TV Reviews : Clothing-Thin Plot in ‘Bare Essentials’

The idyllic Virgin Islands. Shirtless beach hunks. Acquiescent island lasses in bikinis or less. Visiting Americans as goofy as Gilligan. No, it’s not another sweeps-week episode of “Eye on L.A.,” but rather an equally useless made-for-TV movie invitingly titled “Bare Essentials,” airing tonight at 9 on Channels 2 and 8.

Lisa Hartman and Mark Linn-Baker play an upscale New York couple on a tropical vacation, newly engaged and at each other’s throats, who veer off course while making love in their sailboat. They’re soon shipwrecked on a sunny island that hasn’t yet gone condo, and as this isn’t a Nicolas Roeg film, the whoopee and the high jinks are just beginning.

The bickering yuppies stumble across tanned castaway Gregory Harrison, an American who’s ensconced himself on the isle to escape civilization (and perhaps a shady past), followed by exotic local Charlotte Lewis, who emerges topless from the surf--hair strategically placed--like an aquatic Lady Godiva. A romantic “quadrangle” inevitably develops, and much scenic making out--underwater and otherwise--ensues.

Hartman (underrated as a comic actress) and Linn-Baker actually develop an almost amusing rapport with the barrage of one-liners in the sunstroke-stricken teleplay by Allen Estrin and Mark Estrin.

At the workmanlike helm of this wafer comedy is Martha Coolidge, a talented director (“Valley Girl,” “Real Genius”) who has trouble finding decent work. She’s unlikely to list “Bare Essentials” as an essential entry on future resumes; like the bikinis therein, it’s so thin it barely exists.