Gone Too Far

Putting the “diss” into dysfunctional, this fifth update in the Winters’ View Park series (A Price to Pay, etc.) about the Chases, a black dynasty in California, is as soapy as an episode of Dallas. The Chase Beauty empire has kept the bank accounts of America’s most powerful black family healthy while Steven and Janet’s sons, Carter and Michael, continue to woo their estranged exes. Avery, Carter’s ex-wife, has married Anthony Harper, who uses his disability (although he really can walk) to keep her from returning to Carter, who Avery still loves. Michael wants Kimberly back, although his family still doesn’t know about her reckless hooker youth, but the sudden illness of their son, Evan, brings the family together, while youngest Chase sibling, Haley, married to Aussie bad boy Peter Hargrove, just continues to annoy. Luckily, Winter scores with Dr. Leigh Chase, the nicest Chase heir, who runs Hope Clinic for HIV/AIDS patients and whose involvement with black Republican Sen. Max Cody gives this sagging series a major facelift. (June)