TV REVIEWS : ‘Second Chances’ Faces an Uphill Battle

You have to admire consistency. The CBS drama series “Second Chances” (premiering at 9 tonight on Channels 2 and 8) parlays a ludicrous script into an utterly absurd two hours idiotically capped by a bride fleeing her wedding.

Otherwise . . . swell show.

“Second Chances” will normally air at 10 p.m. Thursdays. Executive producers Lynn Marie Latham and Bernard Lechowick were also writers and producers for “Knots Landing,” a former occupant of this soap-opera ghettoized time slot that began the current season filled by the defective “Angel Falls.” Even its modest standard may be beyond the reach of “Second Chances.”

The inflated premiere crawls very slowly toward a murder that will affect the lives of the show’s abundant characters. They include idealistic public defender Dianne Benedict (Connie Sellecca), whose conniving philanderer of a husband wants to block her candidacy for judge; Dianne’s free-spirited sister, Kate (Megan Follows); student Melinda Lopez (Jennifer Lopez) and her overprotective father (Pepe Serna); Jennifer’s law-student boyfriend, Kevin (Justin Lazard); and back-in-town ex-con Mike Chulack (Matt Salinger), the series lug who is Dianne’s former lover.

In Melinda and her father, “Second Chances” at least has two prominent Latino characters, a rare commodity in prime-time drama. But most of the characters, in addition to being put into preposterous situations, are overwritten--the females are mostly saints, the males mostly slugs--and the opening Latham/Lechowick script turns on a series of clumsy juxtapositions and artificial crises that are almost comically contrived.

When “Second Chances” resumes next week it will be an hour shorter, which still may be 60 minutes too long.