Friday, July 30, 1999
Cincinnatian added to series' cast
BY JOHN KIESEWETTER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
PASADENA, Calif. — Madisonville native Jeffrey D. Sams is three-for-three with network fall series, and hoping not to strike out again.
Mr. Sams has been added to the cast of ABC's Wasteland, an autobiographical drama about young professionals living in New York by Dawson's Creek creator Kevin Williamson.
It's his third fall drama in three years, after short-lived stints on NBC's Sleepwalkers in 1997 and ABC's Cupid in 1998.
“I want to be on a hit show. When I saw the pilot, I thought this could work,” he said after the ABC press conference that introduced the show to TV critics at their summer press tour.
Mr. Williamson, who also wrote Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer, took some heat the session about adding Mr. Sams, an African-American, to the show after an all-white pilot was shot last spring.
He said he had decided to include a black character months ago, before the NAACP blasted the networks July 12 for their lack of racial diversity in the fall TV season.
Mr. Sams confirmed that he was hired “before all of this craziness,” referring to TV critics' daily questions about the lack of minorities.
Mr. Sams, 31, said he didn't consider himself a token minority representative on the show.
“If I ever begin to feel that I'm a token, I will find a way out. I don't think that's going to happen, having talked to Kevin. I think I will be well integrated into the show,” said the 1986 School for Creative and Performing Arts School graduate.
“I wouldn't do the show on that note. I don't have to. I didn't need this job.”
Mr. Sams, who as been edited into the pilot, will have an inter-racial affair with a co-worker in the Manhattan district attorney's office (Rebecca Gayheart from Scream 2), the writer said. That will get him involved with his co-worker's college pals played by Marisa Coughlan, Sasha Alexander, Brad Rowe, Eddie Mills and Dan Montgomery.
Ironically, Mr. Sams finds himself back on ABC's Thursday night schedule, where his critically acclaimed Cupid died in February. Wasteland has one of the toughest slots on TV — 9 p.m., against NBC's Frasier, CBS' Chicago Hope, Fox's Family Guy cartoon, and WB's Charmed.
“It's a little bit scary, but it's exciting,” he said. “We've got a great chance. It's a wonderful show.”
Y2K COUNTDOWN: What a party! ABC and the tiny Pax TV network plan to ring in the millennium with marathons Dec. 31.
Peter Jennings will host ABC 2000, a 22-hour special starting 6 a.m. Dec. 31 covering New Year's Eve celebrations around the world. Dick Clark, who has spent years rockin' in the new year on ABC, will be an integral part of the broadcast, Mr. Jennings said.
ABC plans remotes from around the globe, including reports from Barbara Walters' vacation on a cruise ship at the International Dateline, said David Westin, ABC News president.
Mr. Jennings said viewers should not expect 22 hours of people in funny hats throwing confetti. “This is a celebration of man's accomplishments in the last 100 years, and his anticipation for the next century,” he said.
Pax TV, the seventh commercial network (which appears as a cable channel on Tristate cable systems), will devote 24 hours to a worldwide Millennium Live show starting 6 a.m. Dec. 31. Organizers of the 1985 Live Aid concert are producing the special coverage of new year's events and concerts in Fiji, Australia, Germany, Egypt, South Africa, Times Square and other locations. Millennium Live will air in more than 150 countries, says Jeff Sagansky, Pax TV president.
SAY UNCLE: The Uncle Al Show, the long-running WCPO-TV children's show, returns to the airwaves this weekend (10:30 a.m. Saturday, Channel 9) to kick off the station's 50th anniversary celebration. Channel 9 will air an Uncle Al retrospective from 1989 with Al and Wanda Lewis this week, followed by vintage shows at 10:30 a.m. Saturdays through Dec. 31.
HISTORY REPEATS: Charles Kuralt's Cincinnati History Series, the six-part 1981 documentary that won an Ohio State Award, repeats at 7:30 p.m. Saturdays this weekend through Sept. 4. The first episode, “Taming the Ohio (1788-1830),” explores the city's river heritage.
AROUND THE DIAL: “All I Wanna Do,” singer Sheryl Crow, opens the third season of Hard Rock Live (midnight Saturday, VH1), the popular performance series.
Don't go In Search of History this weekend. The History Channel has revamped the show, added Arthur Kent as host, and renamed it History's Mysteries. The second season premieres with a two-hour documentary about the Inquisition established by Pope Gregory IX in 1231 (8 p.m. Saturday).
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