"Hidden Hills" star Paula Marshall has been very successful getting on network television. She's been wildly unsuccessful at staying there.
Since 1994, her series starring credits include "Cursed," "Cupid," "Snoops," "Chicago Sons" and "Wild Oats." Most were launched with great expectations; all crashed and burned in less than a season.
"It's not my fault," Marshall said. "It's frustrating. I would like to go a whole season. I don't think it has anything to do with me. I really don't."
Maybe not — some of those shows were just plain bad, others were badly scheduled.
But, for whatever reason, Marshall was dubbed a "show killer" by Entertainment Weekly magazine. Which is not exactly how an actor wants to be known.
Marshall, for her part, chooses to concentrate on the fact that she keeps getting jobs starring or co-starring in network television series.
"I feel really fortunate that people think I'm good enough to be on television. They hire me," Marshall said. "I thought 'Cupid' was brilliant. I should have been on the air. It didn't last."
She sees herself as caught up in a network system that rewards only instant success.
"I think it's really hard for the networks," Marshall said. "It's not the '80s anymore. You've got to get those numbers right away.
"And, again, I feel lucky that people want to have me on the air. They know what I do well. They don't think of me as a show killer. And I don't think you guys do, either."
"We love you," said Peter Segal, executive producer of "Hidden Hills" (Tuesday, 8:30 p.m., NBC/Ch. 5).
"Unless you kill our show, of course," said Dondre Whitfield, one of her "Hidden Hills" co-stars.
Um, excuse me, but he should be the last to talk. Since leaving daytime and "All My Children" behind, Whitfield has an unbroken string of prime-time failures — "The Crew," "Between Brothers," "Living in Captivity," "Secret Agent Man" and "Inside Schwarz."
"I happened to work with casts that weren't as talented as this (cast) obviously is," Whitfield said. "I mean, as you can tell . . . we're a very talented cast. This is going to be a completely different show in that it's very funny, it's very intelligent and it's unlike every other show that I've done in my career. Next question."
He'd better hope it works, given that he dissed everybody he worked with on all those other shows.
Not that he was alone. Chances are Marshall won't be working with executive producer David E. Kelley ("The Practice," "Boston Public," "girls club") again anytime soon. She pretty much confirmed reports that the 1999 Kelley series she worked on, "Snoops," was not a good experience. (She did, after all, quit the show in the middle of its brief run.)
"Well, 'Snoops' was about Mr. David E. Kelley," Marshall said. "I came off of 'Cupid' and ('Snoops') wasn't what I really wanted to do. But everyone said it was David Kelley — this is your Calista Flockhart role. It wasn't, and I kind of knew that.
"I kind of follow my gut. It is true. It's great to see who's producing it. It's great to see who's behind it all, because we'll know sometimes it's political — why a show gets on the air. I want to work. I want to be on the air. I like working. But at the end of the day, I have to follow what my heart says is good, quality material because it's so hard for me to not be proud of the show I'm on. I can't do that anymore."
IT'S A SMALL WORLD: Peter Segal has sort of based "Hidden Hills" on his own busy life — he works full time as a TV writer/producers; his wife works full time as a dentist. And Marshall plays a character who is, in part, based on Segal's wife.
"There were aspects of this character that were sort of drawn from her life," he said. "And when I showed her the pilot, she was a little scared about seeing it — (seeing) how much of her life had been exposed.
"And she said, 'Wait a minute. Paula looks familiar.' And she realized the next day that Paula, who is sort of playing her, is her patient."
E-MAIL: pierce@desnews.com