Jeremy Piven

Against my better judgment of the ludicrous premise that is at the heart of "Cupid," I was smitten as if the diapered god himself had shot me through the heart.

"Cupid"'s plot is this: Cupid, a.k.a. Trevor Hale, has been exiled from Mt. Olympus for bad behavior. In order to return home, he must unite no fewer than 100 couples in true love. He must do this sans bow and arrow, i.e. sans magic. Sounds almost as crazy as a teenager who kills vampires in order to save the world, doesn't it?

Jeremy Piven ("Ellen," "The Larry Sanders Show") stars as the sarcastic Cupid who complains incessantly about how much Earth sucks (and how much Olympus rules) and is on a personal mission to kill the nasty rumor floating around Earth that Cupid was married to Psyche. Uh-uh. Never happened. No matter what the books say. And that silly little diaper he wears on all of the Valentine's Day propaganda? Completely inaccurate.

Courtesy of ABC, Inc. Jeremy Piven stars as "Cupid" tomorrow on ABC. After being freed from the loony bin in the first half of the pilot, Cupid gets a job as a bartender - or is that matchmaker? - and spends time creating havoc at the singles' meetings run by his shrink, Dr. Claire Allen (Paula Marshall). Typical Cupid advice: "Treadmill. Clearasil. Happy pill."

Claire does not take well to being upstaged at her own group but is ultimately unable to give Cupid the boot, perhaps because she sees him as the basis for her next book, "The Search for Cupid." She also questions Cupid's endless array of pop culture references. "Cable?" she asks. "Omniscience," Cupid replies.

The pilot episode also features Cupid's first attempt at bringing two lonely people together; whether or not he succeeds is another story entirely. It looks as if the show is set to have guest stars each week as fodder for Cupid's matchmaking skills, a device that is not only smart but could potentially bring in viewers who are fans of a particular guest.

Finally given a chance to hold his own in a show after playing support to countless other stars, Piven stands out as the heart and soul of "Cupid." He smirks his way through the role as if dealing with knaves who don't understand him. It's impossible not to like him with his vaguely Clooney-esque smirk and endless patience with us mere mortals.

Marshall is a little weaker, although that may just be the impression she gives as the straight girl to Piven's sarcasm-wielding Cupid. Her Claire is, if not a man-hater, at the very least a dream-hater who prefers to shatter the fantasies of her singles' group members rather than let them believe that relationships based on true love actually can exist.

All of this is to say that just because a TV show sounds insanely stupid doesn't mean that it is. "Cupid" is actually well-written, well-acted, and well-produced. ABC's placement of the show in the Saturday night death knell is not only typical of the cowardly network's inability to support worthwhile, quirky shows, but gruesomely unfair.

This basically means that "Cupid" will die a critically acclaimed death sometime in the next few months after the ABC execs jerk the show around as they have done with "My So-Called Life" and "Relativity," to name a few.

It shouldn't be this way. If you can't stay home on Saturday nights, tape it. If you can't tape it, write ABC a nasty letter. "Cupid" is far too good to be insulted like this while ABC fills their weekday primetime schedule with more and more iterations of "20/20." It just isn't right.