Television tends to confirm cultural cliches, and all the ones about redheads -- they're hot-tempered, hot-blooded, unpredictable -- are certainly reinforced by the crimson tresses we see on the small screen, from Lucille Ball to Melrose Place's Laura Leighton. Variety exists, of course; over the years, we've gravitated toward carrottops as dissimilar as Howdy Doody and Conan O'Brien, not to mention Carrot Top (and I won't, ever again). Most of the time, the extremes that redheads are supposed to represent push them to the sidelines of a sitcom, but in the past couple of seasons, a few supporting henna-heads have brazenly taken central roles in their shows.
I refer specifically to a titanic struggle that will soon begin anew: Who's the best feisty-second-banana redhead on television, Beth (Vicki Lewis) on NBC's NewsRadio, or Vicki (Kathy Griffin) on Suddenly Susan, now returning to NBC's powerhouse Thursday night line-up at its new 8:30-9 p.m. time slot?
Others have remarked upon the resemblance between these two characters, who serve the same function in their respective shows. It's a sad fact that more people are probably familiar with Vicki, Brooke Shields' raspy-voiced writer colleague, since Suddenly has posted higher ratings than NewsRadio this season. Vicki is a perpetually miffed, man-hungry wiseacre who wears absurdly tight, bright clothes and says things like ''You think I dress like this to get respect?'' Griffin, who's also a tough, jabbing stand-up comic, deserves credit for playing her with as much gusto as this accumulation of cliches will allow. But Griffin isn't getting the quality of writing that Lewis is taking full advantage of.
NewsRadio is -- as we've been telling you week after week, you adorable silly readers -- much the better series, which also means that the character Beth is more three-dimensional. As the secretary at news station WNYX, she is every bit as sarcastic and blowsy and underdressed as her Suddenly Susan counterpart, but there's a lot more going on beneath her mop of scarlet curls. Beth is at once cynical and naive; she's an off-the-wall ditz who's also very shrewd. Where Vicki is an appalling little joke machine, playing a vulgar Rhoda to Shields' muscular Mary, Beth is an appealing go-getter who feigns a laid-back demeanor.
Each week, Lewis gives a performance that is sly and nuanced; she knows how to make Beth's sarcastic lines carry the weight of melancholy -- on some level, she's a lonely person who wishes she was as happily dumb as Matthew (Andy Dick), as blithely arrogant as Bill (Phil Hartman), or as quietly confident as her boss, Dave (Dave Foley). The result is a rare redhead who's as lovable as she is prickly and whose bohemian eccentricities transcend the usual standards of sexiness.
TV has had its redheaded sex symbols, of course; they've ranged from Tina Louise's cooing Ginger on Gilligan's Island to Marg Helgenberger's tough-gal druggie-prostitute on China Beach to Gillian Anderson's discreetly raincoated Scully on The X-Files. Crimson-tressed leading men are harder to come by: hmmm, let's see -- Timothy Busfield on thirtysomething? Naw, his Elliot was too miserable and weaselly to fit the bill. The most memorable recent example is probably David Caruso's brooding John Kelly on NYPD Blue.
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