TV REVIEWS : Promising ‘Evening Shade’ for Reynolds

“Evening Shade” has roots, character and lusty wit. These, along with a grand cast, make it flat out the most promising new comedy series of the fall season.

Its hour premiere on CBS at 8 tonight (Channels 2 and 8) is a bloated beer belly. But slice away the fat (it resumes in its regular half-hour form next Friday) and you have some prime television that finds co-executive producer Burt Reynolds as former pro footballer Wood Newton, who has returned with his wife, Ava, to their hometown of Evening Shade, Ark. Wood now coaches the perennially losing high school football team and helps Ava (Marilu Henner), a candidate for prosecuting attorney, raise their three kids.

Very cozy. However, Wood and Ava face two problems tonight, the first when the local newspaper publishes a photo of him hugging the town stripper, the second when Ava learns she is pregnant despite Wood’s vasectomy.

Meanwhile, we meet other supporting characters: Ponder Blue (Ossie Davis), the proprietor of a barbecue restuarant that’s the town hangout; Evan Evans (Hal Holbrook), Ada’s father and editor of that local paper; Ada’s gossipy Aunt Frieda (Elizabeth Ashley), and family physician Harlan Elldridge (Charles Durning), the bumbler responsible for messing up the knot during Wood’s vasectomy.

It’s not long before the entire town knows that Ava is pregnant. Evan asks Wood where he got his vasectomy. “At Vasectomies R Us,” he replies.

Besides being very funny, this series from Harry Thomason and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason (“Designing Women”) has an appealingly distinct tone and an honesty in its relationships that dramatically set it apart from most TV comedies. The characters are richly eccentric, the writing sexy and tartly Southern and the performances excellent.

Reynolds walks around with a sort of hang-dog “How-can-this-be-happening-to-me?” look in his eyes. Come to think of it, how can this series be happening to TV? It is, and be thankful for it.