Weekend TV : No Sign of Alda in This ‘Hawkeye’

No, Alan Alda isn’t back. The syndicated series “Hawkeye,” inspired by James Fenimore Cooper’s “Leatherstocking Tales,” takes place in the Hudson River Valley in 1755 and centers on the adventures of a rugged frontier hero with a preternatural knack for showing up at the right place at the right time.

Hawkeye (Lee Horsley) appears, deus ex machina style, whenever an innocent colonist is in danger of a tomahawk from the nastier warring natives or, worse, a snit fit from corrupt British officers.

The two-part series opener, shown in consecutive hours tonight, introduces a Virginia merchant couple on their way to the frontier to set up business. The husband (Michael Berry) is a major-league twit, but his wife (Lynda Carter), well, his wife. . . . Cooper may never have written specifically of heaving bosoms, but the sight of Wonder Woman in the 18th-Century equivalent of a Wonderbra does wonders for this series’ circulation.

Said twit merchant is quickly drawn into Native American danger by his evil brother (Garwin Sanford), a British officer with all sorts of terrible designs. The lovely wife ineptly sets out to rescue her hapless husband from the French fort where he’s being held, and she must be rescued herself by Hawkeye. This star-crossed couple exchange tempestuous glances and heavings, but the two-parter closes with her thoughts that this is a love that can never be. At least not for a few weeks.

The grown-ups among us may fret over the uneven casting and uneven performances, but kids who are experiencing the first of their Mohicans will enjoy this with fewer fettering preconceptions. And there is a good amount of action here for them--of an old-fashioned sort hard to find this side of reruns. As a modern lad’s introduction to bows, arrows and corsets, it might suffice.

* “Hawkeye” premieres at 8 tonight and thereafter will be seen Saturdays at 10 p.m. on KCOP-TV Channel 13.