TV REVIEWS

“Amazing Stories” begins its second season tonight with a new time slot (8:30 p.m., Channels 4, 36 and 39) and a new determination to be more adult.

The first installment is more adult, all right--having largely to do with sex--but it still suffers from the same problem that plagued the series last season: an engaging premise that develops inconsequentially.

Based on a story by executive producer Steven Spielberg, the show stars Rhea Perlman as a mousy, overworked waitress whose disinterest in sex is revived when her husband (played by her real-life husband, Danny DeVito) brings home a ring from the wax museum where he works. But its magic powers transform her in other ways, too, that put his life in jeopardy.

Written by Stu Krieger and directed by DeVito, it’s all very low key and played for humor (although parents should be advised that the sight of Perlman chasing DeVito around with a butcher knife may not strike young children as funny).

That might be enough except for the fact that the series is called “Amazing Stories,” not “Cute Stories.”