courtesy of NBC

Arts is Entertainment

Ready For
Primetime

Networks offer new TV
season with a healthy dose
of Yiddishkeit.

GERRI MILLER
Special to the Jewish News

his TV season, 34 new network
shows fill the vacancies left by
the departure of their pink-
slipped predecessors, and several
feature Jewish actors, Jewish characters or
both.
Joining the ranks of Jewish actors in regular
series are such familiar faces as Carol Kane,
starring in the FOX sitcom The Grubbs
(9:30-10 p.m. Sundays, premiering Nov. 3),
Peter Strauss as a doctor on PAX's dramedy
Body & Soul (9-10 p.m. Sundays, premiered
Sept. 16) and Dina Meyer as one-third of a
crime-fighting trio on The WB's Birds. of Prey
(9-10 p.m. Wednesdays, premiering Oct. 9).
Rena Sofer joins NBC's Just Shoot Me
(8:30-9 p.m. Tuesdays, premiering Oct. 1) as
new staffei Vicki Costa, and Rick Hoffman
Will recur on FOX's The Bernie Mac Show
(8-8:30 p.m. Wednesdays, premiered Sept.
18) as the comedian's manager.
And while old favorites like Will 6' Grace
and Boston Public will continue to explore
Jewish storylines, a distinct Jewish sensibility
infuses a few new series as well.

r 1

Gerri Miller is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles.

9/20

2002

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