"Men in Trees"

"Men in Trees" (regular time period Friday’s 7 p.m., ABC)

If you ever liked visiting Cicely, Alaska (that remote, quirky locale for the 1990’s TV series "Northern Exposure") you should feel right at home with "Men in Trees", a new hour long ABC comedy set in Alaska's similarly mythical town called Elmo.

It's easy to write her new series off as simply a "Northern Exposure" meets "Sex and the City" as show creator, Jenny Bicks was a producer on that show. We also discover why this show is called “Men in Trees”; it's based on a sign on the street where men are literally high in a tree doing some trim work.

http://abc.go.com/primetime/schedule/2006-07/menintrees.html

Most actors bring a little baggage with them onto a set or movie, but Anne Heche has the entire Samsonite line. Known as a flirty ingénue who dated Steve Martin, she hit all the tabloids when she became Ellen DeGeneres' live-in lover. But that was before she was found wandering around Fresno, a bit crazed and perhaps naked. She did an interview in which she claimed to have an alter-ego named Celestia. Go figure? After her break-up with DeGeneres, she married the cameraman Coley Laffoon from DeGeneres show and now has a son, Homer. Oh, and she wrote a book called "Call Me Crazy."

That’s probably more information than you care to know but helps set the tone for this new show.

Now she's starring as a jilted life coach in this new series.

http://abc.go.com/fsp/embedded/fallshows.html#

Tonight's pilot introduces the characters effectively, but doesn't
leave time for much else. It starts off with that uptight New York attitude but mellows towards the end and like "Sex and the City," it allows its female protagonist to sum up things in author's-message voiceover.

Heche plays Marin, a successful life coach who lectures her followers (mainly women) on "reading the signs." She playfully puts up such warning signs as "slippery when wet" and "stop" during her popular speaking engagements. Make sure you don't ignore the signs, she says while holding them up for the audience. Marin thinks she has her life wired now that she's about to marry the man of her dreams.

Marin Frist travels to Alaska but when she grabs the wrong laptop on her way to a backwoods lecture, discovering en route that back in Manhattan, her fiancé has been messing around. So the New Yorker finds herself stuck in Alaska, a state filled with men.

Some of the better parts similar to "Northern Exposure," it's loaded with fish-out-of-water jokes: Some extremely funny, as Marin is handed a can of bear spray and proceeds to spray it on herself like mosquito repellent instead of a bear, she sinks her high heels into slush puddles (bunny boots are needed here), snow and a not-so-frozen lake. There were some jokes with cell phone use (kinda lame) but her publicist has a run in with a snow blower.

Which brings us to the raccoon?

There is an ongoing battle with a raccoon that keeps sneaking inside her rustic apartment doing things to her stuff. It eats at her expensive wedding gown (why would she bring it in the first place?) and is going to apparently have a recurring role.

The funny thing is there are few if any raccoons in Alaska. According to Alaska Fish & Game, “Raccoons (Procyon lotor Linnaeus) were first introduced in the mid-1930s on Long Island near Kodiak and on Baranof and Prince of Wales Islands (Jarrell et al. 2001). Later introductions occurred in southeast Alaska, but with limited survival of individuals. The current population distribution of raccoons in Alaska is very small and not considered a threat to coastal Alaskan ecosystems.” I have talked with many people the last couple of days and no one that lives here has ever seen one. That is way too funny!

The Chieftain is a bar that will undoubtedly become a centerpiece in this series and where we meet the local flavor, which make this show so sweet. I love the way the writers stayed away from small town clichés. They gave the supporting characters depth. Many of them had lived elsewhere or had broken hearts. For the most part, they seem to be educated men. The bartender is a wine aficionado who is nursing a broken heart, the pilot (John Amos *always great) is still angry about racist policies with the airlines in the 1950s that sent him packing for Alaska, Patrick is an eager young kid who books Marin in a men-only help session, and Jack is the game warden who is hiding a love for someone named Lynn. Of course, the characters don't get her big city ways - with her spinning classes and soy lattes - and she doesn't get their small town ways. And the female characters are enchanting- a hooker and a bar maid who both seem awfully exotic for this small fishing town.

Ok the Good & bad:

Great Line: "The odds are good. But the goods are odd," female bartender. This is a standard tag line about Alaskan men.

Great Scene: When Patrick hands Marin the bear spray and she sprays it all over herself, thinking it's repellent. Nope, Marin. You're supposed to spray the attacking bear in the eyes with it. (My favorite scene, still laughing thinking about it)

The Bad:

As an Alaska resident I have to say that this show was trying but not quite there . . . yet.

Where to start? Okay, there is no town really quite like this in Alaska. Anywhere. What the heck do all those men actually do? 10 men to each woman? Try 100 to one in some towns or villages. Are they . . . logging? Fishing? Or hanging out from work on the slopes (oil fields)?

Most of the best lines and jokes about Alaska are lifted directly from various comedy bits around Anchorage. These are some very old and tired jokes but if you have not heard them hopefully will be funny to Outsiders (not Alaskan’s). I hate the wise old native stuff. It is just painful to watch so I hope the writers stay aware of that.

Can't find cigarettes in an Alaska village? Please. It seems almost everyone here smokes. There are only a few of us who do not it seems.

Yes, fall in the water, which forces you to get naked with the handsome biologist. "The only way we can survive is to cuddle, naked inside this sleeping bag." I'll have to remember that line but would probably be with a bunch of guys out in the bush so it may not be the right line to use then.

No cell phone service? Yeah right. I get cell phone service on the North Slope but there are more “spotty service” places but no town that big in the state doesn't get cell phone service.

Look, this show is obviously written by someone who took a cruise up here, watched a couple of shows (Whale Fat Follies most likely), read a book or two and thinks they know all about Alaska. I understand artistic license, but much of what was written came off as just . . .lazy.

Come up here, fly out of the cities, and the quirky world you are seeking is out there. It can be a kicky little show that makes you laugh, tugs at your heart and gives you something to snuggle up with on a Friday night, which is its regular time period on those long dark winter nights here.

I'm not a big Anne Heche fan but I figured I would check it out since there was the Alaska theme and hoped it would be a great new show as the cast can make this into something funny and great if the writers polish it up a bit.

I’ll give it another look.

Ice