TV REVIEW : ‘The Works’ a Flighty and Fun Look at L.A.

The second installment of KCET’s very occasional culture series, “The Works” (at 10 tonight on Channel 28), aims to draw connections between the Los Angeles of the ‘60s and the L.A. of the ‘90s. If that wasn’t enough, it also looks to show how the twin worlds of high art and pop culture finally coalesced for good between the sampled decades.

Summarizing where L.A. and the arts have gone over 30 years is an absurdly monumental task that an hour of TV couldn’t even begin to make good on--especially a flighty one that devotes about a fifth of its running time to a live performance by the Ventures (!). But if the show ends up spiraling into a smoggy, self-reflexive nowhere, it’s still kind of fun getting there. (Which might be said of a certain seaside metropolis we know.)

Ex-Warhol girl, famed B-movie actress and art-scene maven Mary Woronov hosts, camping it up in a variety of only-in-L.A. outfits and insinuatingly reading the theoretical narration as if presenting a late-night horror movie. You certainly can’t say the show takes itself too seriously.

The first and most cohesive segment focuses on visual artist Ed Ruscha, whose influential ‘60s work involved the painting of slogans and pop aphorisms. “My impetus as an artist came from the world of mass communications, not museums,” he explains. Excerpts are shown from his ongoing project documenting a complete “genealogy” of Sunset Boulevard, with ‘60s snapshots running alongside a video tour of the street’s transformed modern north side.

Then there’s a segment on the late clothing designer Rudi Gernreich and his cohorts, who did sort of the ancient antecedent of today’s wacky jeans ads. The Ventures re-create their quintessential surf instrumentals live on a sound stage. Performance-art troupe the Hittite Empire turns in some pretentious, cut-up monologues about racism, following a bit of vintage Watts riot footage. Post-punk band Suicidal Tendencies is briefly profiled. Video essays explore the conflicting utopian and dystopian imagery L.A. sends out to a confused nation.

Ultimately this “Works” offers more of a tease than a substantial hypothesis about our would-be “Eden on the beach,” but students of the city will have a swell time with it in any case.