SHE'S DEAF NOT DUMB

From: New York Post, NY
Oct. 25, 2002

By ADAM BUCKMAN

A deaf FBI agent who can read bad guys' lips is emerging as a new heroine for Pax TV.

"Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye" has been on for just two weeks and viewership is already nearing the 2.5 million mark - a viewer tally that would be considered modest (if not disastrous) for a show on the bigger broadast networks. But for Pax, it's a cause for (cautious) celebration.

Pax execs are reluctant so far to declare "Sue Thomas" their new ratings champ, since it premiered so recently (on Oct. 13), but in just two airings, the series is already outpacing Pax's reigning No. 1 series - "Doc," starring Billy Ray Cyrus - which precedes "Sue Thomas" on Sunday night.

"Sue Thomas" is based on the true-life experiences of a real Sue Thomas, whose lip-reading skill landed her a position with an elite surveillance unit of the FBI.

The real Thomas is a consultant on the TV series and even had a say in who would play her on the small screen.

"I knew in my heart that it had to be a deaf actress to play [me], for only she would have the true, first-hand knowledge and insight into the isolation that deafness can bring to the everyday aspects of living in a hearing world," Thomas says.

The job went to Deanne Bray, a deaf actress whose credits include vast experience in the deaf theater and a smattering of guest appearances in movies and TV. She also teaches math and science to deaf students in East Los Angeles and is nearly done with her work for a masters degree in education.

And not to sound crass, but she's also extremely easy on the eyes.

In the two-hour opener on Oct. 13, earnest Sue is seen leaving her Ohio home for Washington, where she has lined up a job at the FBI.

On the way to her new life, she stops to pick up a "seeing-ear" dog, a golden retriever named Levi, who has been trained to assist the deaf by notifying them when someone is at the front door or calling on the phone.

Arriving for work with Levi in tow, Sue discovers that she's to be shunted off to a "special projects" area and assigned to identify and file 22,000 sets of fingerprints.

Soon, though, feisty Sue is impressing her co-workers with her lip-reading acumen and enlisted to work on real cases.

In the premiere, she helped wrangle a gang of Russian mobsters. And in this Sunday's third episode (9 p.m. on Pax/Ch. 31), she is instrumental in preventing the assassination of an Afghan leader visiting the United States.

Credit for the early success of "Sue Thomas" goes principally to the show's star, a fresh new face who lights up the screen in every scene she's in.

Keep your "Eye" on her.

Copyright 2002 NYP Holdings, Inc.