What’s On
By Mike Reynolds and R. Thomas Umstead -- Multichannel News, 12/17/2006 7:00:00 PM
DIRT
FX • Tuesday, Jan. 2 (10 p.m.)
Near the end of the second episode of Dirt, unscrupulous editor Lucy Spiller (star and executive producer Courteney Cox) is trying to convince maverick owner Gibson Horne (Timothy Bottoms) that it goes beyond good business to meld the celebrity title Now with the luridness of Drrt.
Spiller: “We have a chance to shape American culture.”
Horne: “This is the shape we want of the culture?”
Spiller: “You’re the one who always says let the market decide.”
Or in this case, the real-life Nielsen Wal-Mart mommies and rich sorority girls Spiller mentions as the target readers of the new glossy tabloid DrrtNow.
In the first three episodes, they have plenty to thumb through in this look at the spawned-from-the-headlines take on “celebrisociety” and the paparazzi that race for weekly covers.
Storylines include: a washed-up showbiz couple’s feigned pregnancy; a basketball star who gives new meaning to the term “back door”; and a Christian rock star whose face got too close to the brimstone and fire of freebasing.
The regular cast also struggles for virtue or our sympathy: publisher Brett Barrow (Jeffrey Nordling), whose bottom-line views are harnessed to his contempt for Spiller’s work; B-list actor Holt McLaren (Josh Stewart), who traded gossip to ascend the Hollywood ladder; his A-list girlfriend Julia Mallory (Laura Allen), whose own taste for drugs rises after the overdose death of her best friend; and Willa McPherson (Alexandra Breckenridge), the ambitious reporter aspiring to the write stuff.
It’s a lot to digest, but what’s toughest to swallow is the ruthless Spiller’s reliance on schizophrenic shutterbug Don Konkey (Ian Hart). His visions and methods veer from cheesy to delusional to creepy. Despite their days at the college newspaper, it doesn’t ring true that a controlling shark like Spiller could rely weekly on their “friendship” — and his medication — to keep Konkey shoveling the best dirt to her covers. — Mike Reynolds
LINCOLN HEIGHTS
ABC Family • Jan. 8 (7 p.m.)
A dedicated cop who moves his family into the inner-city neighborhood where he grew up serves as the backdrop for ABC Family’s new drama Lincoln Heights.
When police officer Eddie Sutton (Russell Hornsby) realizes his suburban Southern California apartment is too small to accommodate his wife Jenn (Nicki Micheaux) and three teenage children Cassie (Erica Hubbard), Tay (Mishon Ratliff) and Lizzie (Rhyon Brown), he convinces the family to relocate into an abandoned crack house that the police had recently raided.
But Sutton begins to second-guess his decision as the neighborhood he’d hoped was up and coming isn’t as safe and inviting as he’d first thought. The community is rife with drugs and violence, and the neighbors initially resent having a police officer’s family in their midst.
During the first episode, the family’s house is vandalized and his kids struggle with making friends and adapting to their new environment. When his eldest daughter gets caught up in an attempted storefront robbery, Sutton considers packing the family up and moving back to the suburbs.
Some of the situations and character confrontations — like the ones between Sutton and a local neighborhood hoodlum; and Tay, with a couple of school bullies — seem somewhat formulaic. But otherwise the series has heart. Lincoln Heights takes a thought-provoking look at the challenges of inner-city life and one man’s efforts to build a safe life for his family while helping to revitalize a struggling community. — R. Thomas Umstead
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