American Dreams (2002)

Most of us remain awed by the apparently bottomless creativity of ''The Simpsons'': The cartoon's Nov. 24 satire of media scandal -- in which a disgraced Krusty the Clown, beseeched by protesters to ''Stop corrupting our children!'' replied with a vehement ''No!'' -- was more than we have a right to expect from a 13-year-old TV show.

For Simpsonites, NBC's new bit of counterprogramming, American Dreams, provides scant reason to alter viewing habits on Sunday nights. Still, it's also clear why ''Dreams'' is one of the new fall season's few successes (NBC recently ordered 12 more episodes). Set in the early '60s, ''Dreams'' is an intelligently sentimental homing device aimed directly at baby-boomer adults who find themselves enjoying an hour of guilelessness before wandering, Little Red Riding Hood-like, into the jaws of the wily Big Bad (Dick) Wolf -- i.e., ''Law & Order: Criminal Intent.'' From innocence to experience in just two NBC hours: It's Jeff Zucker as the William Blake of programming, in a ''Did he who made the Lamb make thee?'' sorta way.

Brittany Snow stars as 15-year-old Meg Pryor. Living in Philadelphia when Dick Clark's twist-'n'-lip-synch ''American Bandstand'' was broadcast from there on Saturday afternoons, Meg and her best friend, Roxanne (Vanessa Lengies), become regular dancers on the show. This concept supplies ''Dreams'' with its one element of formal daring: clips of Clark (one of the show's exec producers) and rock acts, ranging from Little Richard to the Beach Boys, presented as if we're watching them from behind a studio cameraman's shoulder, looking through his lens at their black-and-white images.

This device works remarkably smoothly -- much better, in fact, than when ''Dreams,'' in clumsy ratings ploys, hires real musicians to portray early-rock-era stars, such as Usher as Marvin Gaye (the former lacked the latter's astonishing handsomeness and loose-limbed confidence) or Michelle Branch as Lesley Gore (the former had the latter's wooden stage persona down all too rigidly).

''Dreams'' is less about ''Bandstand,'' however, than about Meg's lower-middle-class Catholic family: Her dad, Jack, an appliance-store owner (Tom Verica), and her mom, Helen (''NYPD Blue'''s Gail O'Grady), who's feeling the contradictory pull of being a housewife and the nascent nudgings of feminism (a friend played by Virginia Madsen presses Mary McCarthy's critique of middle-class femininity, ''The Group,'' on Helen). Meg's older brother, JJ (Will Estes), is trying for a football scholarship (his team is coached by a cig-smoking priest played by Dan Butler, who seems destined to play yappy jock sniffers since his stint as the sportscaster Bulldog on ''Frasier''). Meg's younger siblings, Patty and Will (Sarah Ramos and Ethan Dampf), are bookish and hobbled by polio, respectively -- the series' most contrived sympathy wringers.

The British Invasion and Bob Dylan join Motown soul as the soundtrack of kids' lives. NBC promos urge us to ''follow a family through the decade that changed a nation,'' which thus far has meant that the clamorous Pryor clan grew still when news of JFK's death was announced, and got even quieter when Jack invited Sam Walker (Arlen Escarpeta), his black employee's son, over for dinner (civil rights is such a social imposition). Which is not to say that ''Dreams'' hasn't dealt with the '60s at least as complexly as a certain overrated recent film tackled the '50s: If Julianne Moore ever guest-starred, ''Dreams'' could be momentarily retitled ''Far From Herman's Hermits.''

''Dreams'' gets the little things right -- tuna casserole for dinner, pudding for dessert; Jack chafes when Helen goes to a folk-music concert that keeps her from watching his favorite TV show, ''The Fugitive,'' with him -- but the big things can seem, well, strained. When Jack's inventory of small-screen TVs doesn't sell because customers want ''the big consoles,'' that black employee, Henry (Jonathan Adams), suggests he take out ads in black newspapers to lure Philadelphians who'll travel miles for a bargain -- which gets Jack censured by his white business neighbors for attracting the wrong crowd. Problem is, a smart racist like Jack, who just episodes earlier blew a gasket when Henry's son walked Meg home on a dark night, wouldn't be courting black customers.

Of course, you're not supposed to think of extreme terms like ''racist'' watching ''Dreams.'' With its strong female performances -- Snow and O'Grady are superbly nuanced -- ''Dreams'' maintains a nurturing warmth that appeals to young viewers as well as the boomers I mentioned earlier. But it's not exactly ''The Anti-Simpsons,'' either. When contemplating buying a satellite dish recently, Homer said solemnly, ''Marge, we can't pinch pennies on the machine that's going to be raising our kids.'' Heck, Homer is close to being Jack's ideal customer -- and he's not even black, he's yellow.