TELEVISION REVIEWS : ‘MATRIMONY’ ON NBC

It’s no surprise that Jill Eikenberry and Michael Tucker of “L.A. Law,” television’s favorite offscreen/onscreen couple, would do a TV movie together. Yet “Assault and Matrimony” (on NBC Channels 4, 36 and 39 tonight at 9) plays as if it were designed to wear out the welcome for these two otherwise likable stars.

Perhaps Eikenberry and Tucker thought the movie’s plot, in which they play a wife and a husband who try to bump each other off, would allow them to stretch. All they got for their efforts (besides the moola) were stretch marks.

Those marks look worse on Eikenberry than they do on Tucker. In fact, except for his homicidal tendencies, Tucker’s character here is much like his Stuart Markowitz on “L.A. Law.” He isn’t a tax lawyer, but he is an accountant.

Eikenberry, on the other hand, is a long way from “L.A. Law.” She plays the pettiest of social climbers, obsessed with keeping the couple’s tony suburban home in perfect shape, existing only to nag her genial husband into giving her more money. During soft-focused scenes, she looks remarkably like Linda Grey’s Sue Ellen Ewing.

When she vetoes the sale of the house, despite assurances from a neighbor (John Hillerman) of a financial windfall, her husband begins to plot her demise. At least he has a motive. When she independently decides to kill him, too, no one bothers much with motives.

One botched murder attempt follows another, ad nauseam . It’s utterly mechanical and almost completely mirthless, the only exception being a brief scene when the couple gets a gander of the prospective buyers of their home.

Then, near the end, John Binder’s script (from a James Anderson novel) suddenly turns gooey when the two of them realize they love each other after all. Spare us.

Jim Frawley directed for executive producer Michael Filerman.