‘Orleans’ and ‘Chicago’: The Cities Deserve Better

Lust and Larry in Louisiana.

The lust is “Orleans,” the Larry is Hagman, still renowned as the greedy bad brother of “Dallas” but now gray, furry-browed and principled as a judge and the patriarch of another dysfunctional Southern family in this new CBS jambalaya from John Sacret Young (“China Beach”). It has the patina of art, the soul of trash.

Also arriving tonight is the hapless NBC comedy “Chicago Sons.” More about that later.

Impressively filmed in New Orleans, “Orleans” replaces floundering newcomer “EZ Streets,” which is on hiatus--going courtroom to courtroom with NBC’s vastly superior and infinitely smarter “Law & Order,” a popular series as much about ideas as crime.

In contrast, you sort of guess that “Orleans” is not about great legal and social issues of the day when:

* Someone named Sugar strips to her bra in tonight’s two-hour premiere so that police Det. Clade Charbonnet (Brett Cullen) can personally fit her with a hidden mike.

* Busty, hotblooded wildlife-fisheries agent Rene Doucette (Lynette Walden) in a later episode visits her lover and first cousin, Asst. Dist. Atty. Jesse Charbonnet (Michael Reilly Burke), in her bra and panties.

* Rene finds Jesse with a gorgeous blond, who wears tight jeans in her day job as New Orleans coroner, causing the D.A. (Cotter Smith) to crack: “Nice set of taillights on her.”

* Almost every other female in the two episodes supplied for review--including protagonist Paulette Charbonnet (Colleen Flynn), key defense attorney Rosalee Clark (Vanessa Bell Calloway) and such relatively minor figures as a city official, the sister of a murder victim or a non-speaking court reporter--are also real dishes.

No wonder Hagman appears at ease. “Dallas” is dead as a series, but its libido and leering eyes are transplanted into this classy looking but low-end drama, the difference being that you at least had matronly Miss Ellie to remind you in sexy “Dallas” that you were still on Planet Earth. Here, you get “taillights.”

What’s more, “Dallas” was self-mocking and never took itself as seriously as “Orleans” seems to do.

Although “Orleans” looks and sounds swell, and is produced with much more care than most series, it is what it is: a flawed, gurgling, angst-heavy melodrama about prominent Judge Luther Charbonnet (Hagman), his sons, Clade and Jesse, and his more interesting daughter, Paulette, a recovering crackhead who manages a gambling boat owned by a shadowy family friend and influential power broker named Otis (Ralph Waite). Hard feelings pervade, especially between Paulette and her father.

Filming “Orleans” in New Orleans may help the local economy, but tonight’s Byzantine opener, with its themes of sex and systemic corruption, won’t please the city’s boosters. Nor is it even much fun. It finds Jesse prosecuting a high-profile murder case when not chasing Rene, who is engaged to someone else; the D.A. pursuing fame when not chasing Paulette; and Clade trailing crime when not trying to taste Sugar. He meets her when someone ties her up and throws her nude into a river. Plus, there are hints of hanky-panky between Jesse’s courtroom foe, Rosalee, and his father, Luther.

Although an honest jurist, Luther does things his way. This means, in the two preview episodes, brushing away canons of ethics like cobwebs. That includes disguising himself as a robed friar and visiting and coaxing a confession from a jailed murder defendant whose fate he is deciding in a non-jury trial.

Meanwhile, another judge allows Jesse and Rosalee to argue a motion to suppress evidence in front of the jury. And the D.A. does something dastardly tonight that we’re led to believe will get him disbarred, only to resurface in a future episode with his job still in hand.

As if in an isolation chamber, moreover, “Orleans” omits one of the most visible components of sensational urban crime trials: the primal, bloodthirsty, predatory, take-no-prisoners media.

Speaking of law, shouldn’t tidy, sentimental endings be felonious, as in the awkward rapprochement imposed on the Charbonnets tonight? And isn’t there a defamation suit in this for “Orleans”-slurred New Orleans, whose every dollar, one character declares, “has got blood on it”?

A nice place to visit, obviously, but you wouldn’t want to go to trial there.

*

BROTHERS BEHAVING BADLY: If there were ever a comedy indistinguishable from zillions preceding it, NBC’s new “Chicago Sons” is that comedy.

That would be acceptable were “Chicago Sons” at all funny or even inviting. But it isn’t, instead introducing three Kulchak brothers--Billy the sleazy entrepreneur (David Krumholtz), Harry the earnest architect (Jason Bateman) and Mike the construction worker (D.W. Moffett)--who thud their way through this premiere without wit, charm or style.

The opener has Billy guiding the career of a stunning photographer’s model, Harry hoping to act on his romantic feelings for a co-worker (Paula Marshall), and Mike splitting from his wife and moving in with his two younger brothers. Three totally unalike males coexisting in the same apartment? Nahhhh.

Yahhhh.

The half hour’s climactic ending is on a rooftop, where these palookas and their neighbors gather to watch the Chicago Cubs, but except for Harry catching a home run and a punch on the jaw from a rival, inertia rules. The writing just isn’t there.

“Three bodies sharing one brain” is how the Kolchaks are described at one point. In this case, three’s a crowd.

* “Chicago Sons” premieres at 8:30 tonight on NBC (Channel 4). “Orleans” premieres at 9 tonight on CBS (Channel 2).