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Could you live with Ed?

HGTV 's new show stars environmentalist - a tor Ed Begley Jr. and his nonenvironmentalist wife. When he's seeing green, she's seeing red.

By JUDY STARK
Published January 13, 2007

There's actor Ed Begley Jr., doing everything he can to save the planet. Powering his house with solar panels. Driving an electric car or riding a bike. Using compact fluorescent lightbulbs.

And where's his wife, actor Rachelle Carson? Pouting. Pitching a full-fledged tantrum when Ed wants to install a cistern in the back yard to recycle rainwater. Whining that she doesn't like the appearance of those compact fluorescents. Complaining, "I never thought I could live this way."

Committed environmentalist vs. unconverted hedonist: That's the premise of the new reality show Living With Ed, on HGTV Sunday nights at 10.

It's a classic he said, she said. Begley, a longtime environmentalist, stands up for truth, justice and the American way. He even sells his own eco-friendly household cleaner at a health foods store, all profits to charity. Begley starred in St. Elsewhere, Six Feet Under, Arrested Development and other hits on the large and small screens.

Carson, meanwhile, rolls her eyes, calling his backyard solar oven "the bane of my existence" and describing the scraggly vegetable garden as "anything but Eden." (She's a stage, screen and TV actor herself.)

We may have to call in Al Gore for a screening of his film on the threat of global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, to act as referee.

It's fun to watch the two of them going at it, but the joke may wear thin over the life of this series, described as an "unscripted docu-soap." Didn't Rachelle know before she got married that Ed was Mr. Green? Didn't he know she'd like to tear down their circa-1936 two-bedroom home in unstylish Studio City (with, it must be said in her defense, an unworkable kitchen) and build something grander? Do these people talk to each other?

Apparently not. Anyway, Ed is glad to demonstrate how he rides his stationary bike to power a battery that provides electric current to make his toast in the morning. Or to show how to scrub the smog off his solar panels. Rachelle has to be reminded - apparently not for the first time (roll eyes here) - to put yesterday's newspaper in the recycling pile, not the trash.

When Ed tries to install a bright orange cistern in the back yard to catch rainwater, Rachelle pitches that fit and announces, "Either it goes or I go." Word of advice to Rachelle: Beware of empty threats.

In the first two episodes, shown back-to-back on Jan. 7, Rachelle comes off as a pouty spoiler who doesn't get the importance of green living or understand how each person's small changes can make a difference. Ed looks like Mr. Over-the-Top: How realistic is it that we'll all install solar panels, or pedal our way to toasted pumpernickel every morning?

Living With Ed will be possible for Rachelle and for us only if the show can persuade us that energy efficiency requires less of a sacrifice than we thought and that living green really can be mainstream.

REVIEW

Living With Ed

- Watch the series Sundays at 10 p.m. on HGTV.

- Ed Begley Jr.'s tips on living green are posted at www.hgtv.com/green.

[Last modified January 12, 2007, 09:28:05]