TV REVIEWS / The New Season : ‘American Dreamer’ a Cuddly Comedy

NBC’s “American Dreamer” is part of the new season’s new look, a sweet, gentle, cuddly little comedy series whose hero periodically recalls his youth while speaking to the camera from a darkenened stage a la “Our Town.”

Although its premiere is at 9:30 tonight (on Channels 4, 36 and 39), “American Dreamer” resumes in its regular time slot at 10:30 p.m. Saturday.

Robert Urich plays likable protagonist Tom Nash, a former network news correspondent who now lives in a small Wisconsin town from which he writes a column (called “American Dreamer”) for a Chicago newspaper.

A widower, Nash has two kids (Chay Lentin and Johnny Galecki) and a cynical editor (Jeffrey Tambor). Best of all, tonight he hires a neurotic assistant named Lillian, who is hilariously played by Carol Kane.

“American Dreamer” has a nice, self-effacing wit, and a distinct, thoughtful tone, thanks to those dream-like sequences that return Nash to his past as a way on commenting on the present. Tonight, he looks up his high school girlfriend for a column, and Saturday he frets about men friends not bonding the way women do. Obviously, he hasn’t seen “thirtysomething.”

Both episodes have some amusing moments, and all of the major characters get some crisp one-liners. However, it’s obvious almost from the outset that this series tends to run in place when Kane is not on the screen in her supporting role. One of those rare comedic actresses able to surpass her material, Kane could be funny reading the phone book.

She is very funny as Lillian, a mercurial, unpredictable, emotionally unstable character who is right on the edge. With her in front of the camera, “American Dreamer” is on the edge of something very good.