‘Life & Times’ Lively & Timely

Talking heads get a bad rap.

Nothing is more interesting, in fact, than interesting talking heads. The proof is KCET-TV Channel 28’s “Life & Times,” the best, most stimulating locally produced series on Los Angeles television.

Granted, that’s like calling Pete Wilson the best California governor in Sacramento. The competition isn’t stiff. Yet “Life & Times”--a discussion/documentary series that consistently elevates substance over sound bites while avoiding mustiness--is often something to behold. “Life & Times,” indeed. Nothing on local television is livelier or timelier.

Now two months into its second season, this strikingly smart, half-hour series airs weeknights at 7:30, with documentary segments (produced by Nancy De Los Santos) coming on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and discussion segments (produced by Martin Burns) on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Starting Nov. 11, all-star hosts Hugh Hewitt, Ruben Martinez and Patt Morrison will alternate with a fourth host (yet to be named) for Wednesday segments that will specifically look at pop culture and the mass media.

This season’s documentaries range from “Straight Hate”--Thursday’s arresting look at highly creative efforts by police and local activists to fight anti-gay violence in Long Beach--to an earlier, visually jolting profile of two Latinas and the drug-and-roach infested slum habitats they are striving to eliminate.

Although simply made, the documentaries are often effective, especially in the way they give resonance to oft-muffled voices. Despite their self-serving big talk about community involvement--now becoming a roar with the start of the November ratings sweeps--the city’s commercial stations rarely even approach this level of in-depth journalism.

However, it’s those lively studio segments--whose usual panorama of issues has been tapered in these last days of the California senatorial campaign--that form the bold, looping signature of “Life & Times.”

The Hewitt-Morrison-Martinez hybrid is simply inspired. These people are very good, and just as ABC’s “Nightline” would atrophy without Ted Koppel, the “Life & Times” studio editions would wither minus their presence.

An Orange County conservative with a Saturday morning talk show on KFI-AM (640), Hewitt is a whiz at articulating issues and framing acute questions that knife through redundancy. Here was Hewitt Monday night with Stanley Sheinbaum, president of the Los Angeles Police Commission, when the subject was the Webster Commission report on last spring’s riots: “Are the criticisms valid? Do the recommendations make sense? And is there enough money to pay for the recommendations?” Simple, clear, to the point. Other interviewers should take notes.

Morrison is an ever-hatted Los Angeles Times reporter who, like Hewitt and Martinez, is extremely well informed and not shy about challenging interviewees. In speaking about Los Angeles at one point Monday, Sheinbaum used the stereotypical term city fathers.

“And the mothers,” Morrison interjected.

Sheinbaum appeared puzzled.

Morrison helped him out. “City mothers.”

Finally, the imaginary light clicked on over Sheinbaum’s head. “Oh.”

Hewitt and Morrison are unique in Los Angeles television. It’s Martinez, however, who gives “Life & Times” its most distinctive edge. He’s a poet, author and staff member of L.A. Weekly. If the very properly attired Hewitt looks like the kind of conservative you’d get from Central Casting, the jacketless, bright-shirted Martinez is as sartorially memorable as the show’s angry (or at least agitated) young Latino, the kind of moderately anti-Establishment voice inevitably squelched on local airwaves.

Given the hosts’ bubbling-good chemistry and contrasting political shadings, “Life & Times” is at its very best when Martinez, Morrison and Hewitt are hashing out and lashing out among themselves, creating a sort of “McLaughlin Group” minus the no-brainer wild swings. And Monday’s segment on the Webster Commission--with Hewitt at one point refusing to be interrupted by Sheinbaum--was an example of just how spirited the series can become when interviewing guests on a single topic.

Less entertaining and informative have been its segments on senatorial aspirants (although tonight’s program does give independent candidates a rare crack at local TV). There were, for example, those recent overpolite, separate interviews with Democrat Barbara Boxer and Republican Bruce Herschensohn.

Even if Boxer did come across at times as less than candid and Herschensohn as more than a little patronizing, these segments were less revealing than they were opportunities for the candidates to make their cases virtually unchallenged, something they’ve already had ample opportunity to do during the campaign.

One exchange between Morrison and Herschensohn did stand out, however. When the candidate repeated his positions against gays serving in the military and females in combat, his opposition to the latter based on the “different feeling” that would come over men when fighting beside women, Morrison responded: “Isn’t it a little insulting to a man to say you can train him to kill but not to control himself sexually?”

Herschensohn replied that he was referring not to a sexual feeling but to an “inborn” protectiveness toward females that would affect the conduct of males if the two genders were side by side in combat.

Genetic chivalry. It was a fascinating concept that merited further exploration. Fresh out of follow-up questions, however, Morrison gallantly let Herschensohn off the hook.