TV REVIEWS : ‘Monroes’ Is Sordid Fun, but ‘Foxworthy’ Falls Flat

Credit ABC with diversity tonight when it introduces two of its eight new series. One is a showy drama that’s easy to like, the other an underwhelming comedy starring yet another of the many stand-up comics taking up residence in prime time.

“The Monroes” is sordid, sexy fun, a smartly written “Dallas” on the Potomac that packs enough melodrama in its premiere to nourish an entire season.

ABC’s latest delicacy for trash gourmands is about wealth, power, political cynicism and, naturally, lots of action between the sheets. It opens with Monroe-gate, a sex-scandal deluxe that appears to torpedo the gubernatorial dream of zillionaire John Monroe (William Devane), a Joseph Kennedy-esque patriarch of a prominent, sprawling, talented, well-connected family that’s a dynasty in the making if it can keep its dirty laundry hidden. It can’t.

We’re brought into the story just as the media are revealing that, while a government official in the 1970s, Monroe had an extra-marital affair with a woman who turned out to be a spy. Ever the pragmatist, Monroe immediately concludes: “This is my Chappaquiddick.”

Not to worry, for, like her husband, Kathryn Monroe (Susan Sullivan) is not only impeccably tailored but also a supreme operator who can surmount political obstacles and make things happen in high places.

Also on hand are the Monroes’ eldest son, an ambitious congressman who finds himself locked out of his Capitol Hill office in the nude after a tryst there; another son whose idealism alienates him from his father; a younger son on the verge of flunking out of college, and a politically active daughter whose own sexual adventurism redefines “Hail to the Chief.”

With just a hint of snarl, Devane is every bit the manipulating, steely tough, behind-the-scenes power broker you’d expect John Monroe to be, while displaying a tender side to the family’s elderly pooch. The rest of the cast is also effective, especially Sullivan, who steals scene after scene as a wounded political spouse extraordinaire. Her behavior extends to the outrageous.

“Hang on a minute, I just want to make a statement to the press,” she says to someone on the phone before shooting the finger to a chopper full of “news geeks” snooping on the family estate from the skies.

“The Monroes” is so unbelievable it could be real.

If “Deliverance” were a sitcom, meanwhile, it would be “Jeff Foxworthy.”

At the very least, the premiere sets a modern record for the number of times the word “redneck” is spoken in a prime-time series, as this opening program sounds very much like an extension of someone’s stand-up comedy act.

That would be Foxworthy, a Georgian comedian whose soft drawl gives him believability in this series as a likable Southerner transplanted to Bloomington, Ind., where his heating and air-conditioning business provides his wife and child with few frills.

You believe him, but you rarely laugh at him, even when he lapses into hillbilly talk and calls himself a redneck, something with which his club audiences are familiar.

The half hour deals almost exclusively with Jeff’s financial plight, as his plan to repay a loan made to him by his snooty father-in-law goes awry when his wife springs a surprise on him. You may smile a bit when cash-strapped Jeff tries his best to collect an overdue payment from a sweet old nun, but for the most part, the show’s writers are the ones who should be praying.

For inspiration.

* “The Jeff Foxworthy Show” premieres at 8:30 tonight, and “The Monroes” at 10, on ABC (Channels 7, 3 and 42).