Oprah Winfrey’s ‘Brewster Place’ Will Return Tuesday

Oprah Winfrey’s “Brewster Place,” which began as the high-rated “The Women of Brewster Place” miniseries of last year, starts life anew Tuesday night as a half-hour ABC series.

Alas, it has an oddly tame, although pleasant, premiere.

Filmed in Chicago at Harpo Studios, where Winfrey also does her syndicated talk show, the series is about the lives of big-city blacks in 1967. It has a lot of things going for it, particularly Winfrey’s acting.

She’s eminently believable as the lead character, Mattie Michael, a wise, steady single woman to whom fate has dealt a few hard knocks, but who faces life with dignity and a certain down-home grace.

Co-written by Earl Hamner, who did “The Waltons,” the premiere is a gentle lesson on the need, after misfortune strikes, to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again, preferably in a new direction.

But Winfrey’s Michael, with all her strength, can’t bring herself to make such a dramatic move, even when fired from her hairdresser’s job at a local beauty parlor after refusing to help bilk her trusting customers.

When she’s fired, her best friend, Etta Mae (Brenda Pressley), urges a big change--becoming her partner in a local Italian restaurant. Etta Mae has a beau who will loan her half the money.

Etta Mae isn’t embarrassed that her friend says she’s dreaming. “Damn right,” she snaps. “And you look to me like you could use a good dream.”

And you know, almost from the start, that Mattie is going to see the light and take a chance.