Show of the week
"My little sister [Bessie] is 101 years old, and I'm 103," Sadie Delany tells the New York Times reporter who has come to their Mount Vernon, N.Y., home for an interview in 1991. Longevity is not all that distinguishes them. Raised in black middle-class southern comfort, the sisters had strong role models. Their father, Henry Beard Delany, born a slave, in 1918 became the first black elected Episcopal bishop, and Booker T. Washington was their regular dinner guest. Bessie (played as a cantankerous centenarian by Ruby Dee) carved out a prosperous career as a Harlem dentist; even-tempered Sadie (Diahann Carroll) succeeded as the first black home-economics teacher in a New York City high school. Inspirational? Sure. But Emily Mann's unsentimental adaptation of her 1995 Broadway play (based on the Delanys' own '93 memoir) takes its edgy cue from Dee's fiery turn as Bessie. "There are still some things I can't forgive," she says of the prejudice she stubbornly overcame. Her performance is one you won't soon forget.
Bottom Line: A superlative character study
Lifetime (Tues., April 20, 10 p.m. ET)
By showing us overburdened working parents in various circumstances—from a single mother of two who recently got off welfare to a professional couple who have gone through seven nannies in three years—this hour-long special effectively makes the point that good child-care in America is hard to find and harder still to pay for. The program, directed and narrated by Lee Grant, also argues that a lack of after-school supervision contributes to juvenile crime. But Confronting the Crisis gets a mite pushy when the host, actress Kyra Sedgwick, concludes with an emotional write-your-congressman exhortation.
Bottom Line: Largely worth caring about
PBS (Sun., April 18, 9 p.m. ET)
Reckless, a six-hour miniseries first seen on Mobil Masterpiece Theatre early last year, was such down-and-dirty fun that its British producers had to have more. In this two-hour follow-up, the love triangle is still intense, with the woman in her 40s (Francesca Annis) set to marry her thirty something lover (Robson Green) and her vengeful ex-husband (Michael Kitchen) hell-bent to torpedo the nuptials. The sequel actually improves on the original, both by developing Kitchen's character more fully and by taking less time to get where you know full well it's going.
Bottom Line: Entertaining encore
ABC (Mon., April 19, 9 p.m. ET)
If implausibility were a crime, this Supreme Court drama would have no appeal. But Swing Vote is not really about the law. Nor is its rhetoric-packed teleplay truly about abortion, the issue before the court. It's about acting and a superior cast's constitutional right to show off.
In a fictional near future, with Roe v. Wade overturned and individual states free to ban abortion, a new justice (Andy Garcia) joins the Supreme Court just in time to hear an explosive case involving an Alabama woman (Lisa Gay Hamilton from The Practice) convicted of first-degree murder for terminating a pregnancy. Among Garcia's colleagues are Harry Belafonte, Kate Nelligan, James Whitmore, Ray Walston, Robert Prosky (superb as the Machiavellian Chief Justice) and Milo O'Shea (charmingly sly as a recently retired justice who wields great influence from his hospital bed). When Garcia isn't debating the law, he's arguing with his wife (Margaret Colin) about a family matter—we won't give it away—that may affect his abortion vote. He also finds time to do some pretty injudicious things, such as meeting secretly with Hamilton and attending an abortion-rights rally. The film ends with Garcia delivering a lengthy speech that may have legal experts slapping their foreheads in incredulity. Dramatically, though, it's socko.
Bottom Line: Compelling, even if it won't hold up in court
The Learning Channel (Sun.-Mon., April 18-19, 9 p.m.)
Dr. Robert Winston may be a member of Britain's House of Lords, but he's no stuffed shirt. As host of this eight-hour documentary miniseries (the last four hours air Aug. 1-2), he puts his own sperm under a microscope, allows a leech to suck his arm, endures a dinghy ride in choppy waters to simulate morning sickness and generally throws himself into the task of enlightening viewers on the workings of the human body. Intimate Universe uses photographic and medical-imaging techniques so extraordinary you'll swear a major-studio film crew set up in someone's innards.
Bottom Line: Biology class was never this much fun
>Sunday. April 18 AN ALL-STAR TRIBUTE TO JOHNNY CASH TNT (8 p.m. ET) Sheryl Crow, Willie Nelson and a bunch of other big names walk the line for the Man in Black.
Monday, April 19 GRUMPIER OLD MEN NBC (8 p.m. ET) Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau drive each other battier in this 1995 sequel.
Tuesday, April 20 THE ROCKFORD FILES: IF IT BLEEDS...IT LEADS CBS (9 p.m. ET) In a new TV movie, James Garner's gumshoe character helps a pal smeared as a rapist by the media.
Wednesday, April 21 LIVE BY REQUEST STARRING KENNY ROGERS A&E (9 p.m. ET) You can bet the Gambler won't fold 'em till he sings all your favorites.
Thursday, April 22 SALUTE TO DUSTIN HOFFMAN ABC (10 p.m. ET) The American Film Institute hails the Tootsie man.
Friday, April 23 PROVIDENCE NBC (8 p.m. ET) Do-gooder Syd (Melina Kanakaredes) takes in a troublesome teenager.
Saturday. April 24 WILD THINGS HBO (8 p.m. ET) Kevin Bacon, Matt Dillon and Neve Campbell star in a steamy 1998 tale of sex, murder and duplicity.
>Robin Givens
Robin Givens had only to check her diary to prepare for her role as Michael Jordan's wife, Juanita, in the unauthorized movie bio Michael Jordan: An American Hero (April 18, 8 p.m. ET on Fox Family Channel). Not only did she briefly date basketball's greatest in 1987, she was married to another, if rather different, überathlete, boxer Mike Tyson. Givens, 34, praises the real-life Juanita, whom she has never met, for doing what she couldn't do in her famously tumultuous marriage to Tyson—stay out of the headlines. "You don't think of [Juanita] much because she does it all quietly," she says. "I think of that as a success."
After moving to L.A. to pursue acting, Givens married Tyson in 1988 and divorced him a year later, accusing him of spousal abuse. ("I try not to pay attention to the things he does," she says of her ex's various antics.) Her next beau was a then-fledgling actor named Brad Pitt.
She took some time off from acting in '92 to raise her adopted son Michael, 6, in Manhattan. Though she's now dating tennis pro Murphy Jensen, 30, she says her son is her ideal. "If only I could have one like him," she laughs, "but a bit taller."
- Contributors:
- Mike Lipton,
- Natasha Stoynoff.
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!
