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A guide to notable programs by BRUCE FRETTS. (Times are Eastern standard and are subject to change.)
SERIES
When an executive producer and a star are on the same creative wavelength, the results can be beautiful. Think of NYPD Blue's David Milch and Dennis Franz. Milch, a former substance abuser who caused controversy with racial comments in 1994, has brilliantly exorcised his demons through Franz's Andy Sipowicz. Conversely, look at how The X-Files' Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) has flown off course since his creator, Chris Carter, turned his attentions to Millennium. Now another TV auteur, David E. Kelley (Picket Fences, Chicago Hope), has found the perfect conduit for his words -- Dylan McDermott in THE PRACTICE (ABC, Tuesdays, 10-11 p.m.). While the actor never made much of a mark in the movies (The Cowboy Way, the 1994 remake of Miracle on 34th Street), he's naturally suited to the small screen -- and to the character of small-time attorney Bobby Donnell. The symbiosis between creator (Kelley is an ex-lawyer) and character makes it hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. With chiseled features and bushy brown hair, McDermott even resembles Kelley.
Bill Cosby branded Jamie Foxx's recent feature-film sex farce, Booty Call, morally objectionable, but the worst that can be said of THE JAMIE FOXX SHOW (WB, Wednesdays, 9-9:30 p.m.) is that it's comedically questionable. The In Living Color alum plays Jamie King, a cocky, starry-eyed singer-actor-musician who moves from Texas to Hollywood, ready to find fame. Meanwhile, he works at the hotel owned by his aunt Helen (Ellia English) and uncle Junior (Saturday Night Live's Garrett Morris), with a token honey (Models Inc.'s Garcelle Beauvais) and an uptight foil (Christopher B. Duncan) as coworkers. Foxx is a genuinely funny man -- his impersonations and exaggerated deliveries provide all of the show's humor -- and his appeal is strong enough to make Foxx The WB's highest-rated show. But while the show makes admirable attempts at parody, like most netlet comedies it's permeated by overacting, forced situations, and an inexplicably excitable audience that bays like wild dogs at any opportunity. Still, it's a steady paycheck for Foxx, at least until someone gives him a real show. -- Kristen Baldwin
DOCUMENTARIES
Everyone has a jolly good time dumping on Jenny Jones, Sally Jessy Raphael, and others of their ilk in TALKED TO DEATH (HBO, March 25, 10:15-11:15 p.m.). If the gist of this documentary is banal -- daytime talk shows are mostly garbage -- the interviews are interesting. They include soul-searching comments from Geraldo Rivera, Phil Donahue, and Maury Povich, as well as more pragmatic input from the young producers and bookers whose jobs are on the line to come up with ever-wilder guests and ever-raunchier topics. Particular attention is paid to the recent Jenny Jones debacle that resulted in the murder of a gay man; in the face of this needless tragedy, all the pious articulateness from a host like Rivera, who talks about the hosts' ''enormous responsibility,'' seems like meretricious twaddle.
