Games give NBC reason to feel peacock proud

Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Feb 26, 2002 by Warren Epstein

Maybe it had just been too long since there was entertainment on a broadcast network that we could watch with our kids. Maybe it was all the American medals.

Or maybe it was the timing: I think we've all been starved for some international intrigue that doesn't involve killing.

Whatever the reasons, the Olympic Games in Salt Lake City - from the grand spectacles of the opening and closing ceremonies to the transcendent performances by the athletes - proved the most compelling in recent memory.

About 184 million Americans, or 84 percent of all the people with TV sets, tuned in to the Games during the past two weeks. That represents a 15 percent jump over the the 1998 Nagano Games on CBS, and it's sure to mean a profitable return on the $545 million NBC paid for the rights.

NBC, and particularly Bob Costas, deserve much of the credit. They generally knew when to fill in the gaps with thoughtful commentary and when to shut up. They actually got me excited about luge and speedskating.

But it was figure skating that took center stage. NBC had built the 2002 Games into the Michelle Kwan show. They continually told us that Michelle had one "gap in her resume," the Olympic gold. NBC told us everything we could ever want to know about Kwan - what she eats, where she trains, what these games mean to her.

But during that final long program, though it was heart-breaking when Michelle fell, the competition really turned out not to be about Kwan after all. Instead, it was about a 16-year-old girl who looks like a young Reba McEntire.

Sarah Hughes flitted over the ice like a butterfly, and when she found out that she won the Olympic gold, she doubled over on the floor, screaming with glee. Oh, it was something to see.

I could just imagine all the NBC producers back stage shifting gears, ditching the additional Kwan features and pulling out every tidbit of background they had on Hughes. (I hope whoever pulled out that home-movie footage gets a big, fat raise.)

When the closing ceremonies arrived, they were as grand and beautiful as the Games themselves. Willie Nelson put a lump in our throats with "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and the acrobats dazzled us, dressed as athletes and spinning under those yellow balloons, while a kaleidoscope of images played over the ice below.

Now, alas, it's time to return to our regularly scheduled programming. Zzzzzzz.

Watching Julia bomb

I was hoping that Julia Louis-Dreyfus would be the one "Seinfeld" alum to break the curse, to survive where her comrades had fallen. She's certainly among the more talented of the comedic actresses on TV.

But her new sitcom, "Watching Ellie," which premieres at 7:30 p.m. today, is the worst-written garbage I've seen on TV since "Homeboys in Outer Space."

The pilot I previewed had no laugh track, a real plus when a show gives you nothing to laugh about. Although its executive producer Brad Hall (Dreyfus' husband) boasts impressive credentials (including "Saturday Night Live" and "Brooklyn Bridge"), the show comes off as a a cheap version of "The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd" as written by the guys who wrote "Married ... With Children." It's low-brow trying to act high-brow, and failing miserably.

In the first episode, Ellie, a single Manhattan nightclub singer (she actually sings fairly well), is late to a gig because her toilet floods and she runs into a bunch of people who are desperately trying to develop into quirky characters. In the second episode, she gets ready to attend a friend's wedding and loses some important sheet music.

By comparison, I think "Seinfeld" - the sitcom about nothing - really was about something.

More romantic couples

My recent column about TV's most romantic couples prompted several worthy suggestions from readers, among them: Edith and Archie from "All in the Family," Lucy and Ricky from "I Love Lucy," Cliff and Clair from "The Cosby Show," Kevin and Winnie from "The Wonder Years," Fred and Wilma from "The Flintstones," Jonathan and Jennifer in "Hart to Hart" and Doug and Carol in "ER."

Also, thank you to the careful readers who spotted an inaccuracy in my column. Although Alex (Michael J. Fox) had dated Lauren (Courteney Cox), it was actually Ellen (Tracy Pollan, who would become Fox's real-life wife) who danced with Alex to "At This Moment."