(3 of 4)
Whiz Kids (CBS, Wednesdays, 8 p.m.). With good eye-hand coordination, you can master Pac Man or Q*bert; if you have good eye-brain coordination, you can rule the world by remote control. Such is the potential of the computer generation, and the premise of this slick TV cousin to the hit movie WarGames. With real-life teen-age "hackers" making news tapping into corporate computers, Whiz Kids Executive Producer Philip DeGuere is already at work sanitizing his show. This is as redundant a pastime as vacuuming Disneyland. The series' white-collar meanies are too plastic to make one anxious; the young stars (led by Matthew Laborteaux) are too wimpy to make one care. Back to the arcade, guys.
Hotel (ABC, Wednesdays, 10 p.m.). That lowest form of plant life, The Love Boat, has spawned more plankton this fall. In San Francisco's St. Gregory Hotel, a landlocked Love Boat, guest stars of medium wattage (notably the deliciously tawdry Morgan Fairchild) register for a brief encounter, while the staff (James Brolin, Connie Selleca and those two glorious cat fighters from All About Eve, Bette Davis and Anne Baxter) smooth egos and smother the occasional crime. The place should be a Gland Hotel, but in an Aaron Spelling series no one is encouraged to strike erotic sparks. Hotel is so anemic it makes even its true subject—ostentatious greed—unsexy.
Mr. Smith (NBC, Fridays, 8 p.m.). An orangutan with an IQ of 256 is a valued government consultant. His voice is urban-gruff, like a taxi driver's in a traffic jam. He looks a bit like Herman Kahn, the late thermonuclear gamesman. He employs a snippy major domo (Leonard Frey) who wonders how he got involved with a monkey. Ed. Weinberger, Stan Daniels and David Lloyd, who made Mary Tyler Moore the best sitcom hi television, may be asking themselves the same question. And yet Lloyd's Mr. Smith script is a diverting parody of Washington politics, with on-target jokes about Jackie Kennedy, the diplomatic corps and a top Administration executive who once spent bedtime with Bonzo.
For Love and Honor (NBC, Fridays, 10 p.m.). Just your typical squadron: two compassionate yet tough sergeants (Cliff Potts and Yaphet Kotto); a budding psychopath of a captain (Gary Grubbs); and a whole bunch of horny yet dedicated boys and girls. This is today's Army and last year's hit movie, An Officer and a Gentleman with just a little less raunch and a lot more compassion. When For Love and Honor forgets about being gung-ho, it demonstrates snap and savvy and a barracksful of fine young players, especially Rachel Ticotin and Eddie Velez.