I liked the first two hours of The D.A. (Fridays, starting March 19; 10 to 11 p.m.; ABC). But watch it quick. It’s another well-done dramatic series on ABC, which means they’re likely to cancel it, like Karen Sisco, before it has a chance to find an audience. But Steven Weber is persuasive as the L.A. D.A., for whom politics is the normal respiration of intelligence. And so is Bruno Campos, as the son of a slain congressman and the only investigator Weber can trust since the rest of the office is trying to sabotage him with the cops and media. And there are enough twists to the corkscrew plots—just how did the Russian mob find out where a “protected witness” was stashed? Who killed the sitcom star if it wasn’t Felicity Huffman’s client or a conspiracy of abused wives?—to keep the brain in a swivel.

Significant Others (Tuesdays; 9 to 9:30 p.m.; Bravo) is a semi-improvised sitcom about recently wed couples seeing a marriage counselor, to whom they explain their problems with pregnancy, promiscuity, unemployment, in-laws, and body odor, as if to a priest at confession or a camera on a reality show. As Mark Twain said of Wagner’s music, it’s better than it sounds. Not so, I’m sorry to say, The Stones (Wednesdays; 9:30 to 10 p.m.; CBS), in which Judith Light and Robert Klein announce their impending divorce to their grown children at their 25th-anniversary party. These children, slacker princess Lindsay Sloane and science nerd Jay Baruchel, nevertheless live at home, as if in Belfast with a laugh track. And the worst of the new mid-season series is The Help (Fridays; 9:30 to 10 p.m.; WB), where the rich and lazy Ridgeways lord it over their wisecracking servants in some Southern California notion of a feudal estate. The best joke in the pilot is about “bubble rap”—that is, rap music about getting your nails done.

Going to the Mat (March 19; 8 to 10 p.m.; Disney) suggests that Andrew Lawrence from New York will fit in better at his new Utah high school by joining the wrestling team than by playing the guitar and drums. With Khleo Thomas, D. B. Sweeney, and Wayne Brady.

The New Americans (March 29 and 30, 9 to 11 p.m.; March 31, 9 p.m. to midnight; Channel 13) follows immigrants from Nigeria, the Dominican Republic, the Palestinian territories, Mexico, and India, quite as if the Statue of Liberty stood up for them, too.

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• Archive: “Television”
• Articles by John Leonard
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