Something Familiar on the Air : DEJA View : James Garner Heads a Cast of Oldies in Prime Time

It’s yesterday once more. At least it seems so with the new fall season.

Familiar faces from series past are returning to the small screen in new shows. With viewers abandoning the networks for cable and VCRs, what better way to lure audiences back but with old favorites. After all, innovation didn’t work last season, so perhaps deja vu will.

Viewers can look forward to seeing Robert Guillaume of “Soap” and “Benson” fame starring in NBC’s new comedy series, “Pacific Station.” At ABC, Suzanne Somers of “Three’s Company” is back in prime time after a decade in the sitcom, “Step by Step.” Marion Ross, Mrs. C of “Happy Days,” stars in Gary David Goldberg’s new CBS series, “Brooklyn Bridge.”

Almost 20 years after the premiere of “Sanford & Son,” Redd Foxx is spewing one-liners again in the CBS comedy “The Royal Family.” Carol Burnett is doing another one-hour comedy-variety show for CBS, 13 years after her Emmy-winning series left the airwaves. Even Earl Holliman of “Police Women” is starring in a new CBS series, “P.S. I Luv You,” in which he appears with series veterans Greg Evigan (“B.J. and the Bear,” “My Two Dads”) and Connie Sellecca (“The Greatest American Hero,” “Hotel”).

Perhaps the biggest surprise among the returnees is James Garner, who stars in the new NBC half-hour comedy series, “Man of the People,” premiering tonight at 8.

Garner’s first TV series, “Maverick,” (ABC: 1957-60) made him an international star. NBC’s lighthearted detective series, “The Rockford Files” (1974-80), earned him his first Emmy. Garner also starred in NBC’s short-lived “Nichols” (1971-72) and “Bret Maverick” (1981).

Two years ago, he finally settled a long battle with Universal Studios over his multimillion dollar share of the profits from “The Rockford Files.”

Despite his absence from series television, the past decade has been a productive one for Garner. He received an Oscar nomination for best actor for 1985’s “Murphy’s Romance,” and starred in three acclaimed Hallmark Hall of Fame presentations: “Promise” (for which he won an Emmy as producer), “My Name is Bill W.” and “Decoration Day.”

Garner has never held back his opinions about Hollywood. “The industry is like it always has been. It’s a bunch of greedy people,” Garner told The Times last year.

So why has he decided to go back to the TV-series well for the fifth time?

“Somebody sent me a script that I liked,” Garner said, “and I have been playing golf long enough. I like the character, so I thought I would go back to try it again.”

And “Man of the People” gives Garner the opportunity to exude his laid-back, good-natured charm. He plays Jim Doyle, a con artist and racetrack fanatic who is named to fill a vacant city council seat held by his late ex-wife. Kate Mulgrew co-stars as the mayor, Lisbeth Chardin, Doyle’s nemesis.

“He’s a rake,” Garner said. “He’s a hustler. He starts out trying to do something for himself and ends up doing it for somebody else in spite of himself.”

NBC describes “Man of the People” as Garner’s first comedy series. Garner doesn’t agree. “They (NBC) don’t think ‘Rockford’ was funny or ‘Maverick’ was humorous?”

“Man of the People,” Garner said, is not sitcom “where you do a line and a joke and a line and a joke. It’s not that kind of show. The humor comes out of the characters. It’s more like a little movie.”

Most importantly, he said, “this is just a half-hour series and it is not so bad physically.”

Those one-hour action series have taken their toll physically on Garner. “I broke 12 ribs on ‘Bret Maverick.’ We didn’t do eight episodes because of that. They had a bucking machine and who ever was (operating it) didn’t know how to work it very well and it threw me to kingdom come. There is no action on this series.”

And there will be no laugh track. “That was one of the first things that came up and I said, ‘There is going to be no laugh track.’ And then they said, ‘Do it with an audience.’ And I said, ‘No, we don’t do it with an audience.’ ”

Although Garner is not involved in the production of the series, he does have his input. “It’s fun,” he said. “I love work. I love the actual going to work every day and doing the show.”

These days, Garner believes the best writing is on TV. “They didn’t want to do ‘Murphy’s Romance’ because there wasn’t any sex or action in it. Features now are cartoons. I didn’t see any TV movies that I liked. The only ones I liked were the Hallmark things and two of them I produced.”

“Man of the People” premieres tonight at 8 on NBC.