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But as they try to woo viewers who seem increasingly bored with traditional fare, the networks are becoming more willing to let film directors try out ideas that don't fit into the usual television molds. "TV is in a middle-aged period," says Robert A. Iger, president of ABC Entertainment, which has taken the lead in signing big-name filmmakers. "Coming up with new ideas is difficult. We are trying different ways to skin the cat." One innovation that ABC is touting is the limited-run series: shows that last a finite number of episodes. This format gives filmmakers the chance to do pet projects that are too unwieldy for a two-hour movie but that would quickly burn out (as Twin Peaks did) if stretched into an open-ended series.
Lucas, who runs his sprawling multimedia empire from Marin County, north of San Francisco, came up with his idea for Young Indiana Jones while working on an interactive-video teaching system for eighth graders. His goal was to involve youngsters in history while entertaining them with one of the movies' most popular characters. "We need to introduce kids to history," says Lucas. "I hope they will explore these characters later on their own, that these introductions are the spark that sends them off to the bookshelf." Lucas has generated all the story lines himself, and is overseeing production. (Episodes have been shot in more than a dozen locations around the world.) "I'm doing this because I love doing it," says Lucas. "It's difficult to turn it over to another person."
The show is more lushly pictorial than anything this side of the National Geographic Specials, and its seat-of-the-pants approach to history is peppy and playful. The two-hour premiere skips from Egypt, where the nine-year-old Indy (Corey Carrier) explores an ancient tomb with T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), to the U.S.-Mexico border, where Indy (now 17 and played by Sean Patrick Flanery) rides with Villa as he battles U.S. troops under the command of General John Pershing. The nuggets of historical background are slipped in without too much strain (the Mexican rebels watch a newsreel showing the war in Europe), though Lucas occasionally goes too far for a historical gag. An arrogant army lieutenant strides into a bar and loudly disparages the "low- down greaser Pancho Villa" -- then guns down a few partisans who disagree. "I'd say he's going places fast," comments General Pershing later about the hothead, who happens to be George S. Patton.
The big question is whether a TV show about remote historical events and personages will entice kids away from the Nintendo game or Beverly Hills 90210. The medicine might go down easier if the spoonfuls of sugar were sweeter. Indy's adventures in the first episode are often unimaginative (the old mummy's-tomb-with-a-curse routine), and the flip dialogue is too forced (captured by Villa's men and about to be executed, Indy pleads, "If I don't get home, my father's gonna kill me").
Still, Young Indiana Jones has an irreverent spirit, and no new show this season has more ambition or style. Though ABC programmers worried initially that it would remind viewers too much of earnest educational fare on PBS, Lucas was left alone to make the series as he wanted. "I don't see this show as any more educational than Star Wars," Lucas says. "It's designed as a coming-of-age story." If it succeeds, it might be a coming-of-age story for TV as well.