Buffy The Vampire Slayer

THE TV COLUMN : Searcy on In Plain Sight - the rest of the story

A couple of weeks ago in the paper’s TV Week Sunday listings guide, I reminded viewers of the return of In Plain Sight.

That’s the USA Network’s innovative cop drama about the federal witness protection program. It stars Mary McCormack

(The West Wing, Murder One)

as U.S. Marshal Mary Shannon. She’s a hard-working, emotional woman with wacky family issues, an interesting partner and cases that have satisfying twists and turns for the viewer.

The first episode of the second season kicked off in Searcy. Yes, our Searcy, where a motelowning family was leaving its closed business only to be forced to stay open one more night by a motorcycle gang.

Bad stuff happened, folks died, and the family had to be secretly relocated to New Mexico.

But why Searcy? Of all the towns across the land, why did the show’s producers and/or writers pick Searcy? Surely they just didn’t toss a dart at a map.

I remembered I had the same sort of question when Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon picked the Razorbacks as the Sunnydale High School team mascot. Unlike lions, tigers and bears, Razorbacks is an uncommon team name. Did the New York native have some mysterious Arkansas connection?

That was a memorable episode. The principal also got eaten, but not by Xander.

I suppose eating the mascot wouldn’t have worked had it been Muleriders or Wampus Cats or Grizzlies or something not so edible.

The point is when a place such as Searcy is mentioned, there’s usually a reason. Somebody on the series staff is from the town or went to school there or knows someone there - something.

I was unable to find out the Searcy connection in time for the TV Week cover story, so here’s the scoop now. The explanatory e-mail comes from David Maples, the creator, executive producer and writer of In Plain Sight.

"I picked Searcy as a sort of tribute to my father-in-law, James Atkinson, who passed away last year. Jim taught English lit and was dean of students at Harding College from approximately 1955 to 1962.

"He was a brilliant, kind, quick-witted man who left a lasting impression on the thousands of lives he touched. Perhaps some of your readers remember him. He was hard to forget.

"All the best,

"David Maples

"P.S. - His youngest daughter, Holly, plays Eleanor, In Plain Sight’s newest cast member. She and I have been married for 12 years."

There you have it, Arkansas. The state connection that explains why Searcy kicked off season 2.

Holly Maples will be a recurring character as Eleanor Prince. Eleanor promises to be a pistol.

A USA publicist describes the character as "smart, efficient and recently widowed. She’s the new WITSEC [Witness Security Program] office administrative assistant who doesn’t take ’no’ for an answer or let anything or anyone ruffle her feathers."

Viewers’ first sight of Eleanor was when she was rearranging the office desks without asking anybody. She’s "a type-A personality and her hyper-efficiency clashes with Mary’s stubbornness but earns the affection of others in the office."

In Plain Sight airs at 9 p.m. today on USA.

Where’s Kings? I’ve gotten several e-mails from baffled readers who wondered what NBC has done with Kings. The midseason drama debuted on Sunday, March 15. Then, after four episodes, the network shuffled it off to the black hole of Saturday where it aired only once.

Now, NBC has quietly put the series on the shelf for the duration of the critical May sweeps, promising to return the show in June. There are eight episodes left and experience tells me that unless Kings does amazingly this summer, that’s the last we’ll hear of it.

The bottom line: The networks are again training viewers not to invest time with any new series. If they jerk the shows around the schedule and then pull them unceremoniously off the air, why should we bother watching?