Ed Bark

'Rollergirls' and 'Dallas SWAT' put some punch in the A&E lineup

12:20 PM CST on Sunday, January 1, 2006

By ED BARK / The Dallas Morning News

Purveying producers agree: Texas is one big reality show "green room."

The New Year immediately brings another two entries, both courtesy of the A&E cable network.

Rollergirls, originating from Austin and premiering Thursday, is hot, sexy and crass enough to become a big destination show for young males. Its cavalcade of combative women, with names ranging from Punky Bruiser to Gunsmoka La Loca, could break Jessica Simpson in half by merely belching at her. Austin-based Action Figure productions, in league with Laguna Beach creator Gary Auerbach, have fashioned a gaudy guilty pleasure reminiscent of Pinocchio's taboo trip to Pleasure Island. Frankly, he had a pretty good time until Stromboli put him in that bird cage.

Dallas SWAT, which starts Tuesday, isn't nearly as vivid or engaging, even if A&E press materials breathlessly bill it as a "relentlessly heart-pumping, real-life show that brings viewers into the enormously high pressure day-to-day existence" of its heroic crimefighters.

The first of six scheduled one-hour episodes features the exploits of corporals Rich Emberlin and Robert Cockerill. Through no apparent fault of his own, the divorced Mr. Emberlin is touted as the show's "HottieSWATie."

Meanwhile, the older Mr. Cockerill, 43, has a jones for Las Vegas' "World SWAT Games." He's determined to lead the Dallas team to victory over the reigning champs from San Antonio despite a stress fracture in his foot and the drawbacks of advancing age.

Lucky him, though. While Mr. Cockerill gamely navigates obstacle courses, his HottieSWATie partner is enduring a performance of Swan Lake at Fort Worth's Bass Hall with his on-and-off girlfriend, Jeannene.

This is all portrayed as a pivotal test of their relationship, with Mr. Emberlin also manfully enduring a pre-ballet dinner with a bunch of cultured swells. Nearly everything in Dallas SWAT, including the team's crime scene bust-ins, seems forced or contrived. Generic chain saw rock and ramped-up rhetoric ("Anytime the city has a problem, we're the solution to that problem. Period.") are meant to quicken the pulse but instead mostly deaden the senses.

Dallas, branded by A&E as "a city with one of the nation's highest crime rates," comes off as a drab-looking shack full of lowlifes who are "presumed innocent until proven guilty" in tacked-on, printed disclaimers.

The SWAT officers on display are relative innocents in the manipulative world of reality TV. It can all be very alluring when the cameras are rolling, but oftentimes embarrassing when the finished product comes calling. All concerned are advised to just laugh off Dallas SWAT and move on with their important duties. It probably will all be over after A&E airs the six episodes it ordered. But among them are the "Hotties From SWATie Calendar" show scheduled for Jan. 26. So brace yourselves, guys.

A&E has a better, bigger investment in Rollergirls, which is scheduled to run for 13 episodes and looks like a good bet for renewal.

Each one-hour episode builds to a climactic "bout" in the Thunderdome between teams from Austin's Lonestar Rollergirls league. Monday's opener pits the Rhinestone Cowgirls, powered by the formidable Lux, against Putas Del Fuego and its highly touted rookie skater. Her last name is Envy and her five-letter first name begins with a V but isn't spelled quite the same as the famed planet. Subtlety isn't Rollergirls' strong suit, but then you already knew that.

Lux, who otherwise works at a hospital, is a raw-spoken, grinning cobra who's both the envy and the enemy of Ms. Envy.

"I'll knock you on your [rear], and I'll skate away smiling," she tells the impressed kid, who hopes to make her visiting mom proud.

The ring-wise Cowgirls train for the bout by egging the car of the Puta team's Chola and toilet-papering the yard of Cha Cha, another Puta. Then it's time for some drinking and dancing at the Broken Spoke bar, where an underwear-less Cowgirl known as Witch Baby can't keep her dress from flying up. A little digital dressing solves that problem while also foreshadowing the "Unrated" DVD that's sure to come.

Rollergirls also deploys a cartoonish play-by-play team for the Thunderdome action, which essentially is a choreographed wrestling match on wheels. Bouts always seem to be tied until the very last "jam." Funny how that works.

Lux proves to be the first episode's deluxe character, whether intimidating opponents or waking up the next morning feeling "like I got hit by a train." An aging cancer survivor known as Catalac takes center stage in Episode 2. Her Hellcats team is a decided underdog to last season's undefeated champs, the Holy Rollers.

"We're clad in plaid. We're so [expletive] bad," a Holy Roller named Smarty Pants sings to the great amusement of her teammates.

The language is recurringly raw, as are the ribald combatants. Not that these are liabilities. Rollergirls aims no higher than ground-level entertainment. In that realm, it sells sex, action and soapy, dopey storylines with a flair and even a substance that eludes the makers of Dallas SWAT.

Rollergirls
9 p.m. Monday, A&E
Starring: Competitors from the Austin-based Lonestar Rollergirls league
Produced by: Action Figure Productions and Gary Auerbach
Running time: 1 hr.
Grade: B-

Dallas SWAT
9 p.m. Thursday, A&E
Starring: Members of the Dallas SWAT team
Produced by: Granada America
Running time: 1 hr.
Grade: C-

E-mail ebark@dallasnews.com