Forgiveness? Fuhgettaboutit!

Theresa and Bernell looked like they would rather be any place but where they were. Their friend Candee had gotten some people together to help her confront the pair about their drinking and to persuade them to get help.

Now, it's not unusual for friends to get together to confront someone about their drinking problem. But in this case, "some people" refers to a studio audience, not to mention several million television viewers: the venue for this attempt at intervention and possible reconciliation was the syndicated show "Forgive or Forget," with hostess Robin Givens.

Television isn't the usual venue for fostering forgiveness and reconciliation, and for good reason. For one thing, on television everything has to be resolved in either 22 or 44 minutes. (We must not forget television's raison d'etre: commercials.) While prime-time dramas can get away with "to be continued . . ." day-time talk shows can't.

And even if 44 minutes were enough to help guests, as Givens, puts it "find answers and a sense of peace," you still have to leave time for television's other prime directive: entertainment. And, in shows like "Forgive or Forget," entertainment equals conflict. In the installment entitled "Underage Drinkers," Candee sat alone on stage, while her friends were seated backstage, linked to Candee and the audience via video. If Candee and her friends could come to an agreement, Bernell and Theresa would step through a door onto the stage - a symbol of reconciliation.

It didn't take long for the scene to erupt into the kind of antics that we've come to associate with Jerry Springer. Theresa immediately accused Candee of hypocrisy, insisting that Candee was the one with the drinking problem. It took less than five minutes for the first bit of profanity to be covered over with a bleep.

Candee and company weren't the only ones getting into the action. The audience whooped and hollered its approval every time one of the "guests" landed the verbal equivalent of a scoring blow. At this point, the seating arrangements made practical sense.

The most telling exchange came when Theresa told the audience the she hadn't had a drink in six weeks. Candee shot back that Theresa wasn't drinking because she was pregnant. The look on Theresa's face said something like "I haven't told my parents and you went and announced it on national television, bleep!"

Which leaves the question: If Theresa isn't drinking and Candee knows it, what are we doing here? Nothing that left any of the participants with an enhanced sense of peace, that's for sure. It wasn't a surprise when Theresa and Bernell declined Candee's terms for preserving the relationship--this segment fell into the "forget it" category.

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