MEET THE POTHEAD NEXT DOOR

N.C. School Of The Arts Grad Mary-Louise Parker And Alexander Gould In 'weeds.'

The suburbs are full of dirty little secrets, as ABC's "Desperate
Housewives" reminds us in its ribald (for network TV, anyway) manner.
Now comes "Weeds," Showtime's cannabis-laced comedy-drama, in which
the family man mowing his lawn on the other side of your picket fence
has another type of grass in mind once he goes back inside.

Until now, cable shows such as "Six Feet Under" have only glimpsed
this secret in spark-up-a-fatty scenes played for edgy mood or easy
laughs. In "Weeds," illicit drug use makes a handy metaphor for the
moral gray areas its characters operate in.

Main character Nancy Botwin, played by N.C. School of the Arts grad
Mary-Louise Parker, is a housewife in her mid-30s with no marketable
job skills to support her two sons. After her husband unexpectedly
dies, she resorts to selling pot to her neighbors in the
cookie-cutter 'burbs of Agrestic, Calif.

Nancy is a tough, guarded, sexy, frustrated, kind-hearted woman who
struggles mightily with the consequences of every decision she makes.
Even viewers who hate what she does for a living may find themselves
rooting for her.

Tune In

"Weeds" begins its 10-episode run tonight at 11 on Showtime.

The town's dope smokers worry for obvious reasons about being exposed
in gossipy Agrestic. But they don't consider what they're doing to be wrong.

Take happy-go-smoky city councilman Doug Wilson, played by hilarious
"Saturday Night Live" alumnus Kevin Nealon. Wilson happens to be
Nancy's accountant and one of her best customers. His poker-smoker
buddy Dean Hodes (Andy Milder) is an attorney who probably strives to
kill every brain cell containing images of his horrid wife, Celia,
the image-obsessed PTA president played with scene-stealing disgust
by Elizabeth Perkins.

When she's not confronting the town's hot female tennis instructor
for sleeping with her husband (an event she has secretly taped) or
preventing her 15-year-old daughter from bedding Nancy's lovelorn
teenage son Silas, Celia projects her self-loathing on her chubby
preteen daughter, Isabelle. In one typically nasty moment, Celia
needles the girl with the nickname "Isa-belly." In another, she slips
Ex-Lax into Isabelle's hidden chocolate stash, with predictably
humiliating results.

At least Dean is a gentle and caring, if clueless, dad. There are
worse evils, it seems, than smoking pot.

"Weeds" will delight some, gravely offend others and elicit shrugs
from those who find it trying a little too hard to be naughty. But
those who stick with the show will be rewarded with gradual,
satisfying character development. Even the show's one lazily written
character, the stereotypically sassy Heylia James (Tonye Patano),
matriarch of the African-American family that supplies Nancy with
dope, gains a deeper personality as the story progresses.

"Weeds" was created by Jenji Kohan, a "Gilmore Girls" producer whose
writing credits include "Mad About You" and "Will & Grace." Her new
show contains some of the most interesting child characters seen on
TV lately. Hunter Parrish as Silas and Allie Grant as Isabelle are
excellent, and Alexander Gould turns in a remarkable performance as
Nancy's sensitive 8-year-old misfit son, Shane. His portrayal of
Shane's pain over his father's death peeks through the protective
shield of a child's overactive imagination to deliver the show's most
poignant moments.

So how will "Weeds" play in the real-life suburbs? As "Desperate
Housewives" demonstrated, risking offense does not necessarily hurt a
show's chances. Being boring does.

On that score (no pun intended), "Weeds" has nothing to worry about.