Picks and Pans Review: The Miracle Worker

UPDATED 10/15/1979 at 01:00 AM EDT • Originally published 10/15/1979 at 01:00 AM EDT

NBC (8-10 p.m. ET)

Patty Duke Astin, who played Helen Keller in the 1959 play and the film, this time portrays Helen's teacher, Annie Sullivan (the Anne Bancroft role). Patty is stubborn and convincing. As the blind and deaf Helen, Melissa (Little House on the Prairie) Gilbert is, however, alternately too stiff and too wild. But the story, like its heroine, is indomitable.