Fox's 'American Embassy' best of new midseason shows
Kansas Witchita Eagle
By Bob Curtright

The Olympics are finally over, and the new midseason tryout series are champing at the gate. There are about 15 series launching this month, not counting the return of such reality fluff as "Survivor Marquesas" and "The Amazing Race" plus UPN's new entry, "No Boundaries." To be sure, a few newcomers braved bucking the Olympics, notably CBS's classy but melodramatic Supreme Court drama, "First Monday," WB's "Candid Camera" wannabe, "The Jamie Kennedy Experiment," WB's spooky youth soap "Glory Days" and Fox's "That '80s Show," a semi-sequel to "That '70s Show." But the best is yet to come, from the previews I've seen.

My best bet this week is Fox's "The American Embassy," which premieres Monday. I've been following this hour-long "dramedy" since last summer when it was called "Emma Brody" and when it was bumped from the fall schedule, possibly because it involves a terrorist bomb in the first episode.The show centers on a 26-year-old American lawyer, the aforementioned Emma (Arija Bareikis, pronounced Ah-REE-ah Bah-RAY-kiss), who dumps her cheating fiancee, accepts a position as a vice consul in the American Embassy in London and runs away from home to sort out her feelings.

It's reminiscent of "Ally McBeal" in its first season, back when it was breezy, clever and poignant rather than just nutty.It's about a young woman at personal and professional crossroads. She's uncertain what to do but she's determined to do it -- all in the colorful, fascinating and sometimes scary foreign environment of London.The show is amusing, romantic, sweet, poignant and just oddball enough to perk up your attention in new ways. On Emma's first day on the job, she must cope with a man staging a naked sit-down strike in the embassy lobby, a kidnapped 12-year-old girl, and fellow staffers who have a pool on how long she'll last.

Her boss keeps reminding her that she is expected to be "extraordinary." But on the home front she must also adjust to a roommate with a perpetual line of boyfriends, a witty drag queen neighbor and a titled gentleman who flirts with her but who has a proper fiancee in the shadows.Most of all, she must not fall for a handsome spy (David Cubitt) in the embassy who she can't get out of her mind.

While sophisticated and breezy with delightfully eccentric characters, the show has a serious underlying thread about the import of the work the embassy does -- particularly in these dangerous times.

Emma is the perfect antidote to the Ugly American.

Bob Curtright at 268-6394 or bcurtrightwichitaeagle.com.

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