Video: Spring Sparring Partners

Mismatched couples provide the spark for TV's "third season"

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Eye to Eye, another tongue-in-cheek detective show from ABC, does not measure up to Moonlighting's stylish standard. But it has its attractions: namely Charles Durning as an old-fashioned gumshoe and Stephanie Faracy as his new "assistant," the daughter of his murdered ex-partner. The overzealous Faracy has a daffy plan for every predicament; her schemes seem inspired by too much TV watching, and they evoke grimaces from Durning that look like signs of indigestion. ("Nancy Drew poses as a butler and a maid," he grouses. "I don't.")

Unfortunately, the joke wears thin before the end of the first episode, never mind a full season, and the plot twists are ludicrously implausible even for this sort of frivolity. Running from the bad guys on an airstrip, the pair hop into a private plane as Faracy claims she has had flying lessons. Taxiing down the runway under a hail of gunfire, she suddenly remembers that she never learned how to take off. The audience, along with Durning, reaches for the antacid.

In Off the Rack, Ed Asner and Eileen Brennan do not, for a change, run from bullets or solve mysteries. Their new show is a relatively mundane sitcom about the crusty owner of a garment company who is forced to share the business with the widow of his recently deceased partner. The two have little in common except pigheadedness, but somehow they manage to make a go of the business.

They make a go of the sitcom too. Off the Rack, which had a one-shot preview on ABC last December and is returning for six episodes, comes closer than any show this season to re-creating the down-to-earth ambience of Lear's comedies of the early '70s. At a time when upscale families and well-to-do professionals are in vogue, here are a pair of recognizable people embarked on the familiar task of trying to make ends meet. The show's gag writing is lame at times, but the two stars seem to have firmly located their characters. Asner cranks up his Lou Grant surliness a few more notches, yet finds humor in a character with few redeeming traits. Brennan, with her sultry voice and < razor-sharp timing, savors each sarcastic comeback as if it were a fine wine. The two make a highly unstable compound, but it just might be a formula for success.

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