Thursday, October 07, 1999
ABC's 'Wasteland' will make you scream
BY JOHN KIESEWETTER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
We've seen “Must See TV” that wasn't, and “very special episodes” that weren't. Finally here's a TV show that lives up to its name.
• Wasteland (9 p.m., Channels 9, 2): Yes, it is. ABC's new drama by Kevin Williamson (Dawson's Creek, Scream, Teaching Mrs. Tingle) about struggling young professionals in Manhattan is one of the worst shows in the history of the Vast Wasteland.
These six self-absorbed college pals make CBS' disastrous Central Park West look like Shakespeare.
Trapped in this Wasteland are:
• Russell, a closeted “raving homosexual” soap opera star (Dan Montgomery, The Little Death).
• Jesse, a chain-smoking publicist (Sasha Alexander, Man on the Moon).
• Dawnie, a 26-year-old grad student still a virgin (Marisa Coughlan, Teaching Mrs. Tingle).
• Ty, her old boyfriend, the campus stud turned scuba instructor (Brad Pitt look-alike Brad Rowe, NewsRadio).
• Vandy, a bartender-songwriter (Eddie Mills, Dawson's Creek).
• Sam (Rebecca Gayheart, Scream 2), a Southerner doing clerical work in the district attorney's office for Vince (Madisonville native Jeffry D. Sams, Cupid) who dislikes her accent.
Mr. Sams was added just before the NAACP criticized the networks for their all-white pilots. His character will have an affair with Sam by Thanksgiving — if the show lasts that long.
Dawnie provides the narration (and title), as she researches her thesis about “a second coming of age,” a void in the post-teen years filled with “fear that immobilizes us” on the way to adulthood.
“I'm profoundly lost as a human being,” Dawnie says. “Human relationships baffle me, and I'm acutely self-aware to the point where I'm clueless and slightly suicidal.”
When Dawnie can't patch things up with Ty, she says: “You're at the second coming of age, and I'm still in my first. You should go.”
Yes, we should. Take her advice. And don't come back.
Council approves property tax plan
Washerwoman can lead Tide of goodness
Casinos consider staying docked
Drivers run red, but not in rage
Sauerkraut to honey, we love festivals
Waging war on teen drinking
Norwood mayor's office investigated
Driver faces eight years for hitting teen on bike
Police seek deli shooter
Trucker freed after bail lowered in fatal wreck
Classes to take away fear of computers
Goose dresser explains his passion
Ind. science teacher wins national award
Pets special on this day
Riverboat no longer tipsy
School candidates tell why they run
Where school board candidates stand
ABC's 'Wasteland' will make you scream
GET TO IT
Service honors fallen firefighters
Maisonette munchers rave on
Artists protest plan that displaces shelter
Boone planners may drop growth restriction
County chooses Ohio's program to help jobless
Disciplined janitors sue school board -6 over camera
Elsmere fumes at jail-site choice
Fingerprints at '85 death scene called link to man
School chiefs want funding addressed
Students inspire Up With People
Taft has caution on using windfall
TRISTATE DIGEST
United Way campaign nearly halfway to goal
Work on new school district begins
