A guide to notable programs by BRUCE FRETTS. (Times are Eastern standard and are subject to change.)
SERIES
Perhaps trying to create a thirtysomething-alum-themed night with its lead-in, the Mel Harris sitcom Something So Right, FRASIER (NBC, Feb. 25, 9-9:30 p.m.) guest-stars Patricia Wettig as a neighbor of Niles (David Hyde Pierce). Still reeling from his separation from Maris, the younger Crane moves into a snooty new apartment building and hosts a dinner party for some of his fellow residents. Wettig displays a flair for comedy, yet she's upstaged by Niles' new pet bird (a replacement for his greyhound, which the building won't allow). A cockatoo hasn't provided this many laughs since Robert Blake's beloved Fred on Baretta.
Because it films entirely on location in New York City (unlike, say, NYPD Blue), LAW & ORDER (NBC, Feb. 26, 10-11 p.m.) dips into the deep end of Broadway's talent pool for its guest cast. Tony nominee Elaine Stritch (A Delicate Balance) reprises her occasional role as legal crusader Lanie Stieglitz, who turns the case of a housewife/hooker accused of offing an ex-cop into a feminist issue. Stritch brings her trademark vinegary wit to the part. With Law & Order's revolving-door cast, perhaps Stritch will become a regular next season. She'd make a great love interest for Steven Hill's terminally dyspeptic D.A.
You might have written off Peter Strauss' MOLONEY (CBS, Thursdays, 9-10 p.m.) as just another Murder, She Wrote wannabe, since it airs after Dick Van Dyke's Diagnosis Murder. And you'd be wrong. One recent episode opened with scenes of strippers who could've made Demi Moore blush. The premise seems a bit hokey: Strauss stars as LAPD officer Dr. Nick Moloney -- he's half-cop, half-shrink! Yet TV-movie king Strauss (making his weekly series debut) brings a surprising believability to the material. He's given strong support from Nestor Serrano (Hangin' with the Homeboys) as his hulking colleague and Wendell Pierce (Waiting to Exhale) as a prosecutor pal. This is solid, middle-of-the-road CBS entertainment -- which may explain why it's holding up so well in the ratings against NBC's Seinfeld.
Kellie Martin, one of the few actors who makes a living portraying do-gooders (Life Goes On, Christy) without making us gag, now plays a heroic psychology intern in the new drama series CRISIS CENTER (NBC, Fridays starting Feb. 28, 10-11 p.m.), set in a San Francisco drop-in center. In the premiere, Martin's character is working the phones when, mid-chat, a distraught caller kills himself. She's rattled, of course, but not nearly as much as the deceased's father, played by The Wonder Years' Dan Lauria. He arrives at the crisis center armed with a gun and takes the staff -- which includes ex-Party Machine host Nia Peeples -- hostage. An ER on Prozac, Crisis Center solves this problem with a predictability exceeded only by the show's lame dialogue. Someone actually says, ''If one person walks out of here better off, then we're makin' a difference.''
