whipping out his own personal Mr. Microphone in the back seat of his limo, to the consternation of the foxy blond driver. Then it goes directly to police officers Bebe Arcel and Axel Finet having hot sex in a hotel room. When Lt. Axel says, "I love you," she clocks him upside the head.

Like its feature-film forerunner, "Crash" the TV series doesn't have time to be placid, much less realistic. It attempts to grab a viewer and never let go, and like so much else on TV its desperation is a distraction.

In the middle of a vast cast, Hopper tries to hold center stage as Ben Cendars. He has elements of humility, admitting, "I've been going through a fallow period" in his music career, but he's really more of a provocateur, not just eccentric, but borderline psychotic. The role seems written for Hopper, but in that it should go without saying it also seems overwritten. He goads Jocko Sims' Anthony Adams in the job interview to become his new chauffeur - "Driving Mr. Crazy" - and explains, "I'm just trying to get to know you, brother." Yet before long he's pulling a blade on a business associate in the back seat of the limo, then showing up at the barbershop owned by Anthony's father to pal around - and, oh yes, get high in the backroom.

Meanwhile, Arlene Tur's Officer Arcel is partnered with Ross McCall's Kenny Battaglia, whose main job to start is to come knocking in the middle of her tryst with Nick Tarabay's Lt. Axel to tell her they've got a court date to make. Running the cherry lights and siren on the way, he T-bones a car driven by Moran Atias' Inez, and before long they have a muy picante conflict relationship going on.

Yeah, right.

Brian Tee's medical trainee Eddie Choi gets himself involved in the aftermath of a shooting in Koreatown, and Lt. Axel knows the area so well he just figures that whoever treated a certain dead gunman for his wounds must have been none other than Eddie Choi.

All right already.

Elsewhere, D.B. Sweeney is a bedraggled husband trying to deal with a brittle and irascible father-in-law, and sooner or later Luis Chavez will turn up as Cesar Uman, who no doubt will have the drug connections to tie many of these characters together.

So we can only hope - or fear.

This is not a promising foray into original programming for Starz, and it isn't going to raise its reputation as the least-premium of the premium-cable channels. "Crash" is a mashup of cheap stunts and clichés, but if you like Dennis Hopper at his erratic best, this show's for you. Local Emmys

The Chicago/Midwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences presents its 50th annual local Emmy Awards at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place, 2233 S. Martin Luther King Drive, Chicago, on Saturday, Oct. 18. Dinner is at 6 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom, followed by the awards ceremony at 7:30. WBBM Channel 2 leads all stations with 33 nominations, followed by WGN Channel 9 with 32, WMAQ Channel 5 with 29, WTTW Channel 11 with 21, WFLD Channel 32 with 17 and WLS Channel 7 with 11. Channel 2's Pam Zekman and Channel 32's Mark Saxenmeyer are the leading individual nominees with six apiece.

Ch. 9 goes pink

Channel 9 marks National Breast Cancer Awareness Month with the locally produced special "Stories of Hope" at 6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 18. Medical reporter Dina Bair and Dean Richards are the hosts.

'SNL' goes back to W

The new NBC period drama "Crusoe" debuts with a two-hour premiere at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 17 on Channel 5. Philip Winchester stars as the shipwrecked title character. Then "Saturday Night Live" is sure to turn its attention from the current presidential campaign back to the Bush administration when Josh Brolin, star of the new Oliver Stone movie "W," plays host at 10:30. Adele is the musical guest.

Bordello of blood

Our monthlong Waste Watcher's horror festival continues with the "Tales From the Crypt" entry "Bordello of Blood" at 9:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 17 on AMC. Dennis Miller and Angie Everhart star in this serio-comic stinker. It's even scarier than Miller doing "Monday Night Football."