TV Reviews : An Unremarkable ‘Zorro’ on Family Channel

Heroes are rough to come by these days. Which is why we keep resurrecting the old ones and sending them back to work.

Like Zorro. The Big Z. He goes back to the days of yore. He goes back to a story in a pulp magazine in 1919, which is a lot of yores indeed. In the intervening years, he has been enacted by Douglas Fairbanks, Bob Livingston, Tyrone Power, Guy Williams and others.

Now he’s back and the Family Channel’s got him for weekly half hours at 6 and 11 p.m. Fridays, commencing today, and 6:30 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.

He and his alter ego, the foppish Don Diego, are enacted by Duncan Regehr, tall, handsome, sassy. His primary Hollywood credit, of course, is his Errol Flynn in the TV bio-film “My Wicked, Wicked Ways.”

Among other castings for the series: Don Diego’s dad is played by Efrem Zimbalist Jr., and the Pueblo of Los Angeles, circa 1820, is played by a ranch outside Madrid, where co-producers New World TV, Family Channel and Canal Plus of France are shooting their episodes.

The first story finds the evil mayor, the Alcalde (Michael Tylo), framing the gorgeous Victoria (Patrice Camhi) for murder. He prepares to hang her . . . when Zorro happens past.

Well, panache also isn’t what it was in the old yores. Regehr is raffish enough but the whole exercise amounts to a mild amusement--more comedy, less adventure. Everybody is pleasant but dimly lit. There’s attempt at peril but it seems about as tense as “Mr. Ed.”

Even imminent hangings or slashing swords or deadly muskets make no never mind. That makes it very “family” entertainment. Families are different these days too.