TV REVIEW : ‘Down Home’ a Promising Series Tryout for NBC

This is the try-out-for-fall season at the networks, and tonight (10:30 on Channels 4, 36 and 39) brings the auditioning “Down Home,” a promising NBC comedy series that finds a New York career woman reuniting with her father and brother in the Texas fishing village where she once lived.

After tonight’s valuable exposure following the popular “Cheers,” “Down Home” returns in its regular time slot at 10:30 p.m. Saturday to continue its current run of six episodes.

It merits longer life, based on the premiere, a mostly amusing half-hour in which a clever script (minus an awful joke about turning a pet singing pig into bacon) gives talented Judith Ivey an opportunity play the protagonist Kate to the comic hilt.

She’s given good support by Eric Alan Kramer as her thudding brother and Dakin Matthews as her father, whose failing coastal diner and fishing hangout is about to be swallowed by a touristy high-tech real estate development that would destroy the character of the town.

It turns out the developer is being represented by Kate’s old boyfriend Wade (Ray Baker), a former shrimper. Their romantic fires are relit. However, it’s this relationship--between the urbane Kate and the relative simpleton Wade--that least works. It’s easy to see his attraction to her, but not vice versa.

Otherwise, “Down Home” is a welcome addition to NBC. This is one fish that swims.