He's fallen, but he can get up

Angel Starring David Boreanaz, Charisma Carpenter, Glenn Quinn The WB, Tuesdays 9 p.m. Premieres Oct. 5

n last season's finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sunnydale High School went up in flames and Buffy's vampire boyfriend Angel (Boreanaz) decided to leave town. Now Angel is in Los Angeles, living in a basement flat that has no view and hanging out in bars on the off chance he'll be able to save a bimbo from becoming the plat-du-jour for a slumming vamp.

But then he's paid a visit by Doyle (Quinn), who is half-demon and half-human ("on my mother's side"). In an Irish brogue he tells Angel that he's been sent by "the powers that be" to help the undead hunk atone for his sins. How? He gives Angel a lead--a name and a phone number. Angel must get involved with that person's life to find out what's wrong. "It's not just about saving lives; it's about saving souls, possibly your own in the process," Doyle says.

In the first episode, "City of," Angel finds it's not so easy to connect with people in the big city. But he does, encountering a wayward soul named Tina. She's got "relationship issues" with a mysterious benefactor named Russell. Angel also bumps into an old acquaintance: Cordelia Chase, also late of Sunnydale, now a struggling actress. "Are you still, grrr?" she asks him. "Yeah," he replies. "There's not actually a cure for that."

Before long, Angel discovers that Russell may be responsible for the murder of Tina's girlfriend. Tina also learns, too late, that Russell isn't what he seems. Then Russell turns his eye toward Cordelia.

With Doyle as a reluctant wheelman, Angel turns commando to save the day. Later, Angel has his first contact with a sinister law firm that may figure prominently in future episodes. At the end, Cordelia and Angel decide to link fortunes to continue fighting the good fight as a sort of supernatural detective agency. At least until Cordy gets Hollywood's call.

"High school's over, bud."

Angel, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon and his partner David Greenwalt, is a bold attempt to capitalize on the success of Whedon's hit series Buffy and to take the elaborate mythology he developed for that show in a new direction. Based on the rough cut of the initial episode, Whedon and company have succeeded in distinguishing Angel from its predecessor in a promising way.

Buffy used the allegory of high school and vampires to look at the traumas of growing up. Angel is more like a blood-sucking Batman story about an adult facing the evils of the big city. As Doyle tells Angel in the first episode: "High school's over, bud. You gotta make with the grown-up talk now."

Beyond that, Angel provides the opportunity for Angel to evolve beyond his brooding pretty-boy image from Buffy. So far, Boreanaz shows an unexpected gift for deadpan humor that complements his patented scowl.

Angel shares many of Buffy's virtues: sharp writing, snappy humor, well-staged action and unexpected twists. And, like Buffy, Angel doesn't shortchange the emotional journey of its characters. Cordelia, especially, shows layers that were only suggested in the earlier show, and Carpenter's performance nicely balances her character's ditziness with poignance. For his part, Quinn is an amusing presence with an unspoken past that begs elaboration.

But Angel is as different from Buffy as Los Angeles is different from Sunnydale. Visually, it's all neon-lit streets, shadowy alleys and glass skyscrapers. The moodiness is aided by throbbing electronic music, fluid camera work, noirish sets and jittery transitions.

The only gripe so far, at least based on the viewing of the first episode, is that Whedon relies a little too much on broad stereotypes of L.A. and its denizens, particularly the smarmy bad guys, who are the usual rapacious Hollywood, corporate and lawyer types.

I liked Angel, at least the one episode that was made available for preview. Given its primetime slot following Buffy, it's pretty certain Angel will at least grab the eyeballs of diehard fans. Whether others will follow depends on Whedon's ability to keep the quality high and avoid the Millennium curse: burnout. -- P.L.

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What kind of game is Chris Carter playing now?

Harsh Realm Starring Scott Bairstow, D.B. Sweeney, Terry O'Quinn Fox, Fridays 9 p.m. Premieres Oct. 8

ecorated war hero Lt. Thomas Hobbes (Bairstow) is preparing to leave the Army and marry his sweetheart, Sophie (Samantha Mathis). But as the two discuss their plans for the future, Hobbes is pulled away mysteriously by his commanding officer.

It seems the Army has one last mission for Hobbes. They want him to play a virtual reality game called Harsh Realm. The Harsh Realm simulation mirrors the real world almost exactly and was created during the Cold War in order teach situational war strategies.

Hobbes' mission is to play the game and defeat the high scorer, Major Omar Santiago (O'Quinn), who has literally become the lord of the Realm. Hobbes is instructed to watch a video that will explain the game. The video (narrated by Gillian Anderson) explains that to make Harsh Realm realistic, a virtual character (or VC) has been created for every person on Earth. Suddenly the video stops and Hobbes finds himself alone.

Unsure of what's happened, Hobbes can only react when gunfire erupts and he ends up face to face with a man named Mike Pinnochio (Sweeney) who is pointing a gun at him. Pinnochio steals Sophie's wedding ring from Hobbes and takes off, with Hobbes hot on his heels. When weird things start to happen, Hobbes begins to realize that he might already be inside the game.

Hobbes manages to hunt down Pinnochio in a bar. There he discovers that Santiago hijacked Harsh Realm and now controls the game. The bar is full of soldiers who have been sent to kill Santiago. They all know where he is, but they can't get to him. Hobbes also discovers that if he dies in the game, he dies for real, and that there's no way to get out of Harsh Realm without killing Santiago. Now Hobbes has only one choice. He must take out Santiago and win the game or he'll never get back home to the woman he loves.

Harsh Matrix

Harsh Realm is a bit of a disappointment. This highly anticipated new series from The X-Files creator Chris Carter is very loosely based on a 1993 comic book series by James D. Hudnall and Andrew Paquette. While the show does have plenty of potential, the pilot episode comes off weak. The story is driven along with pounding action, and the characters are nicely introduced. However, the virtual world just isn't very exciting.

While there is no doubt Carter will have plenty of time to explore Realm and make it an intriguing world, the series initially suffers from comparisons to the hit SF movie The Matrix. That film created a compelling virtual world in which people who were downloaded into virtual characters could do things that stretched the bounds of the physical universe. By comparison, Carter's Realm seems flat. The series does introduce a couple of tricks that are pretty cool, such as one character healing another with a touch, and glitches in the software that allow the characters to go places they aren't supposed to go. However, that's about it.

What Realm does well is set up good characters in an impossible situation. And, while there isn't much humor, there is a lot of action. Carter even throws in a good conspiracy for the heck of it. There are also some of Carter's patented moments, most notably the final scene, which puts his own special signature on the series.

The cast is solid: Bairstow has an appropriate deer-caught-in-the-headlights look to him, and Sweeney provids depth as the soldier who has seen too much and been in the game too long. O'Quinn has the bad guy role, and he does an excellent job underplaying it.

Maybe it's unfair to be disappointed simply because a TV show doesn't start out with a bang. However, if someone like Chris Carter can't set the standard for great science fiction television, who can? -- Kat

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My so-called X-Files

Roswell Starring Jason Behr, Shiri Appleby, Katherine Heigl, Brendan Fehr The WB, Wednesdays 9 p.m. Premieres Oct. 6

ept. 23. Journal entry one. I'm Liz Parker, and five days ago, I died. After that, things got really weird.

So begins this offbeat new series set in Roswell, N.M., a town infamous for the supposed 1947 crash of a flying saucer. Beautiful and smart Liz (Appleby), a 16-year-old high school student, is at her part-time job waitressing at the Crashdown Cafe, which caters to fatuous tourists in town for the local UFO festival. An argument breaks out, and Liz gets caught in the crossfire. She is fatally shot. Smoldering hunk Max Evans (Behr), who has secretly been in love with Liz, rushes over, places his hand on Liz's wound, and she is healed.

Later, Max's actions arouse the suspicions of Sheriff Valenti (William Sadler). But in school that afternoon, Liz presses Max for the truth. She's not quite ready for it. Max, his sister Isabel (Heigl) and their friend Michael (Fehr) aren't what they seem.

"You're not an a alien, are you?" she stammers. "I prefer the term 'Not of this earth,'" he says.

In "Pilot"--one of two episodes provided for review--Liz and Max deal with the fallout from this revelation. Max tells Liz that his life is in danger if she tells anyone. Naturally, she ends up confiding in her best friend, the spacey Maria (Majandra Delfino), who thereafter refers to extraterrestrials as "Czechoslovakians." Meanwhile, Sheriff Valenti is pursuing his own agenda as he looks into Liz's baffling recovery.

For his part, Max must persuade Isabel and Michael that nothing's changed. But they know differently. "It's time to leave Roswell," Michael says. "We've always known this day would come."

In the second episode, "The Morning After," Liz and Max grow closer as she learns more about Max's big secret. But paranoia is abroad in Roswell. There's a new substitute teacher in town with a disproportionate interest in Michael. Sheriff Valenti finds himself under the scrutiny of government agents. And Michael fears that their secret may already have gotten out.

"We're not from around here."

Based on the Roswell High series of young adult novels by Melinda Metz, Roswell is a welcome new addition to the fall TV lineup. Like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, its sister show on The WB, Roswell melds genres to transcend the limitations of convention, resulting in a show that is fresh, funny, truthful and full of surprises.

For all its SF trappings, Roswell is really a show about its well-drawn characters, told with great wit, style, smart writing and tart dialog. Like the best of the adolescent coming-of-age shows before it, Roswell treats its teen protagonists without condescension, but doesn't put thirty-something locutions in their mouths, a la Dawson's Creek.

It's also likely the hippest new show of the fall. Its appealing cast features alumni from Buffy and Dawson, a soundtrack with artists like Hole and Sarah McLachlan, and a gaggle of producers whose "cool" quotient is high: David Nutter (The X-Files), Jonathan Frakes (Star Trek: The Next Generation) and Jason Katims (My So-Called Life), among others.

The science fiction elements aren't given short shrift either. Viewers gradually see Max's distinctive alien powers: the ability to change matter, the power to listen to a CD without a player, and an as-yet-unexplained capacity to chug Tabasco sauce.

The first two episodes also set the stage for several pleasantly complicated story arcs. There's Sheriff Valenti's obsession with finding proof that aliens exist. There's a tantalizing mystery: Is there a fourth alien out there somewhere who holds the key to Max's past? And there's the hint of government conspiracy in the form of inscrutable FBI agents who keep showing up without warning.

Central to the series, though, is the budding romance between Liz and Max, one that's literally star-crossed from the beginning. There's great chemistry between Appleby and Behr, and their first tentative encounters are touching.

With Buffy, Angel and now Roswell, The WB is turning out to have some of the best-written shows on broadcast television. No one is more surprised than me. -- P.L.

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