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    Tia Carrere in 'The Relic Hunter'

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    Gena Lee Nolin in 'Sheena, Queen of the Jungle'

    It was the belief that there was not only a great character to portray but also a fortune to be made from her universal charms that interested Lee in V.I.P. "I took a lower salary on this show because I felt the back end could really be meaningful," says the woman famous for adding meaning to her front end. "I know a lot about syndication and what appeals to the international market. I make sure there are a lot of physical gags and comedy, explosions and beautiful scenery."

    Each week the V.I.P. writers have a meeting to decide upon a lame excuse to show half-naked women. White-slavery ring? Trouble on a swimsuit photoshoot? The owner of a lingerie company under siege? Good enough. The writers' only requirement is to include one sexy scene and one action scene every 10 pages. But they don't even need to bother coming up with these flimsy premises; as bodyguard Vallery Irons, Lee wears 5-in. stilettos and a spandex minidress just to go to the office. "Val's wardrobe is her interpretation of being able to be everything she wants to be," explains Lee. "It's a sort of 'It could happen to you' kind of thing, that someone from a small town could end up in a glamour city wearing pink spandex and just be able to be a Barbie come to life."

    And that she is. "She is a walking cartoon, a sight gag, and she knows it," says J.F. Lawton, the show's creator and screenwriter of Pretty Woman. "This year she is wearing the most ridiculous things in the world. Half the clothes come right out of her own closet." The show is in the classic giggle-and-jiggle genre. "We have more explosions and babes per minute than any other TV show. We're unapologetic about the sexiness," says Lawton. "But if handled the right way, it's not offensive to women."

    The show has not yet found that way. Even in her newly trimmed-down state, Lee is outrageous. But V.I.P. is swiftly paced, self-consciously flip, includes a cleverly cast celebrity cameo in each episode (Loni Anderson has appeared as Lee's mother) and, most important, contains one sexy scene and one action scene every 10 minutes.

    Relic Hunter, starring Wayne's World's Tia Carrere as a female Indiana Jones, is produced by France's Gaumont Television and Canada's Fireworks Entertainment. The opening of the first episode, which aired in September, featured Carrere's bikinied Professor Sydney Fox teaching her students a sexy African dance, followed by a scene in which she talks to her assistant while wearing a tasteful taupe lace bra-and-panty set. "We skate the line of historical frolic," says Carrere, delivering a line she'd never get to say on the show. "What I like is if there are children watching, maybe they will imagine going to Tibet or Berlin or any of these places." But the kids sure will be disappointed when they discover that few old churches house nude health spas.

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