TV REVIEW : A Humorous Sibling Rivalry

From ABC’s new “Sibs” to NBC’s holdover “Sisters,” clashing siblings are spreading in prime time.

Now comes the ABC comedy series “Good & Evil,” which premieres at 10:30 tonight on Channels 7, 3, 10 and 42 with an episode that affirms in sharply drawn, at times acutely funny, fashion that, in some cases, water is thicker than blood.

“Good & Evil” is from Paul Witt, Tony Thomas and Susan Harris, creators of NBC’s awful new “Nurses” and the returning hits “Empty Nest” and “The Golden Girls.” But it’s their farcical old ABC series “Soap” that “Good & Evil” most resembles in style and tone.

Heading its company of broadly bizarre characters are two sisters who are opposites. Denise (Teri Garr) is the heir apparent to her mother’s cosmetics empire, a loathsome, ruthless, selfish character who tonight re-tests a potentially dangerous youth cream on her employees after it has dissolved the faces of those who use it. Genny (Margaret Whitton) is a kind, generous microbiologist who drinks her own new oral vaccine rather than expose animals to its potentially harmful side effects.

Denise despises and plots against Genny, resenting the fact that her sister has always been favored by their mother, Charlotte (Marian Seldes), a despicably vile and vain character who promises to step down as head of her cosmetics firm when she looks 65.

Meanwhile, unaware that her husband, Ronald (Marius Weyers), has just been discovered and defrosted four years after she pushed him off Mount Everest, Denise vies with Genny for the attention of the mysterious Eric (Lane Davies), and a blind psychiatrist (Mark Blankfield) courts Genny by inadvertently demolishing her lab with his white cane.

“Good & Evil” is crisply written and well cast. Garr is good at being evil, Whitton good at being good. And while Seldes’ family matriarch steals every scene she is in, the humor in Harris’ script ranges from Blankfield’s epic pratfalls to such revoltingly funny bits as Eric passionately kissing Genny, then asking her if she’s vomited lately.

Viewers may do some of the vomiting. But there are plenty enough laughs here to compel you to tune in again, if only to see whose faces--and masks--do dissolve.