Listening to executive producer Steve Tisch talk about his new CBS series "Freshman Dorm," you might think he's been working on a highbrow drama.
Tisch said that the show, which features a group of 18-year-olds from different backgrounds who meet at a California university, has high aspirations."I don't want to do something superficial," he said. "I don't want to do something where the characters sort of parade around in bating suits and at the end of every act, someone's in the pool."
Those sentiments are highly admirable, but they don't quite jibe with the premiere of "Freshman Dorm," which airs tonight at 8 p.m. on Ch. 5.
Indeed, the first episode of "Dorm" features young women in bikinis at the beach, young women in underwear romping in the dorm rooms, young men in bathing suits and young men getting out of the shower wearing nothing but towels.
In other words, this summer series has a great deal more in common with Fox shows like "Melrose Place" than Tisch is willing to admit.
And, while "Dorm" does not show much in the way of sex scenes, there's plenty of sex talk.
"Well, it's 1992 and clearly television can deal with more mature themes," Tisch said. "They're universal themes but in 1992 we can approach them with a lot more honesty. With a lot more references to not only sex but the meaning of relationships and the importance of relationships, and craft a show that is very real."
One of the female freshman isn't quite sure she should sleep with her boyfriend. Her two roommates are shocked to learn she's still a virgin - a fact they find both astounding and humorous.
There's a college freshman putting the moves on her married professor. Well, at least he's separated from his wife.
This same young woman throws herself at a young man who refuses her, much to her surprise.
In a stab at being responsible, the script writers have included dialogue about birth control and safe sex.
"I clearly don't want to turn anybody off by our decisions as to how we deal with sexuality among freshman in college, but at the same time I'm not going to walk away from that because it is very credible among young people," Tisch said. "It's credible among young people in high school, in junior high school, in college. And certainly after college."
To be fair, the sexual content of the show is considerably lower than many other prime-time series. And, again, there's a whole lot more talk than action.
Actually, it's almost easier to forgive "Freshman Dorm" its relatively tame prurience than it is to forgive the show its sadly stereotyped characters.
There's a beach boy who's really sort of deep. A rather prim (at least to begin with) young woman from the Midwest, whose high-school boyfriend is there on an athletic scholarship. A black male who wants to fit in.
An poor but overachieving Hispanic whose dream is to "own the world" and sees joining a snooty sorority as a step on the way. A pushy New Yorker who's both extremely rich and unimpressed with other rich folk.
And the snooty sorority president, a character who appears to have escaped from "Revenge of the Nerds."
OK, "Freshman Dorm" is not without its moments, unrealistic as they may be. The pushy New Yorker taking the snooty sorority president down a peg is great fun, and there's some earnestness behind the performances.
But the show is mainly a summertime diversion - superficial, light and light-headed, at times.
It's by no means the worst thing the networks have provided viewers this summer, but it's also by no means the show its executive producer described.`STUDS' DUDS: News Corporations Chairman Rupert Murdoch, who own and runs Fox, isn't a fan of the Fox syndicated show "Studs" despite the fact that the show brings in lots of revenue.
Murdoch told the Los Angeles Times that too many episodes were "sleazy celebrations of promiscuity . . . I told them to clean up their act or get off the air."
I'm glad he noticed.LOW VIEWERSHIP: According to the A.C. Nielsen Co., during the May sweeps only PBS garnered just 3 percent of the prime time viewing.
That's compared to 71 percent for the Big Three networks and Fox, 10 percent for independent stations, 21 percent for basic cable and 5 percent for pay cable.
That means more people paid to watch HBO, Showtime, Disney and the like than watched PBS for free.