Commentary : Talk Is (Bleep) This Fall

This column is rated PT. As in prime time.

Don’t jump to any easy conclusions about what that stands for, though.

To a few people, what passes for casual conversation on network television this season is going to seem X-rated.

To more liberal-minded (or perhaps desensitized) viewers, it may be closer to PG--nothing to be concerned about, a simple reflection of reality.

Whatever your point of view, there’s no denying that the language of network television is creeping ever closer to the language of the street.

So much so, in fact, that before we offer some examples from this season’s new series, it’s important to give you fair warning. Much of what follows will be offensive to some.

“The new dialogue,” as it might be called, comes in a variety of forms and contexts, some with mitigating circumstances, some without.

This season’s critical favorite, for instance--CBS’ “Love and War,” starring Jay Thomas (“Murphy Brown”) and Susan Dey (“L.A. Law”)--is by definition an adult, romantic comedy. Thomas and Dey play wisecracking opposites Jack Stein, a Jimmy Breslin kind of newspaper guy, and Wallis “Wally” Porter, an uptown divorced woman who buys Stein’s favorite New York hangout.

Naturally, they have an instant attraction to one another. But they also love to spar, often and hard.

And after one particularly bruising put-down from Wally in the pilot episode, Jack responded, “Well, I can’t tell without looking, but I think my genitals just receded.”

Meanwhile, at Fox, rarely on the cutting edge of good taste, sex is just about all that’s on the comedy menu in “Flying Blind,” a sitcom that has a lot in common with the Jonathan Demme film “Something Wild.”

Corey Parker (“thirtysomething) and Tea Leoni (“A League of Their Own”) play the show’s two central characters: Neil is a recent college grad; Alicia is his wildly uninhibited new girlfriend.

ABC’s ‘90s version of “Three’s Company,” called “Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper,” is also, by its nature, a show with sex on its mind.

Mark Curry plays Mark Cooper, a substitute teacher living with two females played by Dawnn Lewis and Holly Robinson.

But because it will be broadcast Tuesday nights after the kiddie hit “Full House” (whose producers created this show as well), the sexual humor is more suggestive, the risque remarks muted.

Some of the talk on TV is just plain juvenile. Take Delta Burke, star of ABC’s new sitcom “Delta.” As a woman taking a life-affirming shot at country music stardom, Burke gets so excited at the thought of someday singing at the Grand Ole Opry, she exclaims, “I’m gonna wet myself.”

And those are just a few examples from the 1992-93 fall lineup.

So why the blue tones on network television?

The easy answer is: That’s life, or at least where it’s been heading for quite some time, on screen and off.

The business answer is: Take a look at cable; consider your latest VCR rentals. That’s what the networks have to compete against to make a buck these days.

Because the networks can’t make a sitcom with women running around naked (such as HBO’s “Dream On”) or stand-up comedy shows or dramas with everyone using every four-letter word in existence, the Big 4 are doing their best to give viewers the next best thing.

Which brings up a couple of interesting questions.

Who asked for this kind of stuff in the first place? And who said it would be an improvement?