A Long Trek for This ‘Party’

Neve Campbell and her “Party of Five” family have something to scream about. Fox will host a party Thursday to celebrate the show’s 100th episode--a milestone made more notable by the arduous path the program took getting there. The unlikely story of five orphaned kids, “Party” premiered in September 1994, and two weeks later Fox fired the executive who developed it, entertainment division chief Sandy Grushow. His replacement, John Matoian, stuck by the show and nurtured it into a modest success, though he left after two years, leaving the series in the hands of current Fox Entertainment President Peter Roth. Fox’s patience has paid off, and despite never becoming a huge hit, “Party’s” audience has gradually grown, especially among women ages 18 to 34--a prized demographic segment among advertisers. Moreover, “Scream” star Campbell, Scott Wolf and Jennifer Love Hewitt (who’ll leave the show to star in her own Fox spinoff program) have all become hot feature-film names, while creators Amy Lippman and Chris Keyser have signed to develop a new CBS series. Not bad for a show that left the air in March its first season, then had to wait two months to learn if it would be brought back for a second year. Episode No. 100 will be seen next week.

Fugees’ Pras, R.E.M. Release Albums

One’s a band member who’s trying to cut it on his own, the other is a band that’s trying to move forward without a key member, and both are looking to make a big score with their new albums this week. The solo artist is Pras, the third member of the hip-hop trio the Fugees to release his own album, and he’ll be watching the SoundScan figures released Wednesday, hoping “Ghetto Supastar” will match the multi-platinum success of his bandmates Wyclef Jean and Lauryn Hill. Kevin Engler, senior buyer for the retail chain Best Buy, believes Pras’ path to solo success may not be as smooth. “The early indications are that the album may be a disappointment,” Engler says. “Pras is the least-known band member--he doesn’t have the same name recognition with the public.” Then there’s R.E.M. The band, which has sold more than 20 million albums, inked an $80-million record deal with Warner Bros. in 1996, only to see its first album under that pact, 1996’s “New Adventures in Hi-Fi,” register disappointing sales. This week’s initial sales figures for R.E.M.’s new album, the moody, experimental “Up”--its first since drummer Bill Berry resigned for medical reasons--may indicate whether the influential group is still a major force in rock. “It’s certainly a different album,” says Best Buy senior buyer Lon Lindeland. “Without their drummer, they’ve gone in a different direction. But it should be a strong word-of-mouth album. Once people spend some time with it, I think they’ll like it.”

‘The Siege’ Already Coming Under Attack

Edward Zwick’s “The Siege,” a 20th Century Fox thriller about the U.S. Army occupation of Arab-American Brooklyn in the wake of terrorist bombings, doesn’t open until Friday, but it has achieved the impossible: It has made Hussein Ibish nostalgic for the cartoonish Arab villains Arnold Schwarzenegger fought in James Cameron’s “True Lies.” “As bad as it was,” explains Ibish, media director of the Washington-based American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, “ ‘True Lies’ was a silly film. People went to see Ahh-nold, and while it was deeply offensive, it did not claim to be serious.” “The Siege,” meanwhile, “purports to be a serious critique of public policy. This gives the discrimination a level of credibility.” In August, chagrined by the “Siege” script, the committee’s president, Hala Maksoud, held a public protest across from the Fox lot; a recent preview only heightened her concerns. “I’m frightened about the effect this movie is going to have on people,” Maksoud says, “and how they’re going to react toward Muslims and Arabs after they see it.” Despite scenes of hundreds of Arab American men and boys shivering in internment camps, a radio dispatch about the slaying of a Muslim cabdriver and a torture-happy Bruce Willis field general, Maksoud found that this would-be cautionary tale nevertheless “is packed with stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims as violent, unscrupulous and barbarous.” The studio and the filmmakers say the film points out the dangers of stereotyping Arabs or any other group--and the threat that hysteria poses to civil liberties.

--Compiled by Times staff writers and contributors

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