TV REVIEWS : ‘Love & War’ Should Hold Its Own

If ever a new series seemed virtually assured of commercial success, it’s “Love & War,” bequeathed a 9:30 p.m. hammock between “Murphy Brown” and “Nothern Exposure” on a night that CBS is expected to dominate.

As a bonus, this urbane and amusing comedy from Diane English (“Murphy Brown”) appears to justify its gift time slot, based on a special premiere (at 10 tonight on Channels 2 and 8) that crackles with tart, smart dialogue (“Your condom or mine?”) in an edgy atmosphere of gender tension and combat.

The worn premise (that opposites attract and clash) is energized by a couple of sophisticated protagonists whose wary initial contact is foreplay leading to a full-blown romance. One is Jack Stein (Jay Thomas), a newspaper columnist whose controversial opinions (“Feminism is dead”) sometimes get him hit by food and fists. The other is Wally Porter (Susan Dey), who is reeling from a costly divorce and quietly getting drunk when Stein tries to pick her up in a seedy saloon that he and his friends frequent.

While under the influence, she buys the place, realizing only the next day that she has become “the proud owner of a place where all flies come to die.”

Though not witty lines, thankfully.

Thomas, who works very big, and the less aggressive Dey share a chemistry that’s essential for their characters to be credible and for the show’s sexual jousting to succeed creatively. And in a nice bit of nonsense, English has them repeatedly confide their true feelings to the camera.

Jack, in his kitchen while preparing dinner for Wally: “I do not have a good feeling about this. I’ve got either Thelma or Louise out there, and I’m not sure which.”

Meanwhile, his condom or hers?