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TV REVIEWS : Fox’s ‘Class,’ ‘Key West’ Have Appeal

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TIMES TELEVISION CRITIC

ABC’s Tuesday night lovebirds, Tom and Roseanne, have no reason to panic. Nonetheless, here comes Fox.

Tonight’s arrival of “Class of ‘96” and “Key West” marks the delayed debut of first-run programming for Fox (KTTV-TV Channel 11 and XETV-TV Channel 6) in Tuesday prime time, bringing to the screen two drama series that are unevenly appealing despite being consistently derivative.

Although “Class of ‘96” (at 8 p.m.) is full of teen-agers, “Beverly Hills, 9021ooze,” it isn’t. In fact, it is the Phi Beta Kappa of the ‘92-’93 youth genre series, even managing to work in a discussion of “Moby Dick” tonight while matriculating a clutch of incoming freshmen at Havenhurst, one of those storybook Ivy League colleges where everything is green, woodsy and leathery and the campus chimes ring on the hour.

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Yet it’s Hollywood you’re hearing when one of the freshmen earns a B+ for writing only three sentences in an English-lit essay exam for which many of his classmates filled an entire blue book. “They were the right three sentences,” his professor tells him. “What I wrote was pure bull,” the student protests. “B+ bull,” the professor replies.

At their best, the first several episodes of “Class of ‘96” are B- bull, drawing a moderate level of intelligence from a campus universe whose characters at times bear at least some resemblance to real-life collegians. At its worst, “Class of ‘96” falls deeply, hopelessly in love with its own sensitivity, at once romanticizing (at this campus, professors take personal interest in each undergraduate) and melodramatizing the college experience. Rarely have so many 18-year-olds been so trauma-ridden or so insightful about the traumas of their classmates or so bold and eloquent in sharing those insights.

To punctuate that sensitivity, there’s a “thirtysomething”-style folk guitar threading “Class of ‘96,” and the above English prof is none other than Peter Horton, who taught English as Gary Shepherd on “thirtysomething” and has directed some of these Fox episodes, including tonight’s premiere.

The series moves into prime time the way its freshmen move into their dorm--noisily and awkwardly. David Morrissey (Jason Gedrik), who is the first of his working-class family to attend college, is creator John Romano’s main protagonist. The most interesting character is African-American Antonio Hopkins (Perry Moore), a scholarship basketball player who later resists an academic adviser’s plea to soften his class schedule. Then there are “Stroke” Dexter (Gale Hansen) for comedy and blueblood Whitney Reed (Brandon Douglas) for tragedy. He has a terrible drinking problem--for one episode.

Down the road, Antonio will lead a student challenge against a controversial professor whose remarks in class give a false impression that he’s racist and sexist. His only purpose, he tells students, is to “shake them up, challenge them.”

“Class of ‘96” doesn’t come close to doing that with its audience, but it’s still early in the semester.

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“Class of ‘96” is followed by another Fox premiere at 9 p.m., and you can hardly believe what you’re watching.

Seamus O’Reilly (Fisher Stevens), a New Jersey lottery winner with a fixation on Ernest Hemingway, drives to Key West, Fla., so he can work at a dinky newspaper where his idol once worked (hasn’t he ever heard of Paris?) so he can become a writer too? On the beach he meets a dreadlocked Rastafarian named JoJo (T. C. Carson)? And then he’s befriended by a heart-of-gold hooker named Savanah (Jennifer Tilly)? His editor is a tyrannical blind man named King Cole (Ivory Ocean)? The local tavern is operated by an alligator-owning Cajun named Gumbo (Leland Crooke)? And town sheriff Cody Jeremiah Jefferson (Brian Thompson) is a mystical nature child? And a ruthless local businessman named Hector (Geno Silva) has an autistic son whom he thinks can be healed by dolphins? And Mayor Penbrooke (Nicolas Surovy) acknowledges at a public forum that he’s gay? And there are lots of slow pans and haunting “Twin Peaks”-ian music and enough eccentric characters to make “Northern Exposure” look as conventional as “The Love Boat”? And none of it makes sense?

After about half an hour of “Key West,” you’re praying for a typhoon.

Like algae, however, this hybrid series, with its goofy hero and supporting characters, tends to grow on you. And when a scene showing a writhing beauty about to be attacked by an alligator turns out to be only Gumbo’s gator dreaming, you’re finally convinced that, despite its throng of wiggly females, there’s more to “Key West” than Fox’s foxes.

Moreover, a future episode supplied by Fox--in which Seamus is nursed by Savanah, Cody is seduced by an Andrew Dice Clay-loving, sultry temptress and Gumbo’s sad past is softened by a gathering of clowns--is a charming, dreamy mix of hokum and tender fantasy. There are lots of pretensions here, but they’re likable ones.

If this is the real “Key West,” Fox has itself an hour of sparkling television.

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