World mayhem as a Hollywood production

TV’s extreme “reality” fixation has sunk so low that “Survivor” is now looking like “Masterpiece Theatre” compared with its numerous progeny. So it’s refreshing to come across one of these shows that omits cheap titillation and has something on its mind besides sex or a big payday.

Yet what happens when Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan meets Operation Enduring Reality Show in prime time? This:

“Profiles From the Front Line,” a six-part ABC series that makes war and warriors entertaining TV, while being so worshipful that it could have been created by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

In a sense it was, for ABC says this six-month look at the U.S. Special Operations Unit in Afghanistan was made with “full cooperation” from the Pentagon and Defense Department.

Which may explain why the series creators, who include movie producer Jerry Bruckheimer, appear to have been granted greater access to U.S. military action in Afghanistan in 2002 than were the news media, whose pliability could not be assured. The show’s producers say the government did not interfere. It didn’t have to. Control is as implicit here as in “Cops,” on which Bertram van Munster, another of the creators, was once a senior producer. The rule? Play nice with your “Cops”-style close-ups or no access.

In addition, “Profiles From the Front Line” further blurs the distinction between news and show biz at a time when the U.S. is preparing for a possible invasion of Iraq. There are casual references by troops here that some may see as bolstering the Bush administration’s claim of a direct tie between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, even though it’s only soldiers talking.

In the first of two episodes provided by ABC for review, Navy personnel board and inspect a ship in Iraqi waters said to have violated “U.N. sanctions” against Iraq. Although the vessel’s ownership is not made clear, it’s implied that Al Qaeda is involved, connecting the dots between the Sept. 11 murders and Saddam Hussein, and by extension linking him to that terrorism and Osama bin Laden.

“I don’t feel funny about going through anybody’s personal stuff,” a junior petty officer says. “They wiped out how many people at the World Trade Center? If this stops it from happening again, so be it.” Later he thumbs through a tiny address book and assumes the references inside are to Al Qaeda. Are they? You won’t find out here.

Meanwhile, I put the VCR on pause and took a brief break while watching the premiere. When I resumed, it was several minutes before I realized that the TV had clicked back on in my absence and that what I was watching was not an ABC entertainment series. It was a CNN news story about U.S. troops preparing for Iraq by engaging in a faux battle in Kuwait.

The line separating them was that fuzzy.

Not that some news operations need help from entertainment shows to obscure that line. They do it on their own. Note the manipulative music deployed in “Profiles From the Front Line,” from pulsating up-tempo stuff -- inserted to ramp up suspense when a suspected Al Qaeda sympathizer is located and bundled off in the premiere -- to great melodic swells meant to juice patriotism. They’re similar to what you hear in the intros of provocatively headlined stories on cable’s all-news channels, as if world mayhem were a Hollywood production. It is, on ABC Thursday night.

“Profiles From the Front Line” has been on the slab some time amid speculation that it would never air given potential sensitivity about its subject. Yet here it is, war and the military now enlisted on behalf of ratings.

Yet what’s not to admire about the courage and commitment of the individuals singled out by this series like characters in one of those old World War II movies that always had a G.I. named “Brooklyn,” another named “Texas” and a homesick kid who wrote letters to mom? Couldn’t it be John Wayne vowing “to keep America free” instead of a bearded special forces member dressed like an Afhgan?

Only these soldiers and their life-defining experiences are real. “A guy with a gun doesn’t scare me,” one says. “Several guys with guns don’t scare me. But a mine is just a silent bomb waiting for you to step on it.” His point explodes with a wallop in the series finale when we hear of a boy goat herder losing a leg after stepping on a mine.

That element of peril resonates with great emotion in the same hour when a eulogy for Sgt. 1st Class Nathan Chapman, who died in an ambush in Khost at age 31, puts a face on “giving your life for your country.” And faces on his comrades and widow and little boy, who grieve for him.

Later in that hour, Army doctors and medics give aid to locals, troops build a school and a junior baseball league is organized in Orgun, creating an exotic cultural hybrid of kids in Afghan dress and batting helmets. “This has gotta be a huge, huge slap in the face to the Al Qaeda,” says an army corporal.

“We love Americans,” a teenager says. “Give me five, buddy,” a soldier says later to a tot.

These are tender moments. If only winning hearts and minds were really as easy as this, however. And if only breaking down deep-rooted gender barriers were as easy as implied here, when we’re informed that an Afghan girl came to baseball practice three weeks later and was given a ball and glove.

In fact, the series rides out on a feelgood wave that implies that good old American know-how fixes all, a comforting notion, but one conflicting with history and what’s happening in the world. Give the producers five for creating good TV. But a higher level of reality appears beyond their grasp.

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Howard Rosenberg’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be contacted at howard.rosenberg@latimes.com.

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‘Profiles From the Front Line’

Where: ABC

When: 8 p.m. Thursdays, for the next six weeks

Rating: The network has rated the program TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children).