NOT 'NORMAL,'... JUST BRUTAL.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

Even the title ``Brutally Normal'' tells you just how hard this sitcom is trying. This offers yet another look at yet another set of disaffected teen-agers and their misadventures at a place named, with painstaking pointedness, Normall High School, where simply gaining acceptance from one's peers is a triumph of immeasurable magnitude - so, naturally, it doesn't occur all that often.

Our heroes this time include Russell (Eddie Kay Thomas of ``American Pie''), who fancies himself something of a ladies man even though he's still a virgin. Anna (Lea Moreno), a smart, decent and wholly anguished girl - think Lindsay on ``Freaks and Geeks,'' though this show comes nowhere near the wit or realism of that series. And there's Robert, or ``Pooh'' (Mike Damus), the ostensible comic relief. As in ``Dawson's Creek,'' Russell and Anna would make a cute couple, though they haven't quite figured that out yet despite a fumbled attempt at making out.

Though tonight's pilot wasn't made available for review by press time, future episodes are centered around Anna's efforts to rescue teachers' reputations besmirched by Russell's antics. In one episode, Russell pretends he has had a relationship with an attractive young substitute teacher and produces a potentially incriminating photo; Anna must submit to a date with the unctuous yearbook editor to keep that and other embarrassing pictures from seeing print. (Don't all high-school yearbooks have faculty advisers who oversee photo selection - and then wouldn't all this be a moot point?)

In another, a bold First Amendment declaration - that is, Russell moons his civics class - devolves into a muddy-minded standoff finding our buttock-baring buddy locked, through wholly convoluted means, in the principal's office. Again, Anna, who fears her favorite teacher will be blamed for Russell's misbehavior, must save the day.''

``Brutally Normal'' follows the template for one-camera comedies like ``Ally McBeal'' and interjects fantasy vignettes amid the ``reality'' - Russell imagines a tryst with an older woman turning into a scene from ``The Graduate,'' and a counselor lectures him wearing a dominatrix outfit. You get the idea. With each series that co-opts that idea, it becomes exponentially more blatantly obvious; here, it's a little something worked up for viewers who aren't hip to the concept of subtext. Maybe the series' creators can work up a fantasy sequence in which the show is besieged by rabid fans.

THE FACTS

--The show: ``Brutally Normal.''

--What: Comedy about teen angst at a high school.

--The stars: Mike Damus, Lea Moreno, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Tangie Ambros.

--Where: WB.

--When: 9 tonight.

--Our rating: Two stars.

CAPTION(S):

photo, box

Photo: Tangie Ambrose, clockwise from left, Mike Damus, Eddie Kaye Thomas and Lea Moreno star in ``Brutally Normal.''

Box: THE FACTS (see text)