The Man Who Would Be ‘the King’ : TV Review : Drama: The initial episodes of ‘Elvis’ deliver prime-time entertainment with style--and a promise of greatness.

As biographical truth, ABC’s “Elvis” may be nuthin’ but a hound dog. As entertainment, though, this new series about one of the most influential performers of our time promises to be an utter delight.

Premiering at 9:30 tonight on Channels 7, 3, 10 and 42 in advance of moving to its regular time slot at 8:30 p.m. Sunday, “Elvis” is that bold prime-time rarity: a half-hour series that is entirely drama and shimmers with the look and production values of a weekly minimovie. Stylistically, ABC is embarking on quite an adventure.

Made with the blessing of Presley’s estate and his widow, Priscilla (who gets co-executive producer billing), “Elvis” takes place mostly in the early 1950s, when Elvis Presley was just getting started as a singer. The setting conveniently allows the producers to avoid the messiest parts of his life and dwell on the period when he was apparently still relatively innocent and unblemished.

Not only does Michael St. Gerard play the young Elvis credibly while not resorting to mimicry, he also has been made up to closely resemble him without looking like a cheap copy. This kind of subtlety is replicated throughout the initial two episodes, in the appealing performances of Billy Green Bush and Millie Perkins as Elvis’ parents, Vernon and Gladys, and in the scripts by co-executive producers Rick Husky and James Parriott, respectively, and the direction by Steve Miner. Add to these elements some Elvis-like sounds and the texture of filming in Memphis, and you really have something.

The broad strokes of these first two segments are essentially trite. Skeptics ask: Who is this rube? Then he sings, and no one asks anymore.

This familiar formula, however, is so sensitively adapted to early Elvis--with career and home fronts gracefully intermingled--that you’re refreshed, not bored.

We open with pre-gyration Elvis at age 19, driving a truck to supplement the income of his father, who has a job loading trucks on a dock. How different their dreams are: Elvis’ to be a rock ‘n’ roll singer, Vernon’s to be a supervisor with a clipboard. And how deftly and gently Miner makes the point with his direction.

Elvis gets his first shot at performing publicly when he’s invited to sit in with some musicians at a small club. “Money honey,” he wails, while across town, Vernon, about to be fired after injuring himself on the dock, is at the kitchen table, sweating over a pile of bills.

In these first two episodes, Elvis is a sweet, devoted and obedient son who calls his parents “mama” and “daddy.” It’s his relationship with his taciturn father that plays so effectively tonight, as their silent moments together are conveyed with great tenderness. What nice work.

Sunday’s episode is almost poetic at times, focusing more on Elvis with his mother and showing him initially terrified by the prospect of even modest success. There are some lovely moments here. Yet the conclusion is more than a bit of a stretch, and a sugary one at that.

Too much of such episode-ending sweet stuff would translate to predictability, and you also hope that at some point Elvis picks up just a little grime to avoid the goody-goody, John-Boy Walton syndrome and keep things interesting.

Meanwhile, enjoy “Elvis” for what it is, and rejoice.

For awhile, at least, the king lives.