TRAVELS ON THE DARK SIDE

Like the illegal movement of drugs, people and weapons on which it is
based, the "Traffic" franchise seems unstoppable. First came
"Traffik," the superb 1989 British-made miniseries, which was set in
Pakistan, Germany and the U.K. That spawned the 2000 feature film
"Traffic," which shifted the focus to Mexico and the U.S. Now comes
"Traffic," the miniseries "event," which will air on the USA cable
channel from 9-11 p.m. EST on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
Unlike its predecessor, it has an entirely new plot, fresh from the
wilds of Afghanistan and the criminal underbelly of Seattle.

Reviewers who give away too much about a program can ruin the fun for
audiences. In this case, however, there are so many storylines and
characters to keep track of from almost the first moment that some
gentle untangling may actually enhance viewing pleasure. The central
thread of this "Traffic" is Drug Enforcement Administration agent Mike
McKay (Elias Koteas) who spends most of the series in today's
Afghanistan, where U.S. Special Forces are mopping up Taliban and al
Qaeda remnants, and the DEA is looking for locals involved in the
heroin trade that begins in Afghan poppy fields and ends in the veins
of Westerners. Hanging in the air over all this is the question of
whether the lawman may have gone over to the dark side. Meanwhile,
back home in Seattle are McKay's lonely wife Carole (Mary McCormack)
and an even lonelier son.

Elias Koteas plays a DEA agent in 'Traffic,' starting Monday on
USA.

Before we see much of this, however, other threads emerge. A dead
body has been found in the waters off Seattle, and the story of how
and why it got there comes to haunt virtually every person in the
series. One of them is a distraught Chechen immigrant, Adam Kadyrov
(Cliff Curtis), who has been waiting for his smuggled wife and child
to arrive on a tanker and who decides, when he cannot find them, to go
after the criminals responsible for their disappearance. Another
hauntee is Ben Edmonds (Balthazar Getty) who does a deal with the
devil, personified by the Chinese Triad boss, Ronny Cho (Nelson Lee).
When Ben's family garment business can't make money importing legal
substances, he lets Ronny slip other things in with the textiles,
including heroin, human beings, and maybe even the biological weapons
that terrorists have pointed at the U.S.

It takes some concentration, especially at first, to keep track of all
this. The camera moves around in scenes like a fly on the wall,
zooming in for a second on somebody who seems to be saying something
interesting... and then suddenly we're no longer in a Seattle living
room, but in a Kabul bazaar. You just have to relax and let it happen,
knowing that at some point all the separate bits will begin to make
some sense. Perhaps not to everyone: Why, for instance, when there are
so many Afghans living abroad and available for screen work, do
virtually all shows rely on rent-a-ethnics who look nothing like real
Afghans, and why do producers never bother to get the turbans looking
right?

Such quibbles aside, "Traffic" is an engaging six hours (or closer to
four if you take out the ads), and people who watch the first
installment on Monday probably will be very eager to find out what
happens on the next two nights. If that's not enough, consider that
many of the mysteries here never are fully solved, raising the
question: Can "Traffic," the new weekly TV series, be far behind?

* * * This month, NBC launched a "reality show" it called
"groundbreaking," presumably because it is the first one to feature
Donald Trump. "The Apprentice," (Wed., from 8-9 p.m.) started out with
16 eager-beaver contestants, divided into two all-male and all-female
teams. Each week, Mr. Trump gives them a business-related task and at
the end of the show he tells one member of the losing team, "You're
fired!" At the end of Episode 3 last week, Mr. Trump also said, "I may
never hire a man again," because the women have been beating the pants
off the men.

First, the charming ladies sold more lemonade on the street. The next
week, they designed a more exciting ad campaign for a corporate-jet
credit card -- explicitly emphasizing the "phallic" nature of the
planes while the men did a tasteful campaign based on card
convenience. This week, the teams were given a list of items to buy
and judged on how low a price they were able to negotiate from New
York merchants. The ability to rest their assets on counters clearly
gave the women an edge, and they won again.

Next week, the contest revolves around the Planet Hollywood restaurant
at Times Square. Each team is given one night to exceed the profits
from the same night the year before. Who wins? Let's just say that it
partly boils down to a contest between babes with booze and men
selling what may be a photo op with an NBA basketball star.

Can aspiring moguls learn something from this show, which is supposed
to end with one man, or woman, getting a job as president of a Trump
company? While there are some scraps of information about leadership
here, so far the main message is that Sex Sells. But you already knew
that.

"Shelter Dogs," a documentary on HBO Tuesday from 7:30-8:45 p.m., is
not an easy thing to watch. Seeing ownerless dogs in pens is always
heartbreaking, though the people at Rondout Valley Kennels in Accord,
N.Y., find homes for many of the ones surrendered to their tender
care. But the shelter's dog-loving owner, Sue Sternberg, believes that
animal rights include the right not to spend a life going crazy behind
bars. While other shelters have raised lots of money by advertizing a
"no kill" policy, Ms. Sternberg believes that euthanasia can be the
most humane policy when a dog is unadoptable, often because its
aggressive tendencies make it unsafe as a human companion.