Six, Bells

I decided to look in on a couple of new(ish) shows tonight, "Wedding Bells" and "Six Degrees." Both are getting what Metacritic describes as mixed or average to generally negative reviews.

In the case of "Six Degrees," it's really not hard to see why. What a waste of some good actors, especially Hope Davis and Campbell Scott. The character interactions-which is really all a show like this would seem to have going for it-were deadly.

Let's say you have a woman character who's a realtor and takes some hunk-o-rama to a nicely furnished apartment. Then as he's checking out the windows, she steps briefly out of the room, and calls to him that in fact the apartment is not for rent...because it's hers. Then she walks back into the room in the nude.

Then is not the time to have her play coy as to whether she's going to let this man kiss her or not. Not if you want the show to have a sense of reality.

For these and other reasons, the script and direction struck me as just barely competent. Something that really saddens me to say, considering the script was written by a man named Peter Parnell.

Besides having been a producer and writer on "The West Wing," Peter Parnell was also Aaron Sorkin's writing teacher. I'm going to say that again: The man taught Aaron Sorkin to write. He also wrote a great play, "The Rise and Rise of Daniel Rocket," which I saw in a filmed-for-television version in 1986 and still have on tape somewhere.

If this is what has become of his gift for writing characters, then I have another reason to excuse myself for not finding fame in Hollywood.

This show is still on (for the moment-both are losing in the ratings) and "Veronica Mars," "Studio 60" and "The Nine" are all missing and presumed dead. And some people tell me there's a god.

One of the only hard-and-fast rules for TV is that what a show is about is not as important as who's doing it. "The Wedding Bells" sure doesn't sound like a promising idea(Three sisters! And they're wedding planners! And their last name is...Bell! Get it?).

And David E. Kelley is hit-and-miss with me. I liked his episodes of "L.A. Law" and "The Practice" that I've seen; "Boston Legal" continues to tickle me to my heart's content. Heck, at age 16, I even enjoyed "From The Hip." But I actively disliked "Ally McBeal" and most of the rest of his series I didn't care about one way or the other.

But "Bells" has got some dazzling women, including Teri Polo, Missi Pyle, Sarah Jones and Kadee Strickland. And-get this-Kelley's given them some funny things to do, and they do them well. Funny, as in, I actually laughed.

If I was gonna make any suggestion I'd say that it could probably be turned into a filmed, one-camera sitcom without too much trouble, and might be improved by it.

Still...appealing women. Saying funny things. Sometimes my needs aren't that complex. And besides, they invoked my favorite Broadway love song, the beautiful "Dulcinea," from "Man of La Mancha." This is my kinda show. I'm in for so long as it lasts-which, if the reviews and ratings are any indication, won't be long.

I'll just overlook the fact that one of the bigger jokes involved the timely death of a man named Benjamin.

And I really want to know who gave sexy Teri Polo that unflattering haircut.