Writers won't let Heche get with her true love in 'Men in Trees'
Romance: You can't live with it, you can't live without it -- at least not on television.
It seems as if every program on TV that involves love in any form can't resist falling into the old Tease Tango. Two characters are attracted to one another, they clearly belong together, the audience wants them together, and yet somehow something always intrudes.
This is supposed to produce a deliciously aggravating sense of drama, but more often than not it's simply aggravating. "Cheers," "Friends," "Northern Exposure" (keep that show in mind) and now "Grey's Anatomy," "Pushing Daisies," "Without a Trace" and even "Reaper" have all done the TV Tease Tango. Worse, even when the writers let the characters get together, they usually can't think of what to do with them (see "Friends" again and now "The Office"). Just plain happiness is evidently out of the question.
Add Anne Heche's "Men in Trees" to the long lists above. When it debuted last season, the show came on as a chick-lit version of, yes, "Northern Exposure," with Heche's Marin a Manhattan self-help advice author transplanted to the wilds of Alaska to study the native species, specifically the title characters. At first it seemed too derivative of "Exposure," but then it began to develop its own unique feel for the characters in its small town of Elmo. Marin found love with James Tupper's rugged outdoorsman Jack -- and, not coincidentally, Heche found love with Tupper behind the scenes. The show was picked up for a second season, albeit with five episodes kept in the cupboard from its freshman year to help fill out the fall.
Facing the prospect of many seasons to come, however, and in a new time slot at 9 p.m. today on ABC's WLS Channel 7, the show's writers have fallen back on the old TV Tease Tango. They placed an obstacle in the lovers' way in the form of Jack's pregnant ex-lover and short-lived fiancee Lynn, played by Justine Bateman. So Marin hooked up on the rebound with Scott Elrod's studmuffin handyman Cash. The first three leftover episodes of this fall (last week found Marin incongruously celebrating the end of winter and the arrival of the Alaskan spring) saw the writers trying to gently extricate their characters from those bonds.
Tonight's episode, "I Wood if I Could," finally finds Lynn and Cash removed from the picture, so that Marin and Jack are free to renew their relationship. Yet what do the writers do but put still more obstacles in their way. Heche and Tupper can be happy off screen, but their characters aren't allowed the same happiness onscreen.
It's enough to make a viewer throw up his or her hands and pick up a book -- like "Anna Karenina" maybe -- to throw at the TV.
It's a pity, because otherwise, as I was suggesting, "Men in Trees" has turned into a decent drama. Its quirky elements seem more natural and less contrived, even with Marin tonight playing both maid of honor and best man to the betrothed couple of Emily Bergl's Annie and Derek Richardson's Patrick. Cynthia Stevenson strikes just the right note between officious duty and screwball comedy as Police Chief Celia, and the burly Abraham Benrubi, at last freed from being stuck behind the reception desk at "ER," has developed into a fully rounded character as Ben, owner of the Chieftain, the town watering hole.
Tonight, they even get away with mudwrestling, as this seemingly tawdry topic is given heft by Dot-Marie Jones, whose Sapphire is a supposed stripper who instead turns out to be one hellacious competitor in the square ring.
"Who's ready to meet their muddy maker?" she challenges.
With a show striving for originality, it's a shame it has to fall back on a device as tiresome as a teasing love affair to generate interest (the same basic complaint I have with "Pushing Daisies"). So maybe the writers' strike is coming at the right time. With Jack seemingly heading off for nine months, the show's writers can use their idle hours to think about what to do with him -- and Marin -- when he (and the writing staff) gets back.
In the air
Michelle Pfeiffer gets catty in "Batman Returns."
Remotely interesting: The CW's "Beauty and the Geek" comes looking for both beauties and geeks in an open casting call at the Martini Park, 151 W. Erie St., Chicago, from 3 to 9 p.m. Saturday.
"Meerkat Manor," which has had a tragic season to put "The Sopranos" to shame, closes its second year at 7:30 p.m. today on Animal Planet, which tries to create a new sensation with the debut of "Orangutan Island" immediately afterward at 8. … NBC News anchor Brian Williams plays host to "Saturday Night Live" at 10:30 on WMAQ Channel 5, with Feist as the musical guest. … "MadTV" returns for its 13th season at 10 p.m. Saturday on WFLD Channel 32, followed by "Talkshow With Spike Feresten" at 11. "The Simpsons" presents "Treehouse of Horror XVIII" at 7 p.m. Sunday on Channel 32, followed by a "Family Guy" retrospective at 7:30 and that show's 100th episode at 8. … "The Amazing Race" returns for its 12th go-round at 7 p.m. Sunday on CBS' WBBM Channel 2.
End of the dial: The National Radio Hall of Fame inducts five new members in a dinner ceremony at the Renaissance Chicago Hotel, 1 W. Wacker Drive, Chicago, starting at 6 p.m. Saturday. Jimmy Durante, Marian McPartland, rock radio pioneer Dan Ingram, baseball announcer Jerry Coleman and "Destination Freedom" producer Richard Durham are the honorees.
WVON 1690-AM President Melody Spann-Cooper appears on "Bill Moyers Journal" at 9:30 p.m. today on WTTW Channel 11 to discuss minority media ownership.
Waste Watcher's choice
It just might be the freakiest movie ever to run on the ABC Family Channel. It's "Batman Returns," with Michael Keaton and Michelle Pfeiffer both tapping into the warped sexuality behind Batman and Catwoman, and with Danny DeVito along as a damaged orphan Penguin. It remains the best of the Keaton Batman movies. It's at 7 p.m. Saturday, rerun at 9:30.