MEN IN TREES

The series title, "Men in Trees," is justified by a sign warning about men overhead working in the trees. (Hint, hint: In Alaska, Men:Women as 10:1, as they'd say in the SAT. That is, so many men, it's like they grow in trees.)

OK, so there's a young woman who writes books telling young women how to behave to get men and she discovers on the way to a talk in Alaska that, surprise, surprise, her fiance is having an affair. She's in Alaska, now, and she can breathe there. She meets this guy who's hunky, knows everything about Alaska, turns up whenever she has a problem and surprise, surprise (this is a set-up for a TV series, after all) he does not try to have sex with her.

So, surprise, surprise, she decides to stay in Alaska. (NOTE: She decides to stay; it is not, as the official web page put it, that "she finds herself stuck in a small Alaskan town..." )

The writing is uneven; some of it is good and funny, some of it, like the premise, is hackneyed and false. There's a lot of fish out of water type humor, as in -- Why is everybody running away? That's such a cute black and white pussy cat. Why is it raising it's tail? And of course the men have never even heard of a soy milk iced mocha latte.

The basic premise seems like a gender reversed Ed, with Anne Heche playing the Ed part. Except that Alaska is a more interesting location than a bowling alley.

When the voice-overs started, I thought that every woman-centered relationship movie & TV show is now doing the Sex & The City thing. But in this case it turns out the show is actually a direct descendent. (As the official site puts it, it's From one of the headwriters and executive producers of "Sex & the City". )

All in all, though, despite the problems, the show has a certain charm, and there's enough good writing to hope that the best writing will surface and dominate, and the show will improve to become an interesting and pleasant diversion.

It's headed for a Friday evening slot on ABC.