A day before New Year's Eve, "complex systems failure expert" Nick Cromwell (Olin) and his boss Martin Lowell (Morton) observe a Y2K test of the Washington, D.C., air traffic control system. As the lights blink out at 12:01 a.m., the computers on board a simulated jet go wiggy, and the plane crashes into an electronic Atlantic.

 It's enough to worry Cromwell about the effects of the notorious Y2K bug, despite the best preparations of his crack team of technicians at "Z2" (short for zero-zero). Nick's team will staff a high-tech command center and monitor Y2K problems around the world as the millennial countdown ends.

 In Seattle, Wash., meanwhile, Nick's physician wife, Alix (Vernon), is having problems with their willful teenage daughter Kelly, who wants to go to a New Year's Eve party with her hacker friends Kaos and Klipper.

 Nick and his team stand by as New Year's Day dawns in the Marshall Islands, the first time zone to see the year 2000. The navigational computer on an F-18 fighter plane fails, and the jet crashes at the U.S. Naval Air Station in Kwajalein.

 Reports trickle in of power failures in China and Asia. Then, as Nick and his team watch televised celebrations in Paris, "The city of light has gone dark," says the TV commentator.

 Cromwell orders all planes grounded. But not all get the call, including Flight 117 en route to Washington, D.C.

 Kelly, meanwhile, is sneaking out of the hospital where her mom works. And as midnight strikes in New York City's Times Square, the ball drops, the lights go out, and the crowd gets ugly.

 Power failures strike Philadelphia, Pa., then Washington, D.C. "We could lose the entire Eastern Seaboard," Nick says. And the news comes that a nuclear reactor in Sweden has gone supercritical, killing everyone. It has the same design as one in Emerald Canyon in Washington state, next to Seattle, where Nick's wife is now frantically trying to find Kelly.

 Unless Nick and his team can solve the problem, the plant will melt down in two hours, showering three million people in a 20-mile radius with a plutonium-laced cloud that will slowly drift across the rest of the country.

 -- www.scifi.com

NBC precedes this ridiculous sweeps-ploitation thriller with a disclaimer that declares, in part, "This program does not suggest or imply that any of these events could actually occur." So take it from the Peacock: "Y2K" is intended only to stoke the fires of groundless paranoia and further incite cyberpanic -- but not meant to leave anyone really concerned.

 David Israel, one of "Y2K's" executive producers (along with Pat Caddell), was recently quoted, "My slogan while making the movie was, `Paranoia is our most important product.'" Yet oddly enough, the film's doomsday scenario is so lamely staged that it actually serves to quash much of that callously manipulated fear.

 Ken Olin ("thirtysomething") portrays can-do hero Nick Cromwell, a "complex systems failure" expert for the government who has a front-row seat to millennial madness on the eve of New Year's 2000. He and his boss, Martin Lowell (Joe Morton), conclude that Y2K computer failure will be massive, and decide to ground all commercial aircraft as the century turns.

 But then things begin to careen out of control everywhere as each part of the world reaches the big 2-0-0-0 moment. Medical equipment malfunctions. ATMs stop spitting out bills, right on schedule. Prison doors operated by computer swing open, releasing criminals into the streets. A nuclear meltdown in Sweden kills everyone in the power plant. The entire Eastern Seaboard's power goes kablooey. And in Seattle, another plutonium emergency is at hand. If it goes, it's goodbye Sonics and Sea-hawks (and maybe the Mariners, too).

 Cromwell reacts to all of this by regularly calling his wife (Kate Vernon) and asking with understandable concern about she and the kids (they're fine). Pretty soon, his courage will be all that stands between us and enough radiation to fry the planet. It leads to "Y2K" devolving into a hackneyed nuke meltdown/race-against-time flick over its final 40 minutes.

 Helmer Dick Lowry does his best to salvage what he can of the fright-by-numbers suspensefest, somehow keeping his players from chewing their surroundings like famished locusts. Unfortunately, the overheated teleplay from scribes Thomas Hines and Jonathan Fernandez never allows dramatic realism to seep through the film's vast cracks, leaving the audience nothing to hang on to.

 Consider that a mere 20 seconds after Times Square has gone pitch dark -- upon the stroke of midnight on Jan. 1 -- a woman whose boyfriend just proposed marriage is heard to exclaim through the ensuing pandemonium, "Steve, I love you and I will marry you. But first, let's get the hell out of here!" When it becomes clear that the Y2K bug has not yet affected the ocean, Cromwell is moved to note trenchantly, "Fish don't use a lot of computers."

 Dialogue aside, a certain preposterousness pervades the Y2-chaos. A jetliner is about to attempt an emergency landing some 20 minutes past midnight and roughly 16 minutes after a city's lights down below have spontaneously blacked out. Yet no one on board questions it when the pilot assures, "Just a little bad weather, folks. Nothing to worry about." The line almost begs for a Zucker brother.

 NBC has tended of late to over-plow this Armageddon hysteria territory, using the we're-all-gonna-die gambit to literally scare up numbers via such minis as "Asteroid," "Pandora's Clock" and "Atomic Train." With "Y2K," the network slaps a big fat exclamation point onto its millennium-closing obsession, airing a film that consistently squeezes little genuine suspense from a phenomenon that is surely the most overhyped of the 1990s.

 Tech credits are mostly on the money, though some of the effects carry a cheesy sheen.

 -- www.dearsally.org

NBC plans its own Y2K disaster

 NEW YORK (CNN) -- We're 137 days away from the new year. Do you know where your wits are? Try to keep them about you. Because NBC would like you to scare you out of them with "Y2K," a thriller that imagines catastrophic results triggered by the endlessly debated Y2K computer bug. The film stars Ken Olin ("L.A. Doctors") as a techie who tries to save the United States from havoc spawned by computer failures.

 The picture is the only broadcast project announced so far as an attempt to capitalize on -- some might venture to say exploit -- concerns about the programming glitch in which machines might misinterpret the last two digits of the year 2000 as those of 1900. Some observers predict chaos. Others say we're heading for an anticlimax.

 We do have sketchy information about a theatrical release, also titled "Y2K," directed by Richard Pepin to star Louis Gossett Jr. and Malcolm McDowell. But at this point, more is known about NBC's rush to cash in before the ATMs go kerflooey at midnight.

 In NBC's "Y2K," the bug causes a power outage on the East Coast, those eagerly anticipated ATM failures, airplanes with malfunctioning instruments and a nuclear power plant glitching its way toward meltdown.

 This isn't the first time NBC has flirted with disaster. Earlier this year, it released the miniseries "Atomic Train," in which only Rob Lowe could save Denver from a runaway train loaded with nuclear weapons. The network is sticking with director Dick Lowry for "Y2K." Lowe fell off the train.

 Joining Olin in this cast are Joe Morton ("Miss Evers' Boys," 1997); Ronny Cox (the current "Deep Blue Sea"); and Lauren Tom ("The Joy Luck Club," 1993).

 Forget the popcorn. You view this one with canned goods.

 -- www.dearsally.org