TELEVISION : A ‘Masterpiece’ It Isn’t : PBS’ New Quiz Show Doesn’t Look Too Different From Brand X

Here is the latest quiz-show scandal.

Question: Which television programming chief--in rejecting the distinctive global-affairs series “Rights & Wrongs” for her network this year--called human rights “an insufficient organizing principle” for a prime-time series?

Answer: Jennifer Lawson, executive vice president of national programming and promotional services for PBS.

Now the $64,000 question: Which network now has a prime-time quiz show?

Answer: PBS.

In other words, PBS--whose mandate is to do serious, innovative programming in the public interest--believes that a quiz show with prizes, a glib host and all the other formulaic aspects of this antique genre is a sufficient “organizing principle” for a prime-time series.

The evidence is tonight’s prime-time arrival (following the shallow, sound bite-driven, MTV-style premiere of “Future Quest,” a series merging pop culture and science) of the PBS half-hour “Think Twice.”

Announcer: “With the host of our show, a man who will make everyone think twice, Monteria Ivey.”

Applause.

Ivey: “Thank you, thank you. . . .”

Subject to the whims of Congress because of its ongoing money problems, PBS survives by tiptoeing through minefields. It’s nearly always in someone’s cross hairs--if not liberals claiming that it’s too conservative, then conservatives charging that it’s too liberal.

Presently, no one can accuse it of being too unique.

In part because of the options offered by cable’s broadening multichannel smorgasbord, the gap between PBS and the rest of TV has been narrowing for years. Yet PBS itself appears a willing collaborator in this process at times, and the emergence of “Think Twice” may signal an especially defining moment.

As if game-show maven Merv Griffin himself were pulling PBS strings, now comes the kind of program that has epitomized routine commercial fare for decades. And notably, “Think Twice” is from WGBH of all places, the prestigious Boston station that presents “Masterpiece Theatre.”

PBS has previously used game-show formats as an educational bridge within its science series, “Nova.” Yet “Think Twice” is nothing more than public TV flat-out aping Brand X.

Will public stations now entice contributors during their droning pledge drives by boasting about “Think Twice,” whose creative team’s pedigree includes “The $64,000 Question,” “Sale of the Century,” “Hollywood Squares,” “Wheel of Fortune,” “Bumper Stumpers,” “Let’s Make a Deal,” “Queen for a Day,” “Concentration,” “The $25,000 Pyramid,” “Match Game,” “Press Your Luck,” “Card Sharks,” “Name That Tune,” “The Joker’s Wild” and “Truth or Consequences”?

Advertised as being brainier than other game shows, “Think Twice” is only moderately challenging. Being dry and convoluted are all that separate it from its commercial siblings.

The game is split into information, imagination, intuition and bonus rounds, with Ivey--listed in his bio as a stand-up comic--reading questions to two teams of contestants standing behind panels equipped with buzzers.

How interchangeable is “Think Twice” with other game shows? This interchangeable:

Ivey to Chris, the announcer: “What do we have for our winners tonight?”

Chris: “Monteria, our winners will receive a mini-audio system from Kenwood with seven-disc CD changer dual cassette deck and FM/AM tuner, and a $500 gift certificate from Borders, where you can choose from over 150,000 book and music titles.”

Plus, the bonus round gives each winner a shot at a $2,500 investment in a mutual fund, and losers are sent away with $500 in computer software products and a $250 gift certificate for Signals, a catalogue “for fans of public television.”

One team tonight is former ‘60s flower children Demita and Sherman. Opposing them are Josh and Wesley, who look like Young Republicans. All listen intently to Ivey: “Every question will have two parts. Buzz in when you think you have the correct answer, but only answer half of the question, because your partner must answer the other half. Every question will be worth 10 points. Everybody ready?” Ready.

Ivey: “Their names differ by one letter. One is the highest mountain in Turkey. The other is the highest official in the PLO. Name them.”

Buzz.

Sherman: “Ararat.”

Ivey: “Which is the mountain. The PLO leader?”

Demita: “Arafat.”

Ivey: “Which is correct, and you get the first 10 points of the game.”

Not that a single game show transforms all of PBS into “Hollywood Squares.” When it comes to drama on PBS, the British-made “Prime Suspect” serials have been the equal of anything on the small screen. PBS still has the sanest, most thoughtful nightly newscast on TV in “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour,” and the two best documentary series in “Frontline” and “P.O.V.”

It can still mount the occasional strong cultural or historical documentary, evidenced by last week’s “National Geographic’s China: Beyond the Clouds” and this week’s “FDR” miniseries on “American Experience.” And where but on PBS would the Red Sea part for Ken (“The Civil War”) Burns, granting him heady freedom to make an 18 1/2-hour documentary about baseball that, although impressive in part, seemed to linger almost as long as Moses and his people did in the desert.

On the other hand, just why did PBS give Burns such unprecedented carte blanche, a decision that now seems highly questionable given that ratings for “Baseball”--although well above usual PBS levels--did not approach the nightly audience totals for “The Civil War” despite a massive promotional effort? And if the explanation is that baseball is a less significant topic than the Civil War, then why was it seven hours longer?

And what of those nagging questions about PBS and its fading uniqueness?

One concerns the present phasing out of the much-admired PBS series “American Playhouse,” for almost a dozen years the boldest venue for U.S. drama on all of TV. Collaterally, Armistead Maupin’s proposed sequel to his “American Playhouse” offering of “Tales of the City”--the most watched dramatic series on PBS in a decade--was rejected, the network maintaining that the cost was unacceptable. PBS critics contend that the network bowed to pressure from conservatives objecting to the gay themes and casual drug use depicted in “Tales.”

When it comes to diminished capacity, though, nothing is more symbolic than the gnarled aging of the signature series that for years has given PBS its broadest Union Jack banner. Although “The Rector’s Wife” on Sunday began a three-episode “Masterpiece Theater” run superior to the previous week’s feeble premiere, this once-gleaming PBS hood ornament remains strikingly corroded.

The centerpiece British drama series on PBS is now “Mystery!” Good stuff on occasion. Yet its style of sleuthing is also available (albeit with commercials) on cable’s Arts & Entertainment network. Just as the brand of nature documentaries that once helped define PBS are now more abundant on the Discovery Channel, and such other PBS trademarks as opera and morning kiddie shows are coming to Bravo and Nickelodeon, respectively.

It’s not that PBS isn’t still capable of being distinctive or scintillating on a given day or night, only that those occasions are becoming less frequent.

PBS President Ervin S. Dugan recently spoke to The Times of his grand scheme for “The Democracy Project,” a promising series of programs “illuminating issues and political processes” leading to the 1996 presidential election. He also said that “dignity, responsibility, professionalism, imagination, creativity will beat mere dollars anytime.”

Tell that to the two teams competing for stock portfolios on the opening “Think Twice.” Fighting tenaciously all the way to the exciting last question, they end the first three rounds only 10 points apart. As a bouncy theme plays over the end credits following the bonus round, Chris the announcer says, “Funding for ‘Think Twice’ is made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by the annual financial support of viewers like you.”

Think about it.

* “Think Twice” premieres at 8:30 tonight on KCET-TV Channel 28, and at 7:30 p.m. on KVCR-TV Channel 24. “Future Quest” premieres at 8 p.m. on Channel 28, and at 7 p.m. on KVCR.