“The Handler” [ 1/2] (two and one-half stars)
Friday night at 10 on CBS
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FRESH from a best actor Emmy for his role in “The Sopranos,” Joe Pantoliano finds himself once again in Sopranos-like territory – mobsters, Russians and nudie bars.
Unlike “The Sopranos” however, Joey Pants isn’t a dismembering nor even dismembered wise guy. Instead, he’s FBI agent Joe Renato who trains and “handles” other FBI agents in the ways of undercover work. He trains ’em in the streets and in the mandatory strip club with pole-dancing Russians.
Every single “dark” TV show this season has pole-dancing strippers – but since the nets have to answer to a higher authority, the writhing women are always dressed – usually in bikinis. In this case they writhe around the poles in bikinis so big they look like dancing Gidgets circa 1964.
That aside, Joe trains not only other agents, but felons as well. They want you to believe the feds send junkies into really dangerous undercover situations to carry out elaborate stings. Right. They trust junkies to do this serious play-acting undercover work. Hello . . . What planet are you on? – they’re junkies . . . hello.
That aside, Joey Pants, a great actor, manages to make chicken salad out of chicken, well, er, chicken scratch.
The scripts are well written, it’s the 400 plots per episode that is wrong. This agent must be the busiest man in show business.
One minute he’s interviewing actors to play undercover. the next he’s setting up stings to catch rookies, the next he’s getting his brother out of jail, the next he’s burying his best undercover pal in a fake Russian funeral and the next he’s investigating the death of a young woman à la Chandra Levy.
Bringing up the rear are a wide-eyed rookie (Anna Belknap), a veteran fed Darnell (Hill Harper), a gorgeous transfer Heather (Lola Glaudini), and a trustworthy assistant Marcy (Tanya Wright).