TV's Titans Delivers Good Old Bad Behavior

With 40 years in show business under his belt, Aaron Spelling knows what viewers want.

Star Casper Van Dien says, "There is lots and lots of sex and drama and evilness and deceit and adultery" in the uberproducer's resurrection of primetime soap in NBC's Titans, debuting Oct. 4 at 8 p.m. ET.

The list of Titan assets goes on: "[There is] cheating, lying, stealing, killing going on," continues Van Dien. "It's kind of fun." Van Dien plays a Navy pilot, Chandler Williams, who loses ex-girlfriend Yasmine Bleeth (of Baywatch fame) to — gulp — his dad.

What else could be expected from the 77-year-old TV whiz who brought you Melrose Place, Dynasty and Beverly Hills 90210? NBC will be counting on Spelling's charms to go up against ABC's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and CBS sitcoms Bette and Welcome to New York.

Star John Barrowman describes the series thusly: "I call it a psychotic Brady Bunch, because on one side of the road lives the mother with all the girls and on the other side of the road lives the father with all the boys. They come together and have dinner every so often."

Also attending the feast of bad behavior are Melrose Place vets Perry King and Jack Wagner, as well as Dallas dame Victoria Principal.

Principal told a magazine recently that she came back to primetime melodrama only after some convincing by Spelling and NBC exec Ted Harbert. "I want [my character] to have good days and bad days, do good thing and bad things, have good hair and bad hair," she said.

But certainly Mike Brady never asked one of Greg's ex-honeys for her hand in marriage. Still, clan member Elizabeth Bogush sees some family value in this hotbed of dysfunction.

"It's good to see rich people having as many problems as everybody else," she argues.