Mid-Season Series Takes The "Higher Ground"
With the 1999-2000 television season now halfway over the networks are re-accessing their fall line-ups and introducing some mid-season replacements. This week we review two such mid-season replacements HIGHER GROUND and 18 WHEELS OF JUSTICE.
HIGHER GROUND is the first original drama ever made for the FOX FAMILY CHANNEL. It stars Joe Lando (DR. QUINN: MEDICINE WOMAN) as Peter Scarbrow, the director of a last-chance type outdoor adventure school for kids and teens coping with a variety of personal problems including drug use, child abuse, and petty theft.
Scarbrow can relate to many of these kids because he too was a resident of this school when he was a kid trying to kick a drug habit. Though he has kicked the habit it was obvious from the opening episode that those demons are still with him.
Scott is the newest resident of the school. Once a promising high school football player, Scott spun out of control into the world of drug abuse. His father, desperate to save his son, sends Scott to the school to cure his drug habit.
What Scott's father doesn't know, and viewers find out during the course of the pilot, is that Scott has been sexually seduced/abused by his dad's new (and young) wife. The guilt, anger and confusion Scott feels over this are what are driving him into his own personal hell.
This delicate subject is handled very tactfully and is not sensationalized it would have been on many other series. HIGHER GROUND deserves credit for, well, taking the "higher ground."
There definitely are plenty of stories for this series to tell. Though many people don't wish to admit it, there are literally hundreds of thousands of kids and teens battling their own personal demons like child abuse, drug abuse and crime.
HIGHER GROUND is entertaining and thought-provoking. The pilot showed a lot of promise and I will be checking out this series again. You should too. It airs on the FOX FAMILY CHANNEL Friday evenings at 9:00 p.m., PST
18 WHEELS OF JUSTICE:Given some of its other programming it should come as no surprise that the first original dramatic series on THE NASHVILLE NETWORK involves an undercover cop in an 18 wheeler.
18 WHEELS JUSTICE stars Lucky Vanous as Justice Department Special Agent Michael Cates. He is forced into the Witness Protection Program after the mob boss Cates testifies against kills Cates family.
Cates is placed into a new program that has him working as a cross-country trucker. He is monitored by satellite and receives his orders from a home base. The pilot didn't make this entirely clear but I think he is still working as a cop.
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