The Ottawa Citizen January 17, 1998, Saturday, FINAL EDITION SECTION: ARTS; Pg. H4 LENGTH: 1291 words HEADLINE: The good and bad of new cable channels BYLINE: TONY ATHERTON; THE OTTAWA CITIZEN BODY: Rogers Ottawa says you still have two weeks to make up your mind on the new cable package, a welter of channels that will cost $ 6 or more a month, depending on how deeply you're into cable already. To help you with so weighty a decision, The Citizen offers this assessment of the best and worst of some of the high-profile new channels during the free trial period. TBS The Good: Dinner and a Movie (Fridays at 8:05 p.m.) Decent movies, interesting recipes (Irish Stew for One was on the menu during a broadcast of John Candy's Only the Lonely), and a heaping helping of fun served up during commercial breaks by two bickering chef/hosts so lively and clever that they make What's for Dinner's Ken and Mary Jo look catatonic. The Bad: Movies for Guys Who Like Movies (Thursdays at 8:05 p.m.) I resent the implication that testosterone renders me incapable of appreciating any acting nuance beyond the range of Telly Savalas, Charles Bronson and Arnold Schwarzenegger, or any plot that doesn't involve martial arts, motorcycles or automatic weapons. The Ugly: Weekday evenings. Two solid hours of Saved by the Bell and Family Matters repeats beginning at 5:05 p.m. Obviously a Ted Turner plot to soften our cerebra and effect world domination. TELETOON The Good: Duckman is pretty funny in an Austin Powers kind of way (weeknights at 10:30 p.m.), and when matched up to repeats of The Simpsons at 11 p.m., it creates a programming block that is a distinct alternative to the late-night news. But even more impressive for its sheer unconventionality is Pond Life (Mondays and Thursdays at 9:30 p.m.), British writer/director Candy Guard's series about the adventures of Dolly, a single, middle-class British woman with a volatile temper, an active libido and an aimless life. Bad: The channel's ability to mesmerize anyone under the age of 12, particularly those of the male persuasion; woe betide the parent of pre-adolescents who cancels the cable package. Also on the minus side is the late-night Japanese anime, lurid tales in which explicit sexual violence is fair game. Thankfully, Teletoon has reduced such broadcasts to two nights a week (Fridays and Saturdays at midnight). The Snuggly: The channel's daytime pre-school block is good stuff, entertaining without being mindless, and generally low-key. It is also commercial-free, though only in principle. In fact, the programming block is larded with frenetic commercials for Teletoon and Teletoon programming, reinforcing the channel's mindlock on its youngest -- and most impressionable --viewers. COMEDY The Good: Open Mike with Mike Bullard. Though it airs at 8 p.m., it is the best attempt at a late-night talk show since Gzowski's 90 Minutes Live. OK, that's not saying much, but it is saying something. Bullard is a scruffy low-rent host in a low-rent suit on a low-rent set, and his determined political incorrectness sometimes makes it seem like his role model is Ed the Sock. But Open Mike features a decent nightly monologue about Canadian current affairs and provides a welcome alternative venue for Canadian celebrities to be seen and heard. The Bad: Make Me Laugh, a mindless game show in which contestants bet whether comedians -- and I use the term loosely -- can make someone laugh. The Giggly: The antidote to Make Me Laugh is Whose Line Is It Anyway?, the brilliant British improv series which takes the form of a game show, but only to contain its overabundant wit. HISTORY The Good: Some terrific movies, including The Great Escape, The Bridge Over the River Kwai and The Voyage of the Damned. The Bad: The 38th repeat of The Great Escape, The Bridge Over The River Kwai and The Voyage of the Damned. The Fuddy-Duddly: Timechase (weekdays at 11 a.m.), a history game show that is even less entertaining than you might imagine. CTV NEWS 1 The Good: Nice graphics, pretty people, swell smiles. The Bad: The format is CTV's fatal flaw, making it one of the least-watched Canadian specialty channels on the air. Fifteen minutes is too short for everything that the producers want to squeeze into a newscast, and the format is too inflexible to make allowances. Blink and you've missed an entire story. The Doubly: The channel's recent increased use of double-enders, live or nearly live interviews with newsmakers and correspondents, helps create the illusion that the newscast is not largely pre-packaged. PRIME TV The Good: Grumps (weeknights at 11) is the best new talk show of the season, not only because it gives a platform to curmudgeonly host Hart Pomerantz (ex-sitcom writer and Lorne Michaels' one-time comedy partner), nor only because its fluid panel is eclectic enough to include Murray McLauchlan, George Chuvalo and Big Bobby Clobber, but also because its conversation, taped before a live audience, is delightfully unstructured. The Bad: Prime has absolutely no focus. It is a specialty channel without a specialty. Licensed as a channel for the 50-plus crowd, it seems afraid to market itself as such. It is a cipher for most viewers, and as a result, fewer Canadians tune in to Prime each week than any of the other new channels. The Grubby: Prime wallows in celebrity voyeurism, a nasty habit that is already too prevalent on conventional TV. Shows like True Hollywood Stories (Mondays and Wednesdays at 8 and 9 p.m.) or Uncut (daily at 4:30 p.m) are shallow time-wasters. BET The Good: It transcends TV's systemic ethnic bias, if not its inherent bad taste. Nowhere else would you see an all-black Psychic Friends Network infomercial. Here you can't avoid it. The Bad: Nine out of 10 comedians on Comic View (weekdays at 10 p.m.) The Studly: The profusion of rap music on BET is the answer to the question: "Why do we need a Women's Television Network?" GOLF CHANNEL The Good: All those great tips for golfers: "Buy this putter and shave strokes off your game"; "Place a phone order for these balls and improve your handicap"; "Send right now for this instructional video, and we'll include a revolutionary tee-cleaning towlette." The Bad: It takes up scarce channel space that might have been devoted to more exciting cable networks, like The Paint-Drying Channel. The Stubbly: It's hard to contain my excitement when watching a tournament played 20 years ago by no-name golfers on some European course that looks as if its greenskeepers are a herd of Jerseys. TOP FIVE REASONS NOT TO TAKE THE NEW CABLE PACKAGE: 5) Given that Canadians watch only three hours of TV a day, a cable package that delivers an extra 400 hours a day seems just a tad excessive. 4) You'd rather spend the six bucks a month on something more entertaining, like dental floss. 3) You get nosebleeds above Channel 45. 2) If you wanted television with logos plastered all over the screen, you'd watch the NBA. 1) You have a life. TOP FIVE REASONS TO TAKE THE NEW CABLE PACKAGE: 5) It's the perfect way way to catch up on those great shows you missed the first time around, like The Flintstones, Three's Company and the 1963 Lawnmower Challenge (a joint Speedvision/Golf Channel resurrection). 4) Paying six bucks a month to Rogers Cable for a 24-hour-a-day video fix is a heckuva lot better than the alternative: paying six bucks a week to Rogers Video for a couple of tired old movies that you rent because the titles you really want aren't in. 3) You're keen to support such compelling new Canadian programming as Donkey Kong, RV Adventures, and Pools, Patios and Decks. 2) Because a day without CNBC would be, for you, like a day without ticker tape. 1) If you don't sign up, you know that somewhere, somehow, when you least expect it, your cable company will get you. GRAPHIC: Black & White Photo: Stand-up comic Mike Bullard headlines The Comedy Network's weeknight talk show. Black & White Photo: Black Robe starring Lothaire Bluteau airs on the History channel. Black & White Photo: Canadian Press / Hart Pomerantz is the cranky host of Grumps on Prime TV.