UPN Scores Nicely With ‘Power Play’

O Canada.

There may be almost as many U.S. citizens in Canada these days as Canadians, as Hollywood movie and TV companies keep jetting north en masse to take advantage of lower production costs there.

Rarely, though, do viewers below that border get to see a television series by Canadians about Canadians.

One was “Due South,” a stiff of a police comedy (Canadians accused me of just not getting it) about a straight-arrow Canadian Mountie banished to Chicago and a life of awkward adjustment beside a tough street cop there. It earned brief life on CBS in the mid-’90s. Prior to that came “E.N.G.,” a syndicated drama of quality about TV news. Then last year brought “The Newsroom,” Ken Finkleman’s deadpanning, wickedly funny sendup of broadcast news in Canada that ran on PBS, approaching the twisted brilliance of HBO’s show-biz satire, “The Larry Sanders Show.”

And now, without much fanfare, comes “Power Play,” a distinctively droll, highly appealing Canadian drama series getting a well-deserved summer run on UPN that will expose viewers to a bit of the neighboring nation that many of us tend to take for granted. And as a bonus, watching it is great fun.

The complicated pivotal character here--very well played by Michael Riley--is Brett Parker, a fast-talking, untrustworthy sports-agent-turned-general-manager of professional hockey’s Hamilton (Ontario) Steelheads, a “lunch-bucket team in a lunch-bucket town.”

Summer is when entertainment networks most think of sports, apparently, for arriving July 4 is “The Hoop Life,” Showtime’s series about professional basketball players experiencing the pain of wealth, privilege and fast women. Some people just can’t catch a break.

Although hockey is the universe of “Power Play,” it’s less about sports than about Parker’s war with his personal demons, which he appears to be winning in the first five episodes, but just barely, while being constantly torn between doing good for Hamilton and the Steelheads and submitting to his baser instincts.

The latter drive his secret pact with ruthless team President Colleen Blessed (Kari Matchett) to sell the Steelheads and move the franchise to Houston. Avuncular team owner Duff McCardle (Gordon Pinsent) seems behind the plan but has such conflicting emotions about moving the team that he loves that he has taken up residence in Copps Coliseum, where the Steelheads play and he assumes the role of folksy philosopher.

A man who appears to irritate everyone, the cell-phoned, much-beepered, wheeling-dealing Parker is hardly a classic hero. Fortunately for him, he’s impervious to slight. His 17-year-old daughter, Michelle (Caterina Scorsone), resents and snaps at him for neglecting her throughout her life. His team dislikes him for interfering, and his heavy-boozing coach, Lloyd Gorman (Al Waxman), calls him a “stupid little piss-ant.” To an opposing coach, he’s a “weasel.” And his co-conspirator, Blessed, calls him “the worm that walks like a man.”

So . . . nobody’s perfect.

When we meet him tonight, he’s still Parker the high-powered New York agent whose life is about to be transformed seminally by an event that will return him to his Hamilton hometown and draw him into the Steelheads establishment. But only short-term, he vows. Oh, sure.

Of course, the Steelheads aren’t leaving Hamilton. Nor is Parker, naturally, his escape routes inevitably getting clogged by sentiment. He’s a glib shyster, all right, but one with a heart, his best-laid plans for self-interest constantly being sabotaged by his conscience, with help from spirits from his and hockey’s pasts who surface in dream sequences and know which of his buttons they can push to manipulate him.

Meanwhile, the divorced Parker has a stunningly endowed secretary, Renata (Lori Alter), whose sexy swagger you can get whiplash from watching, and a beautiful New York girlfriend whom he talks to on the phone. It takes her four episodes to arrive in Hamilton.

Tonight’s premiere ends with too much schmaltz, viewers of Episode 2 may overdose on the hockey (as I did), Michelle’s self-pity is wearing at times, and so is a bumbling sports reporter who trails Parker like a puppy. Maybe it’s a Canadian thing.

Yet “Power Play” is smarter and more watchable than 90% of the hockey pucks in prime time. Its ambiguity and disdain for tidy solutions is distinctively Canadian, its protagonist somehow likable despite wearing his flaws like potholes.

Riley and Scorsone share some especially raw scenes that expose the complexities of this father-daughter relationship, and in a sizzling scene to remember down the line a bit, Parker appears ready to again dump her for self-interest. Just as he’s prepared at one point to sacrifice his most popular player (Dean McDermott) when it serves his purposes.

Yet “Power Play” also can be very funny, its lighter moments crackling with wit. When Blessed announces she’s dining with Bud, the Houston lug who wants to buy the team, Parker responds: “Bud is not a name, right? Bud is what you call the guy standing at the next urinal.” When Michelle displays a larcenous streak to match her father’s, he exalts in her potential. “I’m just very proud of you.” And here, also, is some of the self-mocking typical of some productions from up north, as in Parker suffering the ultimate put-down from caustic Renata: “You look like a hundred bucks--Canadian!”

It’s a good start for summer viewing. The Steelheads may be a lunch-bucket team, but “Power Play” is no lunch-bucket show.

* “Power Play” premieres at 9 tonight on UPN. The network has rated it TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children.)

Howard Rosenberg’s column runs on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. He can be reached by e-mail at calendar.letters@latimes.com.