Unlearning Its Own Lessons

By Richard Zoglin

SHOW: GHOSTWRITER

TIME: SUNDAYS, 6 P.M. MOST STATIONS, PBS

THE BOTTOM LINE: The Children's Television Workshop tackles illiteracy in a new series, but forgets how to entertain.

In the vast, often murky sea of kids' programming, the Children's Television Workshop has always been a beacon. From Sesame Street, the groundbreaking preschool show, through 3-2-1 Contact (focusing on science) and Square One TV (math), CTW has struck an almost ideal balance between education and entertainment. Its shows are savvy in the ways of television, imaginative, full of life. Above all, they respect young viewers' intelligence even while trying to teach them a thing or two.

Ghostwriter, the Workshop's newest offering, is trumpeted as its most ambitious effort since Sesame Street made its debut more than 20 years ago. A half-hour mystery-adventure series whose goal is to promote literacy among grade-school children, the show is part of a wide-ranging educational effort that includes a magazine, paperback books, teachers' guides and even Ghostwriter pens and T shirts. Who can quarrel with such a worthy aim? But who, alas, will believe this amateurish series comes from the same people who gave us Big Bird and Mathnet?

The program wins high marks for the concept. Strange written messages begin appearing on the computer screens and notebooks of a group of school friends. The messages emanate from an unseen supernatural being who communicates only in writing and helps the kids solve mysteries (in the first few episodes, a wave of backpack thefts by a cult of school-yard video-game enthusiasts). Forcing the junior detectives to read and write -- and perform other word tasks, like deciphering anagrams -- in order to solve mysteries is an ingenious way of getting young viewers to treat reading as something other than a chore.

The chore is sitting through the show. Despite some rudimentary special effects (animated letters rearranging themselves on a page; wisps of light traveling around the room), Ghostwriter seems to have unlearned nearly all the lessons that CTW has taught us about using TV to grab kids' attention. The stories unfold with painful slowness, and the breezy humor of first-rate CTW fare like Square One TV is strangely absent. Though aimed at seven- to 10- year-olds, the show seems too dull-witted and elementary. Looking for clues to the ghostwriter's identity, the kids try to analyze one of his early messages: "Help! Help! Where are the children? Are they all right?" "He sounds scared," muses one sleuth, "and worried about children."

It's good that someone is worried about children. But maybe it's the Children's Television Workshop that needs looking after.