TV REVIEWS : ‘MELBA’ AND ‘BABIES HAVING BABIES’

Melba Moore looks jittery in the premiere of her new comedy series, “Melba,” which takes to the air at 8 tonight on Channels 2 and 8. It’s easy to guess why: She’d read the script.

She was probably worried about vultures swooping in to pick at its lifeless remains before the cast was even done performing.

Moore, the singer and Tony Award-winner for “Purlie,” plays Melba Patterson, who lives with her mother (Barbara Meek) and 9-year-old daughter (Jamila Perry) and runs the visitors center in New York City. She also is recently divorced and therefore shy about returning to the dating circuit.

“The last time I went out on a first date, only women wore earrings!” she protests.

That’s why, in tonight’s show, she’s having trouble lining up an escort for dinner at the mayor’s mansion. One of the men in her office says he has the same problem when he wants to go out.

“What about your wife?” Melba asks.

“That’s the problem!”

And to carry the humor beyond merely dumb to obnoxious, there is Melba’s “sister” (Gracie Harrison), who, in a twist on “Diff’rent Strokes,” is white, having been raised in her housekeeper’s family after her mother died. As if their color wasn’t contrast enough, she’s a pushy blonde who is desperate to land a man because “my biological clock is clanging like Big Ben.”

Clunking is more like it. The show was directed by Mel Ferber from a script by Larry Balmagia and Laurie Gelman.

Also on CBS today (3 p.m., Channel 2; 3:30 p.m., Channel 8) is “Babies Having Babies,” a “Schoolbreak Special” for young people that uses the format of “The Breakfast Club” to discuss teen-age pregnancy. Call this group “The Morning Sickness Club.”

Actually, it’s a marvelous concept. Five teen-age girls, strangers to one another, gather at a community center to confer with an adult counselor about their pregnancies. When the counselor is late showing up, they begin to talk among themselves--and, by extension, to the young viewers--about boys, sex, parents, abortion, adoption, birth control and the personal effects of their pregnancy.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work dramatically. Writers Kathryn Montgomery and Jeffrey Auerbach have created stereotypes, not characters, and have filled their mouths with positions, preachings and platitudes, not credible dialogue. In his directing debut, Martin Sheen shows skill at working with the young actresses but fares less well in establishing a rhythm to the ebb and flow of dramatic tension.