Television

By Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles

The White House is bombed, the President and Vice President killed and a deadly poisonous gas asphyxiates everyone within a several-block radius. Oh, yeah, the Russian President is assassinated, and the world's in chaos. This plausible scenario is the setup for Seven Days, a new series being created for the fledgling (and lowest rated) UPN Network. Produced by Paramount Television (which owns UPN) at a cost of more than $4 million, Seven Days' pilot is reputedly the most expensive produced for the new season, twice as pricey as most others. Where's the moolah going? Into the special effects, from computer-generated images of the White House exploding (again) and the bombing of the Speaker's limousine to the design and building of a huge 24-ft.-high, 45-ft.-wide sphere for time travel. The show stars Jonathan LaPaglia, once a real-life emergency-room doctor who turned in his stethoscope for show biz, as Frank Parker, a former CIA renegade who's drafted into Operation Back-Step, a time-travel mission that goes back seven days to undo damage wrought by the attack, bring the President back to life and save the world. If that's too much, there's always another UPN series--The Love Boat.

--By Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles