ABC (Sun., Dec. 18, 9 p.m. ET)
B
For reasons known only to him, Woody Allen has brought back his creaky 1966 Broadway play as a TV movie. He also directs and acts, portraying a caterer from New Jersey who is vacationing behind the Iron Curtain in 1961 with his wife (Julie Kavner) and daughter (Blossom's Mayim Bialik). Forced to take asylum in the American Embassy, they are the most petty and parochial trio ever to spark an international incident. Fueling the farce is the fact that the embassy is temporarily in the shaky hands of the ambassador's ne'er-do-well son (Michael J. Fox).
Both the humor and the politics are dated. (Even 30 years ago, I suspect, mah-jongg and Marxism must have made awkward gag partners.) And the camera work often is unhinged. The film's saving grace is a strong and game cast, including Edward Herrmann, Dom DeLuise and Austin Pendleton.
NBC (Sun., Dec. 18, 9 p.m. ET)
A
Dying but still surprisingly feisty, an old man (Kirk Douglas) summons his prodigal son (Craig T. Nelson), a former hippie and draft dodger who has avoided all contact with his family for 20 years. Douglas has a final request: he wants his son to drive him across the country so he can die in the house where he was born. Simple enough, right?
Thus begins an odd odyssey. As Nelson explains to his sister (Lee Garlington) on the phone, "The old man...wanted to see a few windmills from his youth. It's Don Quixote on acid." Amid all the sparring and bantering, the estranged men learn a lot from and about each other on their circuitous migration.
The script from sentimental playwright Ernest Thompson (On Golden Pond) stumbles into some contrivances, but most of the time it treads a sure path between comic and touching. The principal actors do a fine job, as does the supporting cast, which includes Eileen Brennan, Richard Gilliland, Bonnie Bartlett and Bess Armstrong.
CBS (Tues., Dec. 20, 9 p.m. ET)
C+
Richard Crenna again reprises his role as New York City detective Frank Janek. He's brought in to investigate a multiple murder: six occupants of a SoHo apartment building owned by a Broadway producer (William Shatner) are found gruesomely slashed. Ironically, Shatner's first lines involve his making a frantic 911 call. (The actor is the host of Rescue 911.)
The case is a good deal too complex, with a thicket of suspects and motives to wade through. In the course of the movie, a big Broadway musical is mounted—but very little suspense. The most interesting aspect of this sequel is the acting counterpoint involved, seeing Crenna, a model of understatement, doing scenes with Shatner, the biggest ham in the known universe. Helen Shaver and Cliff Gorman costar.
>TUBE: Woody Allen brings Don't Drink the Water to TV; Richard Crenna returns as Frank Janek and confronts William Shatner in A Silent Betrayal
SCREEN: Disclosure may be new, but you've seen it before; Trapped in Paradise will have you feeling just that, trapped; Brad Pitt is a manly man in Legends of the Fall
SONG: Ho, ho, ho.... Here comes Santa with a sack full of boxed sets! Look—he has Tina, the Temps, Aero-smith, Armstrong and more
PAGES: Norman Seeff's celebrity photos leap off the pages of Sessions; Jack Lemmon, Claire Bloom and Jonathan Winters tell stories in a roundup of Yuletide books on audio
>HARK THE HERALD ANGELS
WEDNESDAY (DEC. 14) IS A NIGHT OF sublime music on cable. Christmas with Vince Gill invokes the holiday spirit on TNN (7:30 p.m. ET). The Sooner crooner employs a choir, an orchestra and guests including Amy Grant and Michael McDonald to put on a classy show packed with seasonal standards. But the night's maximum VCR alert is reserved for the revival of a star long presumed in eclipse: Bob Dylan. MTV Unplugged (8 p.m. ET) seems to have been designed for the sphinx-like songwriter. The show's intimate acoustic setting lends Dylan's set—from a reverent "With God on Our Side" to an aroused "All Along the Watchtower"—the homey tenor of the Basement Tapes. We are not worthy!
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
