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Poor last-place NBC is pinning its big hopes on such stale items as Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (from the same folks who launched the crash-landed Battlestar Galactica) and From Here to Eternity (a spin-off of a miniseries). As Johnny Carson put it in an opening monologue this summer, "The NBC peacock looked at the fall schedule—and he's not so proud."
When that schedule bites the dust, maybe NBC's beleaguered Fred Silverman will at last rise from defeat and give network programming the jolt it so desperately needs.
Among the new season's first crop of premieres:
Benson (Sept. 13, ABC, 8:30 p.m.
E.D.T.) Scheduled behind Laverne & Shirley, this Soap spin-off is one of the season's few sure hits. Unfortunately, Writer Susan Harris has not capitalized on her secure ratings position by creating a daring and witty show. Benson is another sitcom dedicated to the tedious proposition that servants and children are smarter than employers or parents. In this case the employer is a moronic Governor (James Noble) who hires black Butler Benson (Robert Guillaume) to run his household and, by inference, his unidentified Eastern state. Except for Benson and the Governor's unspeakably precocious subteen daughter (Missy Gold), the series is entirely inhabited by knaves and fools; Harris even drags in a barking Germanic housekeeper (Inga Swenson) who would be more appropriate to Hogan 's Heroes. The restrained Guillaume is a refreshing antidote to the caricatured blacks one normally finds in TV comedy, but this series needs political bite and sharper writing to prevent its captive audience from nodding out.
Out of the Blue (Sept. 9, ABC, 7 p.m.
E.D.T.) People who go to the improvisational comedy clubs in New York City and Los Angeles know that Jimmy Brogan is probably the best comic to hit that circuit since Robin Williams. ABC wisely signed him up, only to cast him in this tired Mork & Mindy retread about an angel who moves to earth. Unlike the manic Williams, who makes a guest appearance in Blue's first episode, Brogan is a quiet, reflective comedian. In his stand-up act he functions as a bemused straight man, playing off the audience, and does not deliver a set routine. ABC would have been smart to put him hi something like the old Jack Benny Show, where he would have a cast of idiosyncratic characters to bounce off of.
Instead the network has plunked Brogan down in a household of bland orphans and demanded that he clown around like Mork to keep the show flying. That is not Brogan's talent, but then this sitcom is so badly written even Williams would not be able to save it. Opposite CBS's 60 Minutes, Blue should be put out of its misery very soon. ABC owes this series' misused star another shot.
Working Stiffs (Sept. 15, CBS, 8 p.m.
E.D.T.) Laverne herself (Penny Marshall, that is) directed the first episode of this male Laverne & Shirley ripoff. It stars Jim Belushi (John's brother) and Michael Keaton as janitors who go to work for their uncle in a Chicago office building. Both actors appeared in quick flops last season (Who's Watching the Kids?, The Mary Tyler Moore Hour), but Working Stiffs could be their fastest cancellation yet. There are only so many jokes to be made about moving furniture, and none of them is funny.