‘Doubts’ Gets Another Chance Saturday

TV or not TV. . . .

LONG SHOT: It looks like a final bid for survival for the NBC drama “Reasonable Doubts” when it returns Saturday to run out its season.

But, despite its low ratings, it has broken ground with Marlee Matlin playing a hearing-impaired assistant district attorney, paired with a police detective (Mark Harmon) who has a knowledge of sign language.

As an Oscar-winner in “Children of a Lesser God” and then as the authoritative yet romantic leading woman of “Reasonable Doubts,” Matlin has helped make a difference for other performers with disabilities.

On the set of the series at Warner Bros. studios in Burbank, Matlin has a firm handshake, a hearty laugh and--although she does not regard herself as a spokesperson--a belief that she has helped open doors.

“Sure,” she said through her interpreter and business associate, Jack Jason. “I think it’s opened a lot of minds so that when they’re casting, they remember and think of me.”

Matlin recently got engaged to a Burbank police officer, Kevin Grandalski, whom she met while making the series. They plan to marry in August.

Professionally, she has a new motion picture, “Hear No Evil,” besides the well-crafted “Reasonable Doubts.” Of Harmon, she says: “He’s the best co-star I ever worked with.”

Viewers of the series, says Matlin, indicate that “they want to know about sign language, how I overcame deafness and how I get by. I just do the best I can, like anybody else. A lot of the crew treat me like anybody else, not someone who’s deaf.”

If the series somehow manages a reprieve, what direction would she like it to take?

“I hope my character would get pregnant so I could be a single mom,” says Matlin. “Maybe that’s because I want to get pregnant in real life too--have four kids. Perhaps it would send a nice message in the show to have her be a working mother.”

Because she’s deaf?

“Sure. Absolutely. A lot of people have misperceptions of deaf people until they can meet them. It would be a good message to pass along.”

NIGHT OWLS: The short, happy life of Aaron Brown and Lisa McRee as the anchor team of ABC’s droll, innovative overnight series, “World News Now,” is, alas, history.

The New York-based program debuted Jan. 6, 1992, but McRee has moved on to ABC’s new, prime-time magazine show, “Day One”--which debuted Sunday--while Brown still holds the fort from the wee hours (3 a.m. here) until daylight.

Well, yes, executive producer David Bohrman keeps trying out new partners for Brown. But, since the chemistry isn’t quite the same, “World News Now” has occasionally hung an “anchor wanted” sign over McRee’s former chair--or sometimes used life-sized cardboard cutouts of Sam Donaldson and Ed Murrow.

“We used Murrow a couple of times,” says Brown, “and got a call from CBS, who thought maybe it was not a great idea.”

Says Bohrman: “There was some undeniable magic and chemistry between Aaron and Lisa.” And, predictably, the work of Bohrman and Brown, as well as McRee, is moving them right along at ABC. Bohrman notes:

“The production staffs of ‘World News Now,’ ‘World News This Morning’ and the ‘Good Morning America’ news segments have all been merged into one unit, and I guess that I’m running it all right now.”

ABC management, by no coincidence, is downsizing the network, which certainly is a major factor in the doubling up of duties. But “World News Now” had made its presence felt.

Bohrman notes that Brown, while continuing to anchor “World News Now,” has also been assigned to “World News This Morning.”

But the overnight shift took its toll, says Bohrman: “From a human standpoint, it couldn’t go on forever exactly as it was. We have no lives. Both Aaron and I are married, sometimes more to each other than our wives. I’m here 16 hours a day. I see my kids for five or 10 minutes.”

Says Brown: “My 4-year-old daughter said to me, ‘Dad, I like putting you to bed every day, but I think it’s wrong.’ It’s so descriptive of my life, which is upside down. There’s this raging ambivalence. I love it here. I would like to do ‘World News Now’ forever in a lot of ways. And with Lisa, it was joyful and risky and all that TV should be.

“But I literally can’t take a day off. I’ve never felt so underpaid and indispensable at the same time. Lots of people could do the broadcast, but most of them would not set foot in the building at this time of the night, and I don’t blame them.”

DATE BOOK: Dan Rather took over the “CBS Nightly News” from Walter Cronkite 12 years ago today. Rather’s now 61 and Cronkite’s 76.

BULLETIN BOARD: It was 25 years ago that CBS chickened out and cut a Harry Belafonte number from “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” because it used footage of the riots at the 1968 Democratic convention. How dumb was CBS? You can see for yourself when the E! cable channel, which is rerunning the series, airs the censored number for the first time March 19.

WAKE-UP CALL: The following exchange took place on NBC’s “Today” show the morning after the Grammy Awards:

Katie Couric: “I thought Garry Shandler was having sort of a rough time hosting.”

Bryant Gumbel: “Shandling.”

Couric: “Shandling. Sorry.”

A few moments later, Gumbel said that Shandling’s series, “The Larry Sanders Show,” was “hilarious.”

Couric: “It’s been canceled. The one on HBO, the fake talk show?”

Gumbel: “It has?”

Couric: “That’s what someone told me.”

Rest easy. The Shandling series has been renewed for 22 episodes and is scheduled to resume on HBO with new shows early in June.

CLOUT: The two-hour “Morning News” series on KTLA-TV Channel 5 hammered all the network competition--ABC’s “Good Morning America,” “Today” and “CBS This Morning”--again in the February sweeps.

UPSET: ABC’s Tuesday blockbuster, “Roseanne,” is TV’s top entertainment show, but CBS now has won the overall night in the ratings 10 of the last 11 weeks behind “Rescue 911” and two-hour movies.

SPRING FEVER: The numbers on their uniforms are etched in my memory forever--and there they were again in an old Dodger-Yankee showdown on Prime Ticket: No. 42, Jackie Robinson, and No. 39, Roy Campanella.

BEING THERE: Ed Sullivan, introducing singer Dolores Gray: “Now starving in a new show. . . .”

Say good night, Gracie. . . .