TV REVIEW : ‘Trials of Rosie O’Neill’ Wins on Appeal

From “Face to Face With Connie Chung” to Face to Face With Sharon Gless.

“The Trials of Rosie O’Neill,” starring Gless as a Beverly Hills lawyer-turned-public defender, was hurriedly inserted in the CBS fall schedule to replace “Face to Face” after Chung announced that she was curtailing her schedule to focus on getting pregnant.

The trade-off may turn out to be mutually beneficial for Chung, Gless and viewers.

Rosie arrives at 10 tonight on Channels 2 and 8, the “trials” in the title referring to her activities both inside and outside the courtroom. This seems to be less a series about law than about self-awareness and painful transition, the protagonist’s intersecting streaks of self-effacing wit and sadness--Glass handles both nicely--making her all the more intriguing and appealing.

The Rosie we meet in this attractive premiere is a middle-aged work in progress, someone forging a new life for herself after her husband has left her for a much younger woman.

This being prime time in the 1990-91 season, we learn immediately that Rosie is thinking about having her “tits” done and later that she is having an affair with a man almost young enough to be her son. Her step-daughter concludes that she is “horny.”

Meanwhile, Rosie clashes with a resentful colleague (Dorian Harewood) who sees her as a do-gooding dabbler from Rodeo Drive (her designer look is impeccable) as she immerses herself in defending a young woman accused of killing her newborn child.

Gless here is again working for Barney Rosenzweig (executive producer of “Cagney & Lacey”), who has Rosie’s boss (Ron Rifkin) be an orthodox Jew who wears color-coordinated yarmulkes to the office.

It’s an interesting touch--one among many.