Christopher Guest ought to ask for royalties.
That is, unless his rockin’ guitarist Nigel Tufnel is already sitting in on TV disaster movie planning meetings.
In the movie “This Is Spinal Tap,” Nigel explains to faux documentarian Marty DiBergi, played by Rob Reiner, that his amp is more powerful than those played by most blokes because his knobs don’t stop at 10.
They all go to 11.
Nigel: You’re on 10 here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you’re on 10 on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty: I don’t know.
Nigel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty: Put it up to 11.
Nigel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
So, what are we to make of the new CBS miniseries “Category 6: Day of Destruction”? It comes to us in a pair of two-hour installments – the premiere at 9 p.m. Sunday and the conclusion at 8 p.m. Wednesday.
Following in the wake of NBC’s earthquake disaster “10.5,” “Category 6” follows the trend of TV disasters that are, literally, one level worse than the worst they could be.
While it’s easy to overuse the word when it comes to these types of productions, “disaster” is more than appropriate.
Nancy McKeon, who played Jo on “The Facts of Life,” stars as frustrated TV news reporter Amy Harkin, who’s tired of doing weather stories during a heat wave in Chicago.
Sure enough, the big story falls in her lap as the region’s power grid is discovered to be vulnerable to computer hackers and a big storm is brewing – converging tornadoes from the south and north – set to plop in the middle of downtown Chicago.
Meanwhile, virtually every cliche element of desperation is squeezed into the script, which becomes a confused mess that makes a power grid look line one straight line.
The TV reporter’s brother is an Air Force pilot who has to fly into the storm on a weather reconnaissance mission, leaving his wife behind while she’s about to burst with their first child.
Mitch Benson, the chief of operations at the local public utilities company played by TV-movie maven Thomas Gibson, is coping with his rebellious teenage daughter, who wants to wear a bikini top in public and is running with the wrong crowd.
Meanwhile, he’s having an affair with Becca Kerns (Chandra West of the miniseries “The ’70s” and ABC’s “NYPD Blue”), the public relations executive from the energy company that provides his utility with electricity.
The U.S. Energy Secretary, played by Dianne Wiest, who won Oscars for “Bullets Over Broadway” and “Hannah and her Sisters,” is in the middle of all this, saying she predicted the fall of the nation’s power system.
Brian Dennehy is a crotchety old weather forecaster who’s about to be forced out by the feds. And his old friend, “Tornado Tommy,” played by Randy Quaid, is a storm chaser who provides a handful of laughs early on but eventually becomes a caricature himself.
Ultimately, the script from Matt Dorff, who brought us “The Unauthorized Story of Charlie’s Angels,” “Inside the Osmonds” and “Growing Up Brady,” uses too many devices and not enough true suspense to maintain interest.
You’re never quite sure what causes what. It just seems like one bad thing is happening after another. And even if you’re into it for the special effects, the twisters come and go so quickly they tend to be gone by the time you get near the edge of your seat.
Even in the land of TV disaster movies, on a scale of 1 to 10, I’d have to give this one a “0.5.”
Columnist Victor Balta: 425-339-3455 or vbalta@heraldnet.com.
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