ABC (Sun., Oct. 16, 9 p.m. ET)
B+
The parents (Jill Eikenberry and Tom Irwin) come home unexpectedly early from a dinner party. As any seasoned veteran of the child-rearing wars will tell you, that's just asking for trouble. They find a nearly empty bottle of booze on the counter and their little teen terror (Jennie Garth of Beverly Hills, 90210) stretched out on the couch with a poster boy for punk. He's got his shirt off, the better to display his copious tattoos.
And then the problems begin. Family communication breaks down completely. The parental units, despairing of ever getting their child back on track, have Garth committed to a hospital for emotionally troubled youngsters. Soon after, she's on a locked ward with a bunch of tranquilized zombies undergoing rigorous "behavior modification."
Eric Close, Johnny Galecki, Paul Sorvino and Doug McKeon costar in this disturbing, if exaggerated TV movie dramatization of troubled youth in our therapy-mad times. If James Dean was making Rebel Without a Cause today, they'd have him in a residential program and on Prozac before the second reel.
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