Mar 16, 2007  |  By: BRIAN MOYLAN  | COMMENTS     

Nothing refutes that “sanctity of marriage” claptrap like a 30-minute episode of Court TV’s “‘Til Death Do Us Part,” which debuts with back-to-back episodes on Monday, March 13, at 10 p.m.

Hosted by gay director and Baltimore’s favorite son, John Waters (is it just me, or is he everywhere these days but behind the camera?), “Death” starts off by introducing us to a happy hetero couple on their wedding day. As usual on these occasions, it’s all kisses and happiness and platitudes about forever. But by the end of the program one spouse is going to kill the other.

Each episode is a campy reenactment of a true-life marriage. Viewers know one spouse will kill the other, but don’t know who is going to murder whom. Is the wife going to do in her husband because he won’t grant her a divorce, or is he going to off her because she’s messing around with the boss?

You won’t get a chance to find out until about two-thirds in — the last third is dedicated to the killer’s capture, natch. All the action is sandwiched in between Waters’ appearances as the “Groom Reaper,” making bad puns and delivering his patented clever turns of phrase about the dastardly things we do for love and murder.

WITH ITS CAST OF ADULTERERS, gold diggers and killers, the show proves that gay couples deserve as much of a chance at sham marriages as the rest of America, or at least the option of having a legal recognition of their insane relationships. But there is something about the show that just doesn’t work.

Maybe it’s that it doesn’t go far enough. “Death” tries to have it both ways by showing real cases (names and places changed, unfortunately) but making the reenactments silly enough that they’re improbable. As told by writer/director/producer Ken Hanes, the stories aren’t good enough to stand alone as a scripted television comedy, and the real-life aspect isn’t fleshed out enough for this to be truly informative television.

Based on the first two episodes — one about a secretary who marries her boss (a doctor) for his money, the other about a controlling mortician who doesn’t want his wife working out of the house — the tone is uneven.

For instance, in the first episode, Melanie Merkosky plays trampy secretary Tara as a bit of a spoiled brat when she should be going for the full-on, Alexis Carrington vicious shrew. How else is the audience going to believe that she’s willing to do anything for her husband’s money and still laugh at her when she winds up six feet under?

But even with a change of course, “Death” needs to decide what it wants to be. It could be brilliant as an all-out satire of the cheesy reenactments that pepper true-crime shows on A&E, Lifetime and, well, Court TV. It would also be great as a funny twist on such shows, where the real stories and evidence are presented through a Waters-ian point of view.

Right now, it’s trying to do both, and viewers won’t want to say “I do” to either.