Picks & Pans
By Jeff Jarvis

PERFECT STRANGERS

ABC (Tuesdays, 8:30 p.m. ET)

They say you can't improve on perfection.  But Perfect Strangers gets better every week.  This early tryout for next season looks familiar -- an awful lot like Mork & Mindy.  But this time, Mork's from the Mediterranean and Mindy's a man.  Bronson (Beverly Hills Cop) Pinchot plays the naive newcomer and Mark Linn-Baker is his American relation ("my fifth cousin three times removed is a step-uncle to your father on my mother's side, two continents removed").

Pinchot has no end of great ignorant-immigrant lines: "America," he sighs, "land of my dreams.  Home of the Whopper."  When he meets a pretty woman, he begs: "Let me shine your shoes with my heart," then drops to the floor and does so.  Pinchot is simply superb.  And Baker is just as good; he gives Pinchot the same dubious looks he perfected for Peter O'Toole in My Favorite Year.  If Perfect Strangers doesn't come back next fall, there is no justice or taste on TV.  Grade: A