Family Drama

Dr. Sydney Hansen has it all at age 30: a successful Beverly Hills practice in plastic surgery, a breathtaking Malibu beach house and a great-looking guy with whom to share it.And then one day, she realizes how much she absolutely hates her life.Welcome to "Providence," as in Rhode Island, the hometown to which Sydney returns on the day when her life in L.A. suddenly feels like it's turning to dust.Welcome, indeed. This new family drama from NBC is one of the most pleasant surprises of television's midseason.

If it seems to you that everything on network television looks and sounds the same, I have a suggestion: Check out the premiere of "Now and Again," one of the stranger but also more intriguing pilots in years.Forgive me for not being able to describe it in a short, parenthetical bite, but neither CBS nor creator Glenn Gordon Caron ("Moonlighting") seems quite sure what to call the new hourlong series either.Caron calls it "wiggy and out there." CBS describes it as an "action-comedy-drama-romance about a middle-aged insurance executive who dies a violent death only to discover that his brain has been saved by a government anxious to put it in the body of a 26-year-old man they have manufactured in a laboratory."

The main course of the 1994-1995 television season has been a flop, one of the worst flops in years. Only two new prime-time series, out of 32, have won enough viewers to be called hits -- NBC's "Friends" and "ER."But the networks are hoping that viewers will want seconds anyway. Tonight, they start the rollout of 14 more new series in what has come to be known as television's second season.On the surface, the menu of new series does not appear too promising. It mainly looks like older stars served up in warmed-over, old-time programming formulas: James Earl Jones as the grandpa in a family drama, Patty Duke as an ordained minister in another family drama, Valerie Harper heading up a secretarial pool, and James Brolin leading a rescue team.

Sitting down? Better be, because here it comes: The best new offering on TV tonight is a made-for-television movie on the USA Network. There. I said it, and I meant it.* "Byrds of Paradise" (8 p.m.-9 p.m., WJZ, Channel 13) -- Timothy Busfield of "thirtysomething" stars as a recent widower who packs off his kids and dog and moves to Hawaii, to take a job as a headmaster of a small prep school. There are enough quirky characters to make this tropical series a sort of "Southern Exposure," but the real focus is the family drama itself.

On paper, it looked as if she were going to be just another TV mom in another family drama -- or worse. In this series, the teen-age daughter is the star, which usually means mom is further reduced to standing around off-camera in the kitchen, only occasionally popping on-screen to ask if anyone wants pizza or a glass of Coke.But that's not the Patty Chase that Baltimore's Bess Armstrong brought to the screen when the critically acclaimed ABC drama "My So-Called Life" debuted last month.Her 15-year-old daughter, Angela, dyed her hair red, so Patty went out and got her own hair cut very, very short.

Washington -- You have to admire a playwright who can blend homosexuality, abortion and Wagner's Ring Cycle into a family drama -- one that also includes more than a few laughs.Twenty-six-year-old Jonathan Tolins does all of that in his chillingly prescient play, "Twilight of the Golds," which is receiving its East Coast premiere at the Kennedy Center before moving on to San Francisco and eventually New York.Set in the very near future, the play focuses on an expectant couple who discovers, through genetic testing, that their unborn child is going to be a normal, intelligent male who has a high probability of being gay.The playwright anticipates almost every question and argument -- ethical and scientific -- that the audience might raise about this discovery.

Flute and guitar make the music at Walters Art GalleryThe timbres of the flute and guitar combine beautifully. They can be heard together this afternoon at 2 when the fine guitar-flute duo of Benjamin Verdery and flutist Rie Schmidt performs at the Walters Art Gallery. Their program, which features some of Verdery's own compositions, includes music by the wonderful Brazilian composer of tangos, Astor Piazzola, and Toru Takemitsu's atmospheric "Toward the Sea." Tickets for the concert are $15; $12 for museum members and seniors.

As seasons change, so do recreational habits -- namely, the natural shift from outside to inside forms of entertainment. Enter videocassettes to satisfy those homebody urges during the chillier times of the year.The ensuing months offer the usual combination of recent theatrical movies, treasured classics and eclectic alternatives -- from comedy to action to family drama to everything in between. What follows are some of the choices available this fall at your local video outlet.SeptemberKicking off September's big releases are the Bridget Fonda action flick "Point of No Return" and the harrowing family drama "This Boy's Life," author Tobias Wolff's memoir of adolescence in the Pacific Northwest with an abusive stepfather (Robert De Niro)

Many years have passed since I was a child, but I still remember the excitement as I counted down the days until it was finally Christmas.Probably my best and most vivid memories of Christmas center on the activities leading up to the holiday.Visits to see Santa Claus, community events, church plays, caroling and, of course, decorating, are among my most cherished memories. Now that I am a parent, I feel fortunate that I can share some of those same holiday traditions with my family.Take time this week to check out some of the Christmas events in central Carroll.

ALLAN HOLZMAN came home to Baltimore with his family to direct a television series on emergencies. Within 48 hours, the free-lance filmmaker was in the midst of his own.Now, three months' later, the emergency has become a long-running family drama -- and the last episode has yet to be written.While visiting from California, Holzman's wife, Susan Justin, gave birth four months early to the couple's second daughter. The baby weighed 1 pound 5 ounces. Now 2 1/2 pounds, Shayne is breathing on her own and healthy enough to be transferred to a hospital near her home in Santa Monica, but the family's insurance company is refusing to pay for the air ambulance to take her there, though in all likelihood it would cost less in the long run to do so.Because of that, the family may be in Baltimore two more months or until Shayne weighs 5 pounds and can safely go home on a commercial flight.

FRIDAY 'Hamlet': Talk about family drama - with Hamlet, Shakespeare spun a classic tale of murder and revenge. Starting this weekend, the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival tackles the theatrical masterpiece, adapted and directed by Michael Carleton. Hamlet runs through July 26 at the Meadow at Evergreen Museum and Library, 4545 N. Charles St. Tickets are $10-$25. Call 410-366-8596 or go to baltimoreshakespeare.org. 'Bloodlines': Dan Baum's Bloodlines follows Sarah Friedman, a college student who begins to second-guess her identity when she heads home for Passover and finds ... family drama.

Biting comedy, award-winning reality TV and the start of a new season for a great family drama are available this weekend. CHRIS ROCK IS BACK TV comedy does not get much better than Chris Rock's HBO shows. Premium cable has the freedom not to bleep Rock, and that makes a difference. The language that some consider harsh is crucial to the biting edge that Rock brings to his keen social insights. (9 p.m. tomorrow, HBO) *** "THE AMAZING RACE" BEGINS AGAIN The reality show that keeps winning Emmys returns for a new season on CBS. (8 p.m. Sunday, CBS)

The drama Beautiful People certainly delivers on its title. It presents marvelous moms, drop-dead daughters, stellar students and comely cads. Most of the beautiful people - or "BPs" - attend a prestigious New York high school. Gideon, an endearing geek, explains the importance of the "BP" title. "It's just much easier to loathe something when it has a name," he says. It would be easy to loathe Beautiful People, a family drama that debuts at 9 p.m. tomorrow on the ABC Family cable channel.

Three heavily armed men are faced off against each other in a bombed-out shell of a stone hut somewhere in Afghanistan. One is an American who is talking fast, trying to strike a deal with the others. It looks and sounds like a drug deal, when suddenly something goes wrong. Bullets fly, bodies fall. The sequence ends when an Afghani intentionally steps on a land mine rather than surrender. The American walks away covered in blood. This is the start of Traffic: The Miniseries, a six-hour film about international drug-trafficking, terrorism and America-as-world-policeman airing tonight through Wednesday on the USA cable channel.

American Family is being touted by PBS as the first weekly drama on American broadcast television about a Latino family. That's a historic claim, and the series deserves to be celebrated for its commitment to diversity and ethnic understanding. But creator Gregory Nava (El Norte and Selena) doesn't want viewers to think the 13-week series that begins Wednesday night on public television is only by, for and about the Latino experience. "American Family is about everybody's family," Nava said at a PBS press conference in Los Angeles.

If it seems to you that everything on network television looks and sounds the same, I have a suggestion: Check out the premiere of "Now and Again," one of the stranger but also more intriguing pilots in years.Forgive me for not being able to describe it in a short, parenthetical bite, but neither CBS nor creator Glenn Gordon Caron ("Moonlighting") seems quite sure what to call the new hourlong series either.Caron calls it "wiggy and out there." CBS describes it as an "action-comedy-drama-romance about a middle-aged insurance executive who dies a violent death only to discover that his brain has been saved by a government anxious to put it in the body of a 26-year-old man they have manufactured in a laboratory."

Dr. Sydney Hansen has it all at age 30: a successful Beverly Hills practice in plastic surgery, a breathtaking Malibu beach house and a great-looking guy with whom to share it.And then one day, she realizes how much she absolutely hates her life.Welcome to "Providence," as in Rhode Island, the hometown to which Sydney returns on the day when her life in L.A. suddenly feels like it's turning to dust.Welcome, indeed. This new family drama from NBC is one of the most pleasant surprises of television's midseason.

The main course of the 1994-1995 television season has been a flop, one of the worst flops in years. Only two new prime-time series, out of 32, have won enough viewers to be called hits -- NBC's "Friends" and "ER."But the networks are hoping that viewers will want seconds anyway. Tonight, they start the rollout of 14 more new series in what has come to be known as television's second season.On the surface, the menu of new series does not appear too promising. It mainly looks like older stars served up in warmed-over, old-time programming formulas: James Earl Jones as the grandpa in a family drama, Patty Duke as an ordained minister in another family drama, Valerie Harper heading up a secretarial pool, and James Brolin leading a rescue team.

On paper, it looked as if she were going to be just another TV mom in another family drama -- or worse. In this series, the teen-age daughter is the star, which usually means mom is further reduced to standing around off-camera in the kitchen, only occasionally popping on-screen to ask if anyone wants pizza or a glass of Coke.But that's not the Patty Chase that Baltimore's Bess Armstrong brought to the screen when the critically acclaimed ABC drama "My So-Called Life" debuted last month.Her 15-year-old daughter, Angela, dyed her hair red, so Patty went out and got her own hair cut very, very short.

Sitting down? Better be, because here it comes: The best new offering on TV tonight is a made-for-television movie on the USA Network. There. I said it, and I meant it.* "Byrds of Paradise" (8 p.m.-9 p.m., WJZ, Channel 13) -- Timothy Busfield of "thirtysomething" stars as a recent widower who packs off his kids and dog and moves to Hawaii, to take a job as a headmaster of a small prep school. There are enough quirky characters to make this tropical series a sort of "Southern Exposure," but the real focus is the family drama itself.