Viewpoints

By Gerald Clarke

BRIDGET LOVES BERNIE. CBS. Saturday, 8:30-9 p.m. E.D.T.

On paper, this formula-ridden show has everything against it. A poor Jew named Bernie Steinberg (David Birney) marries a rich Irish Catholic named Bridget Fitzgerald (Meredith Baxter), while the four meddlesome in-laws, instead of cutting into the wedding cake, cut into each other. Surprisingly, the formula works, and Bridget Loves Bernie, whose ethnic humor descends from Abie's Irish Rose (the long-running comedy of the '20s) down through All in the Family, is one of the brighter comedy spots of the new season.

The secret is in the fast pace and uniformly good acting -- a rarity on TV -- rather than the sometimes tired scripts. The Jewish mother is now a walking cliche, but Bibi Osterwald makes palatable even the thousandth serving of chicken soup. Audra Lindley is just as good as Bridget's mother, an Upper East Side Edith Bunker who sweetly tells her husband that Bridget could not have eloped since she had not yet picked out her silver pattern.

Since all the jokes are basically one joke, however, the same question applies to the series as to Bridget's and Bernie's marriage: how long before numbness sets in?

SEARCH. NBC. Wednesday, 10-11 p.m. E.D.T.

Through an apparent computer foul-up at NBC, this series, obviously intended to go with the cartoons on Saturday morning, is wasting an hour of prime evening viewing time. The story line, which appears to be stolen from rejected Man from U.N.C.L.E. scripts, follows the adventures of various agents of "Probe," an organization that saves the good people of the world from the bad people. Hugh O'Brian, who is supposed to be a former astronaut, stars as the agent in half the episodes, while Tony Franciosa, an ex-detective, and Doug McClure, an overweight, overage beachboy, split the rest.

Each agent is connected with Probe Control by a little TV set hidden in a ring or neck pendant, a microphone placed in his teeth and a receiver in his ear--everything indeed but a Captain Midnight magic decoder. Luckily enough, the bad guys never seem to notice when the agent starts chattering to himself or cocks his head to listen to Control Director Burgess Meredith, who still seems to quack the way he did when he played the Penguin on the old Batman series.

BANYON. NBC. Friday, 10-11 p.m. E.D.T.

Set in 1937, this series is a rip-off of the nostalgia craze. Banyon (Robert

Forster) is a $20-a-day Hollywood private eye who wears a vest, a trench coat and a Bogart mask of cynicism. "I hope you'll pardon the way I look. I just threw something on," a pretty suspect (Jessica Walter) tells him when he rings her doorbell. "You almost missed," retorts Banyon, in a line that dates from considerably earlier than 1937.

A fleet of vintage cars, old houses and cute hints in the dialogue ("You don't want to start World War II, do you?") are supposed to provide period authenticity. Only '30s Star Joan Blondell really does, in a too-brief cameo as Banyon's matronly chum. But even here the show blows its own cover. Forster finds Blondell huddled over her wooden radio, tearfully listening to the abdication speech of Edward VIII. It is a neat trick. Edward abdicated a year before the series is supposed to take place.

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