TV Reviews : ‘American Chronicles’ Weightless Mood, Style

David Lynch and Mark Frost, who bring you “Twin Peaks” on ABC, could have created a conventional documentary series. But noooooo !

Their “American Chronicles” premiering at 9:30 tonight on Fox (Channels 11 and 6) is less journalism than a sort of ogling sociology expressed through clashing sights and sounds, a portrait of New Orleans at Mardi Gras that fills the screen with the electrifyingly bizarre and beautiful.

Here is a half hour in which the gorgeous and grotesque, the joyful and joyless, coexist absorbingly, interwoven with a history of Mardi Gras and its colorful traditions. Distinctively narrated by Richard Dreyfuss, it’s a ribbon of high and low society, of grand balls and street scenes, of elaborate masks and intriguing faces.

In short, this is a parade of mood and style, but one, unfortunately, that is ultimately wearisome and as weightless as the papier-mache floats that travel across the screen.

Doubly so for next week’s program that goes behind the scenes of a Miss Texas--but not too far behind the scenes--to observe an infinite landscape of long legs, perfect faces and white teeth. While diverting at first, it’s also reminiscent of a stereotypical dumb blond whose great looks don’t compensate for her shallowness.