Rick Roberts: Is He The Next TV Hunk?

Whither the prime-time TV hunk?

Or "hottie" if you're young enough not to remember Erik Estrada.

Whatever the terminology, we're ruling out ex-throbs such as Kirk Cameron, Joey Lawrence and Jonathan Brandis. Current fave raves Joshua Jackson and James Van Der Beek of "Dawson's Creek" aren't eligible, either. Simply put, hunk-appeal has to extend well beyond the covers of Tiger Beat or Seventeen magazine. Hey, I don't make the rules. Well, actually in this case, I did. And it says here that 100-proof pretty boys are in shorter supply these days.

George Clooney ("ER") and Kevin Sorbo ("Hercules") are still hunks in good standing, but they can't be expected to hold the fort forever. Is there a new face out there ready to step in and flex his widespread sex appeal?

In this view there's at least one. His name is Rick Roberts, a soft-spoken Canadian who is co-starring in the new CBS series "L.A. Doctors" on Mondays.

Maybe a reasonably mature TV critic should know better than to play such hunches. But why waste a genuine gut feeling? This guy's going to put a lot of hearts in pitter-pat mode. And if it turns out he doesn't, so what? It won't cause a stock market crash.

Hunkdom 101 is in session

Before further introducing Roberts, let's take a brief course in Hunkdom 101, brought to you by androstenedione, the new breakfast of champions.

The prototypical hunk for all TV seasons is Tom Selleck, who was 35 when "Magnum, P.I." first hit CBS in 1980. Talk about your all-beef patties. Few have approached Selleck before or since. Don Johnson ("Miami Vice") and his designer stubble rocked the house, though. Jimmy Smits of "L.A. Law" and later, "NYPD Blue," made two respectable pushes toward the top of the heap. And Ken Olin, who's co-starring in "L.A. Doctors," carved out a chunk of hunkdom in "thirtysomething."

Other post-Selleck contenders included David Hasselhoff ("Knight Rider" and "Baywatch"); Pierce Brosnan ("Remington Steele"); Richard Dean Anderson ("Macgyver"); Bruce Willis ("Moonlighting"); Corbin Bernsen ("L.A. Law"); Will Smith ("The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air"); Dean Cain ("Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman"); Patrick Stewart ("Star Trek: The Next Generation") and Ron Perlman ("Beauty and the Beast").

Perry King, Bruce Boxleitner, Greg Evigan, John Stamos, Lee Horsley and Jack Scalia kept trying to hunk-er down, but wound up relegated to a subspecies in the 1980s.

In pre-Selleck times, Richard Chamberlain quickened pulses as "Dr. Kildare," while Vince Edwards strove for deeper, darker hunkdom in the medical series "Ben Casey." Towering Clint Walker cut a swath-and-a-half on a horse in "Cheyenne," and Clint Eastwood began perfecting his killer squint as Rowdy Yates in "Rawhide."

The cops-'n'-robbers division spawned Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul in "Starsky and Hutch" and redoubtable Robert Urich as detective Dan Tanna in "Vega$." Robert Conrad starred in the tongue-in-cheek "Wild Wild West"; Jack Lord squared his jaw and kept it that way in "Hawaii Five-0."

Comedy not suited

It's tough to be a hunk in a comedy series, but Henry Winkler made a very game go of it as The Fonz in "Happy Days." John Travolta likewise scored as a "sweathog" in "Welcome Back, Kotter." And let's not forget John Schneider in the always comical "Dukes of Hazzard." Better yet, let's.

Now that you're caught up, here's the case for Roberts, who's making his American TV series debut in "L.A. Doctors" after doing lots of Shakespeare and the drama series "Traders" in Canada.

In real life, he's 32, married and the father of two children. On CBS, he'll be the recently divorced Dr. Evan Newman, who has two young children and an amicable relationship with his ex.

Roberts' character is caring, sensitive, strong-willed and well-suited to frequent close-ups of the actor's puppy-dog eyes and lightly freckled cheeks. The introductory episode played to his strengths, sprinkling several touching scenes with fail-safe piano music. Then he clinched the sale by declaring near episode's end, "You see a patient for a few minutes and then you see another and another. And pretty soon your appointment schedule starts looking like a to-do list. I don't want to practice medicine like that anymore. I can't do it. I won't do it."

House calls, anyone?

Quick impression

Just a year ago, Roberts was settling into a new house in Toronto and preparing to return to "Traders." But a failed audition for a part in the film "Kiss the Girls" nonetheless impressed its director, Gary Fleder, who also helmed the first episode of "L.A. Doctors." He recommended Roberts to the series' creators, who "in unison just flipped," says executive producer Mark Johnson.

"So I'm uprooting everything," says Roberts. "It's pretty chancy, moving to a strange city (Venice, Calif.) and all. I had some reservations about that, but whatever happens happens. It's like an adventure."

Olin, who's gone from thirtysomething to 44, says there's "no way to prepare somebody" for fame and fan frenzy. "It is so strange, such a strange experience. It just shakes you. It's not anything you have a frame of reference for, unless you grew up with a parent who had that. And even then, you're so warped by it."

Roberts is a "very smart actor," but initially it was "overwhelming for him to walk on a set with people who've had a lot of experience doing television," Olin says. "I felt the need to tell him he's the emotional center of the show, or at least the idealist. So he has to take that space, demand it from us and take it. Aside from that, he doesn't need my help."

Off-camera, Roberts sometimes "does that shy-guy thing as a way of deflecting attention," Olin says, smiling. "It's not always an authentic innocence."

Nervous at critics gathering

Roberts says maybe it's a "Canadian thing" to be self-effacing. At a "L.A. Doctors" interview session with 150-some TV critics in July, "I was glad I didn't have to speak that much," he says. "I was nervous about saying something stupid, which I did."

He's referring to a critic's question about whether his character is "too good to be true." Or more specifically, "right out of a Kathie Lee Christmas special."

Roberts gamely tried a one-liner - "I was wondering how I got that job for the Kathie Lee Christmas special this year" - before a producer said that Dr. Newman indeed would have a little more "edge" to him in future episodes.

Not that he's lobbying for a mean streak. Roberts later told a reporter that his character in "Traders" was "even more naive and innocent" than Dr. Newman. "I think that kind of acting is underappreciated in a way. They were always questioning whether he should be toughened up or be more jaded. And I kind of fought against it. I like playing characters with an innocent quality."

So there. Maybe we're approaching the era of the soft-focus, cocker spaniel-esque hunk. Noah Wyle of "ER" comes to mind, but he's mostly operated in Clooney's shadow. Rick Roberts has a chance to bust out, unassumingly of course.

Just wait. You'll see.