"Nash Bridges" (CBS)

Don Johnson (TM)

By JOYCE MILLMAN

Illustration by Zach Trenholm

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No, The Way-Back Machine hasn't gotten stuck on 1985. Don Johnson is back on TV on Friday nights again, playing yet another cop with a cool car and a big gun. Oddly, though, his glib new CBS series, "Nash Bridges" (which airs in most places at 10 p.m.), seems to exist in a parallel universe where "Miami Vice" never happened.

"Nash Bridges" is a throwback to '70s character-driven action shows like "Mannix," "Barnaby Jones" and, especially, "The Rockford Files." It's light of tone and heavy on car chases (not for nothing is it filmed in San Francisco), with Johnson, as SFPD plainclothes investigator Bridges, driving the kind of '70s action show car -- a yellow 1970 Barracuda convertible with a 426 Hemi engine -- that could turn Starsky and Hutch green with envy.

Both the car and the show are the sort of vehicle tailor-made for a no longer-youthful cop show star who wants to cruise on associations of past good times. "Nash Bridges," which debuted in March after many delays, is a hit, increasing CBS' time-slot ratings by 33 percent and counting. After a string of box-office flops ("Paradise," "Born Yesterday," "Guilty as Sin"), Johnson has found career salvation -- again.

Yes, Johnson (now 46) keeps coming back from oblivion and, like Nash's two still-smitten ex-wives, viewers keep letting him in. This guy has had more second acts than Nixon. But Johnson doesn't reinvent himself so much as he just bobs along until the zeitgeist lifts him up and lets him ride a killer wave. Decades and trends come and go, but Johnson remains Johnson, all laid-back and twinkly-eyed and boy-next-door blond and vaguely dangerous. He is, apparently, a Star for All Seasons.

ACT I: A JOHNSON IS BORN

Don Johnson from Flatcreek, Missouri didn't exactly take Hollywood by storm, but his appearances in such early '70s campus faves as "The Harrad Experiment" and "A Boy and His Dog" announced him as the last of the Universal backlot James Dean wannabes. Johnson's acting style was fashionably anti-star, but his rosy lips and bedroom eyes gave him a compelling, old-fashioned star presence.

Throught the '70s and into the early '80s, sex, booze and rock 'n' roll kept Johnson's career from really taking off. Still, you couldn't call him "washed-up." He had appeared in dozens of TV movies, while his off-screen antics with first wife Melanie Griffith and paramour Patti D'Arbanville kept his name in the gossip rags. Johnson was naughtiness and wild youth personified. But, hey, this was the '70s, man.

By 1984, hard livin' had worn Johnson's silky voice to a rasp and put creases in his face. His career was pretty much not happening. Still, director Michael Mann took a chance on him for an MTV-style cop show and the rest is....well, you know.

ACT II: VICE! FREEZE!

On "Miami Vice," Johnson became an '80s icon, what Farrah Fawcett was to the '70s. In the guise of cynical Miami vice detective Sonny Crockett, Johnson started a mens' fashion revolution based on a sort of tropical desperado glamor -- stubble, linen blazers and baggies in fruit salad pastels, espadrilles with no socks. His likeness was everywhere, usually posed wide-eyed with arms straight out in front of him training a Beretta on some perp. Johnson's pretty-boy-on-the-skids looks were perfect for Sonny, who was supposed to have been through the ringer (Nam, busted marriage, booze) and back. But the union of actor and character was more than skin deep.

Crockett was TV's first anti-establishment narc, the epitome of the crazy, crossed political and cultural wires of the Reagan '80s. Drugs had gone from being a recreational badge of honor to the currency of choice for illegal political transactions. What was once hip was now square, the enemy was now the friend, right was now left. With his ill-defined rule breaker aura, Johnson made an easy leap from Hollywood hippie to outlaw with a badge. Image was everything.

And Johnson played the "Vice" image for all it was worth, gadding about South Florida, getting into professional speedboat racing, cutting an album of what can only be described as good ol' boy disco music with pals from the Eagles and the Allman Brothers. He re-married Melanie and continued his battle with substance abuse. He also made some really good investments.

ACT III: A HEAD FOR BUSINESS AND A BODY FOR SIN

At the dawn of the '90s, with "Vice" behind him, Johnson was hanging out in Aspen with Oscar nominee Melanie ("Working Girl") and making one bad movie after another. Somehow, amid all the marital turmoil and trips to Betty Ford, Johnson managed to throw in with pals Bruce Willis, Demi Moore and Arnold Schwarzenegger as principal investors in the Planet Hollywood chain of movie-themed restaurants. He also set up his own production company and got an interesting character-driven action show called "The Marshal" on ABC; it starred Jeff Fahey, a raspy-voiced ringer for Johnson himself.

Eventually, Melanie ran off with Antonio Banderas. Johnson got clean and sober (and clean-shaven), moved to Marin County north of San Francisco, and gave the following quote to TV Guide regarding "Nash Bridges": "This guy has two ex-wives and baggage from his life -- not unlike what all we baby boomers are dealing with."

Shortly after "Nash Bridges" debuted, Johnson created the NetShow Co. to develop Internet entertainment, the first offering of which is a "Nash Bridges" interactive website that is a wonder of form, content and merchandise hawking. And recently, Planet Hollywood stock went public; in a spectacular first day of trading, the price of shares skyrocketed by 49 percent. In true '90s fashion, Johnson, like Cindy Crawford, Andre Agassi and Bruce-and-Demi, exhibits an ironic po-mo take on himself as commodity. Never again will those green eyes twinkle for free.

ACT IV: WELCOME TO MY WORLD, BUBBA

With "Nash Bridges," the key to Johnson's appeal has never been more obvious. Like James Garner in "Rockford" and George Clooney in "ER," Johnson is casual and amiable, yet no pushover. Johnson makes a style out of lack of effort; he'll never get used up because he expends so little. He just is.

Which is one of the things that makes "Nash Bridges" such a strange, disorienting viewing experience. Johnson is as relaxed and winkingly self- referential here as Dean Martin. Nash calls everyone "Bubba," even though this is San Francisco, where they don't allow Bubbas inside the city limits, and even though his character bio states that Nash has been on the SFPD for 20 years, surely long enough to get de-Bubbafied. None of this makes any sense, unless you regard it as a reference to Sonny Crockett, who was Southern and used to call everybody "Pal."

Nash has a teenaged daughter whom he adores, and two ex-wives (played by Annette O'Toole and Serena Scott Thomas), with whom he's still on speaking (and sometimes kissing) terms. Nash's Major Weakness is that he doesn't understand women, but since he's an enlightened '90s male who doesn't want to offend any feminist sensibilities, he takes full responsibility for being a lousy husband. And when Nash ends up having sex on top of a desk with somebody, you can bet it's the woman who made the first move. Is Nash P.C. or what?

Nash wears really flashy threads (three-tone suit jackets with fussy stitching and whatnots on them) which look like nothing any civilian, let alone any cop, in San Francisco would be caught dead in -- another little reminder of "Vice." And his Bubba accent is always slipping into a sort of African American mode and he's really tight with the homeys in Oakland, who welcome him with open arms, and it's all very John Travolta in "Pulp Fiction."

In lieu of a pet alligator, Nash has a lovable, comical sidekick played by Cheech Marin. There's at least one knock-down fist-fight per episode. The Allman Brothers are always popping up on the soundtrack. And, oh yeah, Nash does these cute magic tricks where he cuffs suspects to tables and stuff when they're not looking.

Lest you think "Nash Bridges" is just another Action-Lite throwaway, a background note on the "Nash Bridges" Web site credits anarchic architect Lebbeus Woods with inspiring the show's arresting look. Nearly every building is in a state of disrepair/repair from earthquake damage. Nash's warehouse-loft apartment building has a big hole where the front door should be. "If you entered your home through a hole in the wall, how would that affect you?" asks the uncredited author of the Web site's architecture note. This may seem like quite a weighty conceit for such an inconsequential show, but then, this is the '90s and Johnson has discovered...

ACT V: CONNECTIVITY

As "Nash Bridges" makes clear, Don Johnson is putting his energies into pulling together The Total Package. "Nash Bridges" is a TV show, but it's also a Web site inspired by a TV show. The show is manly, yes, but romantic enough for female viewers, too. It's a cop show, but it's a comedy. It's low art, but it's arty. Nash is Southern, but urban; hokey, but cosmopolitan; horny, but tender; single, but married; white, but black. He drives a '70s car wearing '80s clothes with a '60s burnout for a sidekick through the multicultural melting pot of the '90s. Johnson is a rainbow coalition unto himself. He's the TV star as compromise politician, the celebrity as the walking embodiment of mergermania. He's more than an actor -- he's a way of life, the American success story, over and over. He's Don Johnson, Inc. And, Bubba, you can take that to the bank.