Showtime Serves Up ‘Bedtime’ Stories

The premiere of “Bedtime,” a series that begins on Showtime tonight, plays like a slightly more risque version of “Love American Style.” This being pay-TV--and 26 years later--writer-producer Ivan Menchell can be more sexually explicit than the old ABC series, but he doesn’t make it any deeper or funnier.

Each half-hour episode contains six stories about couples in their bedrooms at night--talking, arguing, wooing or, in one case tonight, getting to know each other on a first date. Unlike “Love American Style,” the stories are intercut rather than shown in succession.

But the need to cover so many relationships in such a short amount of time dictates that the characters are largely stereotypes and get no more than a few scenes each to tell their tales.

Perhaps the series will get less shallow as the characters become more familiar in the weeks ahead. More likely is that it will suggest to viewers that it is indeed bedtime.

* “Bedtime” premieres at 11 tonight on Showtime.