Someone's at the door. Someone's at the door. Someone's at the door.
It's "American Gothic," trying to get in again.The critically praised but ratings-starved CBS series, which has been on hiatus for the past couple of months, tries, tries again on a new night - Wednesdays at 9 p.m. (Ch. 2) - beginning this week.
"Gothic" is still rather intriguing, certainly spooky, decidedly odd and considerably different than your average network television series.
It's also got about zero chance of success.
For those of you who missed "Gothic" the first time around - and, according to the ratings, there are sure a lot of you - the show is set in the small South Carolina town of Trinity. The town is dominated by its rather evil sheriff, Lucas Buck (Gary Cole).
Lucas isn't quite the devil incarnate, but he is malevolent and manipulative. He also has some sort of supernatural powers, but what exactly they are is never really defined.
The sheriff's major goal in life these days is to bring young Caleb Temple (Lucas Black) under his control.
The series began with the revelation that Caleb is Lucas' biological son. But this came to light only after Caleb's legal father had smacked Caleb's demented sister, Merlyn, in the head with a shovel. Lucas himself finished the poor girl off, breaking her neck.
Seems Merlyn had been driven insane when, as a young girl, she witnessed Lucas raping her mother.
(It was Merlyn who declared "Someone's at the door" just as Lucas arrived to commit the evil act, and that's the phrase that she repeated endlessly in her dementia after that.)
Of course, in Trinity, death is not the end. Merlyn (Sarah Paulson) has been a continuing character on "American Gothic" - as a ghost.
(And, as a ghost, she has recovered her mental faculties.)
But being a ghost has its disadvantages. In tonight's episode, Merlyn experiences the frustrations of never having really been allowed to live her life - particularly the fact that she never experienced love.
So, through some mysterious power, Merlyn manages to bring herself back to life.
If that isn't odd enough, remember - in Trinity, nothing is what it seems. And all roads seem to lead back to one or another of Lucas' plots.
This episode of "American Gothic" is extremely well done. And if you're looking for something outside the television mainstream, this is it.
But, once again, the fact remains that "Gothic" is probably just too odd to survive as a weekly series. "The X-Files" keeps fans coming back week after week, but - despite all the aliens - that show at least gives the appearance of being rooted in reality.
A show like "Picket Fences" tends to digress into extreme weirdness from time to time. But even events like mayors spontaneously combusting or being shot to death by their son or being whacked in the head with a frying pan and frozen by their wife (the actual fate of the show's first three mayors) somehow seem within the realm of possibility when much of the show is so grounded in reality.
What "American Gothic" lacks is that grounding. That reality. Everything in Trinity seems just too weird for belief.
Like "Twin Peaks," what probably would have been best for "American Gothic" would have been life as a miniseries. Maybe six or eight or 10 hours of TV life, with a beginning, a middle and an end.
Because, in all likelihood, the end is coming for "American Gothic" soon, anyway. And it will never have fulfilled its promise.
VERDOIA'S SWAN SONG? The last three years of Ken Verdoia's life have been consumed by what has become the five-hour documentary "Utah: The Struggle for Statehood."
"It's been everything," he said. "In a lot of ways I liken this to falling in love. You don't notice that the time's passing so quickly, and each moment you spend wrapped in the project is a moment you're grateful for."
("Struggle's" first three hours air tonight at 7 p.m. on Ch. 7. The concluding two hours will be seen Thursday at 7 p.m.)
As outstanding as "The Struggle for Statehood" is there is one somber thought that accompanies its debut tonight.
It might be the last TV project for Verdoia, the epic's producer, writer, director and narrator.
"I don't know what is immediately in the offing because this, for the last three years, has been alpha and omega for me," Verdoia said.
It's not as if Verdoia is thinking of leaving Ch. 7 tomorrow. He acknowledged that he has a number of "Struggle for Statehood" projects that will take him through the next few months.
(They include a possible airing of the documentary on cable's History Channel, a possible cut-down version for PBS's "The American Experience," working on materials and outlines for Utah teachers to use the documentary in the classroom, and a CD-ROM version of the project.)
"But it will all be in the fashion of summing up the work that's already done," Verdoia said.
"This may be my last great project, and it may be the best thing that I can exit this business with. Having been given every op-por-tunity and every resource to do the project right - to do a great project on a big scale at a pivotal time as the statehood celebration nears - and it may an excellent way to exit."
Which would be a great loss for both KUED and for its viewers. Verdoia's projects at Ch. 7 have achieved consistent excellence.
He insists he's thinking seriously about moving on to something else but acknowledges he may still change his mind.
"This may just be the notion of a man who feels like he's given birth to quintuplets and is too weary to think about the next child he might have," Verdoia said.
Let's hope that's the case.