It would have been unsurprising if, in his seventh decade, Jack Lemmon had decided to take it easy. Yet, by joining the excellent ensemble cast of Glengarry Glen Ross (Pearl, 9.30pm), the Harvard-educated actor went to extremes and pitted his talents against the wits of Al Pacino, Ed Harris and Alan Arkin. In fact, Lemmon received some of the best reviews of his distinguished career for the portrayal of Shelley 'The Machine' Levene. The story, a tempered version of David Mamet's play, is set in a slumping Chicago real estate office. The unseen owners have created a sales contest and they send a corporate hitman (Alec Baldwin) to tell the staff. At the end of the month, the top salesman is to receive a car; the second, a set of steak knives; the bottom two will get fired. The announcement means nothing to the flamboyant Ricky Roma (Al Pacino), who could have sold democracy to Mao Zedong. It worries Moss (Ed Harris) and Aaronson (Alan Arkin), who alternate between making do and making nothing. It terrifies Levene, who has lost the knack of persuading strangers to buy unwanted land in Florida and whose daughter is in hospital. The plot is complicated further when the office is burgled and the 'leads' (names of wealthy clients likely to buy land) are stolen. Instead of focusing on the theft, Mamet concentrates on the various salesmen as they sustain themselves by reliving past glories in the desiccated present. Lemmon is superb in the type of role he's become renowned for - the hapless victim of fate who is constantly victimised by life's vicissitudes through no fault of his own. Pacino is perfectly cocky, Arkin wickedly cagey, and Harris, the most cynical of all the salesmen, is as cold as ice. Baldwin, Kevin Spacey and Jonathan Pryce add uncompromising support. The desperation of the characters is made achingly real in this angry vision of the dog-eat-dog world of work. 'Jim Profit is really a very interesting character,' says Stephen J Cannell, the man behind the new drama series Profit (Pearl, 11.50pm), about an unscrupulous junior executive who will stop at nothing to gain control of the company where he works. 'He's very handsome, with that perfect GQ look. Adrian Pasdar is marvellous: he just drilled it. At the same time, he is evil and manipulative: Machiavellian is what I would call him. 'What makes it kind of fun is that the audience is caught between those charming qualities and the cerebral realisation that he is a complete a***hole. Profit explores the dividing lines between good and evil in a very interesting way,' says Cannell. 'It's a difficult project to pull off but then, we didn't know whether audiences would get behind The A-Team either, because it broke all the rules.' Be warned, any man who thinks The A-Team broke all the rules is not a man to trust. At least you know everyone on ER (Pearl, 8.30pm) is trustworthy. Hathaway, after spending all of last week's episode in a grocery store during a holdup, is reinstated after an investigation proves she was not negligent in a patient's death and the nurses realise she is a good manager. Meanwhile, Benton tells his pregnant girlfriend, Carla, that he wants to be a supportive father and Jeanie asks Fischer on a date. Surprise, surprise! Another magic show - the third in eight days. I just wish the Lance Burton Magic Special (World, 8pm) would make ATV's Kowloon headquarters disappear for a day and see if anyone notices.
