Last May, along with many other TV critics, I watched "The Last Don" in groggy disbelief, staggered to the word processor and gave it the print equivalent of a garroting followed by a quick, one-way ocean voyage in a cement overcoat.
The result? The Mafia miniseries was totally huge in the ratings, emerging as one of CBS' biggest audience triumphs of the year. If critics had feelings, mine would be hurt.So, anyway, now I'm here to tell you that its four-hour sequel, "The Last Don II" (Sunday and Tuesday, 8 p.m., Ch. 2), while crummy by most standards, is somewhat less crummy than the first "Last Don," which I suppose we now ought to call "The Next-to-Last Don." Whether this will make even more people watch it or turn them away in droves is something I couldn't possibly predict.
Mob overlord Don Domenico Clericuzio (Danny Aiello), who was getting noticeably worn and weary the first time around, is wearier and worner here - briefly, that is, until he goes the way of Marlon Brando at the end of that other and immeasurably superior movie based on a Mario Puzo novel, "The Godfather."
Taking his place - reluctantly, a la Al Pacino's Michael Corleone - is his nephew, Cross de Lena (Jason Gedrick), who's been living peacefully in Paris with his wife, world-famous movie star Athena Aquitaine, until a delivery from a suspicious van blows la belle Aquitaine through the roof of her lovely maison.
Athena, who, fans will recall, was played in "The Next-to-Last Don" by Daryl Hannah, is here impersonated, until her expiration date, by an actress called - actual name - Moe Kelso, presumably because Hannah was too expensive, too busy or was carried away by an attack of good sense.
Untouched by good sense are Joe Mantegna, whose repellent character, Pippi De Lena, was snuffed last year but who returns, like some Sicilian version of Hamlet's father's ghost, to haunt son Cross; and the breathtakingly miscast Kirstie Alley, as Don Domenico's deranged daughter, Rose Marie.
Rose Marie is deranged because the old Don, years ago, had her husband killed before their wedding cake went stale. With the rest of the family seemingly wishing the bride had been dispatched along with the groom, Rose Marie turns to the only person who doesn't treat her like week-old lasagna, a handsome priest named Luca (Jason Isaacs). If you can't guess what happens next, you've never watched a miniseries.
I see I'm forgetting to mention Josie Cirolia (Patsy Kensit), the FBI infiltrator who poses as nanny to Cross' autistic stepdaughter, or Hollywood big boy Dirk Van Schulberg (Andrew Jackson), a muscle-headed Schwarzenegger sound-alike who marries into the family. At least Dirk, who plays an action hero called "The Fumigator," is funny, whereas Josie is just wildly improbable.
Add a birthday party, another explosion, many shootings, one character who gets tossed off a balcony and another who's squashed like Wile E. Coyote under a 10-ton weight, and you've got a regular Don-o-Rama. If this one's as big a hit as the last one, get ready for "The Last Don III," with Gedrick coming back to haunt Jonathan Lipnicki.
OFF TO SEE THE `WIZ': It's hard to believe this will be the last time you can see "The Wizard of Oz" (Friday, May 8, 7:30 p.m., Ch. 2) on network TV before Ted Turner spirits it away to his cable empire. No one's ever made a better kids' movie, certainly not one that can make adults smile, shiver and sigh 59 years after its debut.
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