"Clubhouse" is definitely not reality TV.
It's sheer fantasy. But if you accept it as that, it also has the makings of an enjoyable series.
In the premiere (Sunday, 7 p.m., CBS/Ch. 2), we meet 16-year-old Pete Young (Jeremy Sumpter), a good kid who just got his dream job — he's the new batboy for his favorite baseball team, the (fictional) New York Empires. (They look like the Yankees, but they play in Dodger Stadium. Go figure.)
Anyway, in quick succession, Pete meets his idols, including star player Conrad Dean (Dean Cain); is taken under the wing of gruff father-figure/equipment manager Lou (Christopher Lloyd), looks great on TV, meets a girl and drives an incredibly expensive sports car.
It's not all lemonade and lollipops, however. The head batboy is a real jerk, he gets the razzing any newbie can expect (Dean sends him on a wild-goose chase for a bat-stretcher) and Pete gets caught up in a drug scandal.
Oh, and his mother (Mare Winningham) doesn't want him to have anything to do with baseball. Until Dean drops by the house. Because, in this show, things are going to turn out OK in the end.
It's not just that 16-year-olds can't drive in New York City. Or that the scandal would never die down the way it will on "Clubhouse." The show is loaded with fantasy — but it's nice fantasy. It's heartwarming.
It's not even really a show about baseball, it's a show about a good kid growing into a good man.
Hopefully, there's room on network TV for a show like this.
"Clubhouse" moves to its regular time slot on Tuesday at 8 p.m.
COMPLETE SAVAGES (tonight at 7:30, ABC/Ch. 4) is the sitcom for you, if you think trash, garbage, maggots and vermin are funny.
Keith Carradine stars as a slob single father of five slob teenage boys who share a house strewn with garbage and do guy things like ogle girls and make big messes. They're such slobs that when the latest housekeeper quits in the opening moments, she sets their laundry on fire.
That's one of the big jokes. Which ought to give you a clue as to caliber of "Complete Savages."
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com