NEW YORK -- CBS is offering viewers four new shows on Wednesday nights -- a movie spin-off, a comedy anthology, a Cosby copycat and a private eye thriller.
The results are a hit, a miss, a question mark and a maybe. All four debut Sept. 18.
The potential hit is 'The Equalizer,' 10-11 p.m. EDT, starring Edward Woodward as Robert McCall, a former secret agent who quit in disgust and now lives in New York and helps people in distress.
His ad in the classified section reads, 'Got a Problem? Odds Against You? Call the Equalizer.' A phone number follows. That's where the title comes from -- he equalizes the odds against his clients.
In the opening drama he saves a beautiful woman from a creep who wants to graduate from obscene phone calls to rape, and breaks up a computer-assisted blackmail ring that taps telephones in the Oval Office, the Pentagon and elsewhere to get the lowdown on hijinks in high places.
Guest stars in the opener include Robert Lansing as a former colleague who tries to keep McCall from being killed by his ex-employers, Jerry Stiller as Brahms, an out-of-shape agent who is willing to lend a hand, and George Hearn as a senator with a tapped telephone.
Woodward is impressive as a suave middle-aged operator who exudes power.
He does it by keeping his face wiped absolutely clean and then, with the smallest of deliberate facial gestures, suggests compassion, humor, and all sorts of hidden emotions. Thing is, it works.
'George Burns Comedy Week,' 9-9:30 p.m. EDT, is a maybe because it is impossible to judge a comedy anthology by one chapter.
The first effort is a pleasantly zany script co-authored by the show's producer, Steve Martin.
Catherine O'Hara is a wealthy heiress who is totally suggestible. She also has a photographic memory. The result is she switches personalities as easily as she changes clothes -- when she puts on a doctor's white coat, she becomes a doctor and escapes from the funny farm where her greedy relatives want her permanently institutionalized.
Later, defusing a bomb that could blow up half a city, she meets Tim Matheson, a police lieutenant who turns her into a seductress by mentioning James Bond, then has her chanting prayers all night after he offers her some Blue Nun white wine.
Needless to say, all ends well.
Burns appears only as host with an opening and closing chat.
The miss is 'Stir Crazy,' 8-9 p.m. EDT, which stars Larry Riley and Joe Guzaldo in the roles created by Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder in the movie.
'Stir Crazy' is a spoof of those 'fugitive-type' continual chase shows. Our heroes are wrongfully convicted of murder, escape and are bent on evading the law while searching for the Tattooed Man who is the real villain.
This is mainly physical comedy. At one point one of our heroes wins $500 by allowing a mechanical gorilla to punch him in the stomach. He then runs for the men's room.
The key word is 'zany' -- no one pretends it all makes much sense, but the original had two comic geniuses in Pryor and Wilder to carry the flimsy script. Guzaldo and Riley are pleasant, but that's not good enough.
'Stir Crazy' is followed by 'Charlie & Company,' starring Flip Wilson and Gladys Knight as the parents of a middle-class black family. The original pilot episode was recalled for repairs and isn't ready for review, but based on the evidence so far, this copycat of 'The Cosby Show' is a dubious entry.
