Marvin Kitman

'Grosse Point' satire hits close to home

In this story: Satire at Spelling's expense 'Flogging a dead horse' RELATED SITES

(Los Angeles Times) -- "Grosse Point," which premieres Friday night at 8:30 on the WB, is going to be a monster hit with the No Longer 18-to-24 audience and anyone else who has outgrown teen drama. It's the highly anticipated series by Darren Star, who did so much to create that case of arrested development known as the teen soaps.

The first intentional commercial network comedy by Star, "Grosse Point" takes a satirical behind-the-scenes look at the making of the pop culture smash, the fictitious "Grosse Point," and the impact instant fame has on the lives of its undertalented and overpublicized stars.

	SCHEDULE
'Grosse Point' premieres September 22 on WB at 8:30 p.m.

"Grosse Pointe" is homage to Aaron Spelling, the man who had the genius to realize that teens love plastic characters in plastic stories acted by plastic people, as institutionalized in "Beverly Hills 90210," "Melrose Place" and others in Spelling's vision of L.A. The Aaron Spelling Repertory Theater, aside from providing soapy programing for all six networks over the years and giving us such acclaimed great actors as Shannen Doherty, Luke Perry, Jason Priestley, Courtney Thorne-Smith and Tori Spelling, also made a star out of Star. He was a lowly UCLA creative writing dropout who, under producer Spelling's guidance, created "90210."

And Star knows what he is satirizing. "Grosse Pointe" is so on target that the chief target himself complained.

Apparently one of the characters had been ripped from real life, as they say. The fictitious Marcy Sternfeld, who plays the fictitious Kim Petersen (both roles being played by the real Lindsay Sloane), somehow bore a resemblance to pop culture luminary Tori Spelling. In the pilot, she is employed on the soap solely because her daddy is a senior network executive. She also dyes her hair the same color as her father's (red) and has attacks of an eating disorder on the set.

Aaron Spelling, who must have been reminded of Shakespeare's "sharper than a serpent's tooth" line by what his protege had wrought, just happened to mention the coincidences to the WB's top brass, who managed to get Star to have second thoughts. Now Marcy got her job on talent, which as you can see is minimal.

This is a disturbing note on which to start a powerful satire.

Whatever happened to the old standby "Any resemblance to persons living or bulimic is purely accidental?"

On the other hand, it was a great hidden victory for satire. Nobody takes satire seriously anymore. In this era of licentiousness, you can make fun of the president, the pope, sex, corporations anything -- and everybody just ignores it.

There are no sacred cows in society left, except, apparently, Aaron Spelling. He mooed -- and the powers that be at WB heard him! Such is the power of having such hits as "7th Heaven" and "Charmed" on the second-weakest network.

Happily, Marcy Sternfeld is still in the show with some of her other shtick intact. She is a hoot as a character, with enough neuroses to keep her shrink in clover until the cows come home to Malibu.

"Grosse Pointe" is not so much a half-hour sitcom as a "reality" show. It focuses on the lives of six young actors and how they handle becoming rich, famous and powerful. Not well.

The standard hunks include Johnny Bishop (Al Santos), whose idea of a well-rounded day is surfing in the morning, sexing in the afternoon, in between doing drugs. Quentin King (Kohl Sudduth), the classic brooding rebel-boyfriend Stone Anders, not only makes 13-year-old fans' hearts throb, he is so old, he is bald.

The most devasting satirical characters are the fictitious show's two very nervous producers, Rob Fields (William Ragsdale) and Hope Lustig (Joely Fisher). They are almost as funny as the real Darren Star.

I have no doubt all of this is true. One problem, though, is you have to have watched the original teen dramas to get the most satirical juice out of it. There are lot of inside teen soap opera jokes. "He's the genius who got Felicity to cut her hair off," a producer says behind a job applicant's back.

Another problem is the nature of satire. You can't effectively satirize something that is self-parodying. Making fun of teen soaps is like flogging a dead horse.

"Gross Pointe" is not "Action," which so brilliantly satirized the movie business on Fox last season. And that's why it's going to make a comedy superstar out of Darren.

Kitman is the television critic for New York Newsday. His column appears regularly on CNN Interactive's Entertainment section. E-mail Kitman at MarvinKitmanShow@worldnet.att.net

(c) 2000, Newsday Inc. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate.

WB Television

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.