We can all be thankful that Jeremy Piven is back on TV. Now let's hope he gets his subplots in order.

They may have cancelled "Ellen," but Jeremy Piven's back on the air.

"Cupid" airs Saturdays at 10 pm on ABC.

I have to admit I was predisposed to liking "Cupid." It stars Jeremy Piven, who played cousin Spence on "Ellen." All of those "Ellen" reruns on Lifetime lately have made me quite the Jeremy Piven fan. He's just plain cool. I'm glad to say, for the most part, his new show is pretty cool, too.

"Cupid" is the story of a man who says he's the Roman god of love. He's been kicked out of Olympus without any "artillery" and he must unite 100 couples before they'll let him back in. Not just any 100 couples, mind you. There's a catch: The gods have to declare that each couple has found true love. Enter Dr. Claire Allen (Paula Marshall), Cupid's psychiatrist who specializes in affairs of the heart. Of course, Dr. Allen doesn't believe Cupid is who he says he is, which sets up the main conflict of the show. The long-running question is whether Cupid, who goes by the name Trevor Hale, is or isn't the god of love. He's never heard of Psyche, but he knows Latin. Of course, this sets up the whole "Is Claire really Psyche" thing that could be worked out in later episodes. And we get the distinct impression that Trevor wholeheartedly thinks he's Cupid. In last week's episode, he gets showered with bricks and, while unconscious, has a conversation with Zeus. When he comes to, we see Zeus was really David Johansen (or Buster Poindexter) playing a bum. Interesting idea, Zeus with a voice like Johansen's.

After watching the first episode, I was pleased to see that Mr. Piven had found quite a vehicle for himself. The dialogue alone is worth staying home on Saturday night. (I'm kind of a misanthrope, so I tend to stay home on Saturday night anyway just to avoid the crowds.) The dialogue on "Cupid" is as good as "Buffy." (That borders on blasphemy, but I'll say it anyway.) Case in point: Why was Trevor arrested between episodes two and three? "I see statues, fountains, I'm trained to think public urinal."

He's the spontaneous one. She's very practical (notice the sensible skirt length).

The weakness in "Cupid"'s otherwise perfect package is the weekly subplots about the couples Trevor tries to make fall in love. Usually these couples also happen to be Claire's patients (or the participants in her weekly singles group). The characters involved pale in comparison to Trevor, Claire, and Champ. They serve as springboards for the continuing debate about the nature of love and falling in love (Claire is a pragmatist who's been burned by spontaneity. Trevor, of course, is all spontaneity). So far, two out of three subplots haven't had very memorable characters or stories. As plot devices, they're functional enough to provide fodder for the main characters. But for a series to maintain itself (especially in such an awful time slot), the weekly subplots need to be able to hold their own.

I think the problem here is that "Cupid"'s main characters and the characters that populate Trevor's matchmaking forays seem to be from two different shows. There's too much disparity in the quality of the dialogue and characterizations of these two groups. The charisma of the primary characters so far outweighs that of the secondary characters that the secondaries almost become a liability. In another show, a show in which the main characters didn't have so much zing, I'd say the subplots would be fine as is. ("Early Edition," another on my Saturday night lineup, comes to mind.) Here, however, a little something more is required.

On a show the premise of which requires weekly self-contained stories, the quality of those stories must match that of the main story itself. Every week on shows like "ER" and "Homicide" you see such balance. "Cupid" has a liability, however, that these shows do not: Every story must be about two people falling in love. It's a little limiting, I'd imagine. Which is why I guess the main weakness is with the secondary characters more than their stories. Were they a little more memorable, a little more fleshed out, a little more on par with the main characters, the show would be brilliant, probably the best on the air. As it is, it's a very good show with a lot of promise. I hope the time slot doesn't kill it, though. I'd like to see Mr. Piven stick around for a while.

Date: October 11, 1998

Copyright © 1998 by Lisa McInnis