If you're looking for new TV shows, you can find four of them this weekend.
However, if you're looking for good new shows, you'll have to wait a while longer.Here's what to expect:
- The Preston Episodes (Saturday, 7:30 p.m., Fox-Ch. 13) is headlined by David Alan Grier ("In Living Color"), who plays David Preston - thus, the awful title.
David is a 37-year-old man who has just gotten a divorce, quit his job as a college professor in New Jersey and moved to New York City - convinced he's about to be the next great writer of our age.
Of course, he can't find a job. He finally forces his way onto the staff of Stuff magazine, a celebrity rag that's just photos and captions.
He's got the obligatory neighbor (Tommy Hinkley) whose job goal is to catch a disease so he can participate in a medical experiment.
This is yet another "new" and "different" series that's derivative of any number of other shows. Oddly enough, its most notable antecedent is "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," what with its media ties and the relationship David has with his gruff boss (Clive Revill).
But poking fun at the similarity as the final credits roll is one of the few bits of cleverness in the pilot.
The humor often settles much lower than that - like when David's psychiatrist mother wants to psychoanalyze his sex life. It's not pretty. And it's just one of several tasteless, vulgar moments.
And Grier himself seems to think he's playing endearing when he's actually playing annoying.
Unless your taste runs to the dreadful "Martin" - which precedes "Preston" - you'll want to avoid these "Episodes."
- Simon (Sunday, 6:30 p.m. on WGN/7:30 p.m. Ch. 30, the WB) is the best new show this weekend.
But that's not saying much.
Simon (Harland Williams) is a borderline idiot savant who closely resembles, uh - Forrest Gump. He's a sweet, naive young man with an IQ that's considerably lower than his weight.
The biggest difference between Simon and Gump is that Simon doesn't meet U.S. presidents.
In the opener, Simon has found a "great" apartment - in Harlem, close to the gunfire. His brother, Carl (Jason Bateman) is horrified.
There's the obligatory neighbor, a dangerous looking ex-con.
Simon does, however, go out and get himself a good job. He becomes a top-level executive at a cable network that looks suspiciously like Nick at Nite. He instantly antagonizes the boss's obnoxious, sycophantic nephew (Patrick Breen).
This isn't a bad premise, and TV itself is wide open to parody.
But everything about "Simon" falls flat. In the final analysis (at least of the pilot) it just isn't funny.
And when you're supposed to be making a comedy, a lack of laughs is a definite problem.
- Cleghorne! (Sunday, 7 p.m. on WGN/8 p.m. Ch. 30, the WB) has more than just the obligatory neighbors - it's more or less about the neighbors, who happen to be the main character's family.
Former "Saturday Night Live" cast member Ellen Cleghorne stars as Ellen, a divorced, upwardly mobile young woman who has just started a TV commercial production business and who's raising a 9-year-old daughter.
Her problem? She can't abide her family - which consists of an overbearing mother (Alaina Reed Hall), her rather odd father (fellow "SNL" alumnus Garrett Morris), and her terminally confused sister (Sherri Shepherd).
And that problem is compounded when the family moves into the apartment next door.
Again, not a bad premise. And the goal here is obviously not to create intellectual comedy.
But it's not exactly a comedy for the entire family. Again, the references are more sexual than you'd want your young kids hearing.
And loud and brash is no substitute for funny.
- First Time Out (Sunday, 7:30 p.m. on WGN/8:30 p.m. Ch. 30, the WB) is not only the worst new show this weekend, it's also the worst new show of the season.
There's absolutely nothing to recommend this alleged comedy.
The WB is trumpeting the fact that star Jackie Guerra is "the first Latina to star in her own television series." And, while your local television editor is all for ethnic diversity on TV, this piece of junk isn't doing the Hispanics any favors.
"First Time Out" is a fairly blatant rip-off of Fox's "Living Single," with a touch of "Ellen" thrown in. Guerra stars as Jackie, a Yale graduate who's working as the receptionist at a trendy Beverly Hills hair salon. She shares an apartment with two friends: Dominique (Leah Remini), a militantly independent, in-your-face woman who speaks her mind freely; and Susan, an aspiring psychotherapist who tends to analyze everyone.
She's also got a male friend, Nathan (Craig Anton), a pathetic loser whose only goal in life is to catch one of the women he's chasing.
Guerra is certainly an attractive young woman, although she's a bit heftier than the models in Cosmo. But the fat jokes fly thick and fast, and even though she's making fun of herself as much as anyone else is, it's a bit much.
And the only thing that gives us relief from the fat jokes are the even more frequent sex jokes - as tasteless and vulgar as anything you'll find on TV. The first episode revolves around Jackie's attempt to reconcile with a boyfriend with whom she had great sex but a mentally abusive relationship.
It ends up being the viewers who are abused.
"First Time Out" doesn't deserve a second chance.