Posted on: Monday, September 17, 2001
Tube Notes
PBS' 'The Press Secretary' examines role of spokesman
• TONIGHT'S MUST-SEE: "The Press Secretary," 10 p.m., PBS. Even during the calmest of times, the presidential press secretary walks a tight line. He wants to tell the truth; he also wants his boss to look good. "The essence of this job is vagueness," Joe Lockhart, who was Bill Clinton's press secretary, says in this documentary. The hour follows him during three busy days last September. It also talks to reporters about a changing world in which news (and rumors) are rushed onto the air and the Internet.
Note: Networks are deciding day-to-day whether to offer only news coverage or to return to regular shows.
Meanwhile, NBC has pushed its new season back a week to next Monday. CBS and ABC were undecided. FOX says it has no plans to delay the start of its new season. Here are possibilities — tentative for ABC, CBS and NBC, more definite for the others:
"The Hughleys," 8 p.m., UPN (seen on KFVE). Darryl and Yvonne hire a tutor for their dyslexic son.
"One on One," 8:30 p.m., UPN (seen on KFVE). Flex decides his teen daughter can have a friend stay for the weekend. He sort of assumes the friend is a girl.
"Everybody Loves Raymond," 8 p.m., CBS. Slowly and slyly, this has become a great show. Now it opens its sixth season with a hilarious episode. Things start at school. There — before his embarrassed dad, mom, uncle and grandparents — Michael reads a book he wrote, "The Angry Family." Then the aftershocks build. There are wonderful moments from Debra (Patricia Heaton), who might be the angriest wife on television, and from the oft-perplexed Ray.
"Perfect Body" (1997), 9-11 p.m., Lifetime. Cathy Rigby, the champion gymnast who once struggled with eating disorders, takes a small role in this movie. Amy Jo Johnson ("Felicity") plays a gymnast struggling with the affliction.
"The Ellen Show" premiere, 8:30 p.m., CBS. Ellen DeGeneres is back to what she does best — just being funny. There are no heavy messages here; her character is gay, but that's accepted casually. Instead, we get the rich humor of a lonely-and-successful dot-com whiz, returning to her ditzy mom (Cloris Leachman) and hometown. After tonight, the show will move to Fridays.
"Celebrity Adventures" premiere, 7 p.m., cable channel E. Kelly Wiglesworth, the first "Survivor" series runner-up, takes a different star on a far-flung trip each week. Tonight, actor Jerry O'Connell heads to the spectacular ancient ruins of Peru.
— Mike Hughes, Gannett News Service
