Quite frankly, "LAX" pretty much completely lost me toward the end of its pilot episode.
Without, hopefully, giving too much away, there's this scene in which Heather Locklear drives out on the airport runway, positions herself in front of a jetliner being piloted by drunken East Europeans and screams at them to stop. And they do.
That was just a little too stupid for me.
You know from the get-go that "LAX" (which premieres Monday at 9 p.m. on Ch. 5) is going to be a bit offbeat. In the opening seconds, the guy in charge of Los Angeles International Airport commits suicide by standing in front of a landing jetliner.
We don't have to feel bad about this, apparently. We don't know him, for one thing. And it sets up the focal point of the show for another.
Death being an opportunity for promotion, runway chief Harley Random (Locklear) and terminal boss Roger De Souza (Blair Underwood) are both after the top job. They're both great at what they do (or so we're told) and neither wants to work for the other.
Ah, can't you just feel the sparks flying?
Think of "LAX" as sort of "Hotel" at the airport. Locklear and Underwood are the equivalents of Connie Selleca and James Brolin, and they've even got their own cast of supporting players.
There's Betty (Wendy Hoopes), the tough immigration officer; Nick (David Paetkau), the newly hired, naive immigration officer; Henry (Frank John Hughes), the airport police officer who's not exactly thrilled to be there.
And don't forget Tony (Paul Leyden of "As the World Turns"), the handsome, debonair airline passenger coordinator. He's sort of the equivalent of Your Cruise Director. And, yes, "LAX" is sort of "Love Boat" with planes.
Not that there's anything wrong with "The Love Boat." (Well, except for the cheesy ridiculousness of that show.) But in this post-9/11 world, a major international airport seems an odd place to set a show that injects humor into situations that aren't all that funny.
Little things like those drunken pilots, the arrival of the governor of California and a bomb threat. A bomb threat that's intercut with a pet dog running around the airport.
"I think people are feeling better about going to airports now and we can introduce some lightness into an airport," insisted executive producer Mark Gordon.
So, what's next? Gee, maybe a sitcom set inside the Transportation Security Administration?
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com