TV Programs Offer Viewers Variety This Season

By John J. O'Connor

New York Times Service

NEW YORK-Assorted out-takes: It may be that rather steady exposure to a television

screen over the

bearable.

past 18 months has begun to warp my judgment, but the new season does seem to be surprisingly Among the new regular series several, particularly in the situation-comedy area, show encouraging signs of putting their assorted talents to slickly professional use. Don't knock slickness or professionalism when turgid amateurism dominates the landscape, in and outside of television.

Then, in addition to the séries, this is the year the networks are preparing a barrage of "specials," ranging from quality dramas to elaborate entertainment productions. They could of course, all turn out to be duds, but for the time being the outlook remains, well, encouraging.

One of the more noticeable elements in this season's fare is an increased dose of realistic detail, an acceleration of TV's new permissiveness. Taking a cue from "All in the Family," several programs are casually touching on subjects that not too long ago wouldn't have got past the first draft of a script.

"Maude," for instance, throws in a brief routine revolving around a hysterectomy. "The Paul Lynde Show" makes clear in passing that the hubby and wife have not been making it in bed recently. "Owen Marshall" takes on a case involving charges of lesbianism. And the newlyweds "Bridget and Bernie" are shown not only getting ready for bed but actually sleeping in bed wrapped up around each other.

No one instance is especially startling, but the total is interesting. The TV buff, however, may be more interested in detecting details that, for no immediately apparent reason, carefully avoid realism.

Part of "Bridget and Bernie" is set in New York's lower east side, where Bernie's parents run a delicatessen-catering business. At the end of the first episode, it was discovered that the hubcaps were missing from a Mercedes-Benz parked outside the delicatessen. Bernie's uncle Moe finally appears with the hubcaps, explaining that he had hidden them because there was no telling what might happen to German goods in a Jewish neighborhood.

Now, Jewish delicatessens do still exist on the lower east side, but the area is no longer and hasn't been for a good number of years-predominantly Jewish. So while sex is easily recognized on "Bridget and Bernie," for some reason simple social facts are carefully and irrelevantly altered.

Family entertainment is getting a hefty boost this season with "The Waltons" on the Columbia Broadcasting System, but the viewer in search of this type of programming still faces hazards. Consider the special two-hour premier of "Bonanza" on the National Broadcasting Company. "You're all invited to 'Little Joe's' wedding!" exclaimed the ads and, in some quarters, the program was described as a "two-hour Love Story."

I did not see the program, but several viewers have forwarded their detailed complaints to me. One telephone caller's message was forwarded to me by a colleague:

"Irate viewer called. Watching 'Bonanza' with wife and daughters. Good family entertainment. Starts out very nicely, young lad gets married. Then wife is murdered, suspects tracked down, threat-

ened with having tongues cut out and finally murderers are murdered. Man called it 'horror-type' and perverted writing. Shocked at the new level of violence. Did not sound crackpotish."

Verifying the content of the program with NBC, I was told that, yes, there was some reference to tongue cutting but the threat was never actually carried out. Oh. Good taste, evidently, is timeless.

Then there was Dick Cavett's interview of Clifford Irving, shown last month but filmed several weeks before the author went to prision. The music leading into the station breaks featured such songs as "Guilty," "Why Was I Born?" and "Is It a Sin?”

TV Changes Last-minute changes and cancellations are made by the local stations and networks. Consult the daily paper for corrected listings of TV selections and logs.

Someone must have thought that the melodic editorializing would be cute. Heh, Heh.

Given the massive amount of material that flows across the TV screen 18 hours each day, the critic cannot possibly watch everything, much to the chagrin of many producers and some viewers. Some areas are bound to be neglected at least occasionally. Sports, for instance, may not get the steady attention they deserve and need.

All of which leads to a final comment on the American Broadcasting Compa-

ny's extensive coverage of the summer Olympics. From a technical point of view, the coverage was excellent, attracting and deserving startlingly large audiences. The reporting, however, as noted in earlier reviews, was uneven, admirably strong on background information but also unfortunately on strong breathless prose.

That particular liability is part of a larger and more disturbing fault, which could be called the "politicalization" of the coverage. As the Olympics pro-

gressed, the inclination of the announcers "to protect their charges," primarily the image of the U.S., grew to

embarrassing proportions. The "hurray for our side" routines became tedious.

Interestingly enough, the reporting of things American grew oddly muted concerning incidents that would prove embarrassing to the U.S. for instance, the dismissal of runners vince Mathews and Wayne Collett was practically ignored, to the point that their acceptance of medals and alleged

disrespect during the playing of the National Anthem was not even shown on ABC in the standard collage of winners that concluded each program.

In addition, given the incredible number of administrative foul-ups during the Olympics, the announcers seemed reluctant to delve too deeply into the competence of the U.S. Olympic committee. Various coaches and officials were criticized, in one case berated, on camera, but the boys at the top remained relatively unscathed.

John Wayne and Robert Mitchum star in the action-packed western "El Dorado,” tonight at 9 on Channels 5 and 23.