Heche's 'Men in Trees' has a familiar ring
``And starring Anne Heche as a love coach."
It sounds like the punch line for a joke, or the ironic casting choice for the next John Waters movie. After all, Heche has made no secret of her romantic follies and her boxing match with sanity, detailed in her autobiography, ``Call Me Crazy." Her dalliance with the gossip press has threatened to doom her to pop cultural ridiculousness -- a stint on ``The Surreal Life," say, or a phone career as Celestia, professional daughter of God, half-sister to Jesus, and ghost whisperer.
But while she's not the box office hit she promised to become in the 1990s, Heche has managed to keep her acting life relatively safe, with notable TV work on ``Everwood" and ``Nip/Tuck." And tonight at 10 on Channel 5, she takes top billing as a love coach in a dramedy called ``Men in Trees" that's not the joke it could be. The ABC show, which moves to its regular time slot on Friday night, serves as a nice reminder of Heche's potential as a screwball romantic lead. When tamed, her instability can make her into an appealing live wire in the battle of the sexes.
But while it shows Heche at an advantage, the series itself is, to tap into the script's car-driving metaphors, just a rusty old vehicle. Heche plays New York relationship expert Marin Frist, a darling of the self-help lecture circuit and the author of successful books such as ``I'm Dating . . . And So Can You." When she accidentally leaves for a lecture in Alaska carrying her fiance's computer, she discovers that he's a two-timing creep, and that she's failed in love despite all her know-it-all advice to other women.
She's a bit like dating columnist Carrie Bradshaw of ``Sex and the City" -- not surprisingly, since ``Men in Trees" is created by one of that show's producer-writers, Jenny Bicks. But Marin is more brittle and arrogant than Carrie, and her comedown is harder.
Marin is having her identity crisis in Elmo, Alaska, where there are 10 men for every woman. Since there would be no show otherwise, she impulsively decides to stay indefinitely to study the opposite sex. And it is Elmo that keeps ``Men in Trees" from becoming something I'd want to watch more than once. Bicks borrows much too heavily from ``Northern Exposure" for the rural setting, so that Elmo is little more than yet another quaint, quirky, and cutesy TV town. It's not quite as sitcomy as ``Newhart," but it's close.
The too-familiar natives are as cuddly as stuffed teddy bears -- you know, wiser and warmer than you'd expect given their gruff exteriors. Bartender Ben is especially bear-like, since he's played by the tall Abraham Benrubi, formerly of ``ER." John Amos is Buzz the grumpy pilot, and Derek Richardson is the local DJ who idolizes Marin and recites portions of her books to her. And then, of course, there is the hunky nature lover, Jack, who will inevitably become Marin's romantic interest since they hate each other at first sight. He's played by James Tupper, whose flannel vibe here is not unlike that of John Corbett, who -- get this -- appeared on both ``Northern Exposure" and ``Sex and the City."
The script makes its predictable attempts to milk humor from Marin's city girl having to go without soy lattes and spinning classes. And Marin has slapstick battle with a raccoon hiding in her closet at the local inn. Will Flannel Jack save her from Rocky? Bet on it.
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. 