KRITIQUE'S KORNER

I cut my literary teeth on science fiction: Isaac Asimov; Ray Bradbury; Lewis Padget; and so many other quality writers.

I know good science fiction and science drama when I see it.

I watched a lot of Star Trek, even though I didn't really consider it science fiction...more like space oriented soap opera. But it had its cute moments.

Enter The Jensen Project, an NBC Friday night movie.

There are some fine actors represented here: LeVar Burton, of Roots and Star Trek fame; Patricia Richardson, of Home Improvement fame; as well as an assortment of actors I've never heard of, all of whom need to hang on to whatever their day jobs are.

The Moller International Sky Car was featured in a scene that looked like it was patterned after a Jetson cartoon. It swooshed in over the city in a way that looked like something drawn for a 1960s era feature cartoon.

If you discount the fact that the movie was written on a third grade level, with lines stolen from every "coming of age" family-style movie ever produced; the lines were read like it was the first time any of the actors had seen them; the flow was choppy and disorganized; the plot old and tired; the sequences unrealistic (a teen aged girl hero knocks down a 300 pound goon on a stairway); the timing of the events contrived; the continuity dismal and that it was rife with electronic gizmos that looked fakier than the monster in a Godzilla movie; it was a fine made for TV flick.

If you discount all of those things.

The Jensen Project was produced by NBC by means of Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) and Procter and Gamble (NYSE: PG).

Wal-Mart and Procter and Gamble should stick to retailing.

NBC should find something it knows how to do.

TV definitely ain't it.