DUELING MINISERIES A FACT OF LIFE ON SWEEPS CALENDAR.Byline: Ray Richmond Daily News Television Critic In network television, where truth-in-packaging laws don't seem to apply - allowing a two-night movie to be called a "miniseries" - 9 p.m. Sunday is as good as it gets. Pull out the banjo banjo, stringed musical instrument, with a body resembling a tambourine. The banjo consists of a hoop over which a skin membrane is stretched; it has a long, often fretted neck and four to nine strings, which are plucked with a pick or the fingers. and strum a little "Deliverance" music. It's time for dueling miniseries! Not only that, it's dueling fact-inspired, some-dramatic-license-taken movies about murder! Ah, sweeps. On CBS (Cell Broadcast Service) See cell broadcast. , we have "Gone in the Night" (Sunday and concluding Tuesday), starring Shannen Doherty and Kevin Dillon as parents wrongly accused of abducting ab·duct tr.v. ab·duct·ed, ab·duct·ing, ab·ducts 1. To carry off by force; kidnap. 2. Physiology To draw away from the midline of the body or from an adjacent part or limb. and killing their young daughter and dumping her body in a field. On NBC NBC in full National Broadcasting Co. Major U.S. commercial broadcasting company. It was formed in 1926 by RCA Corp., General Electric Co. (GE), and Westinghouse and was the first U.S. company to operate a broadcast network. , there's "Seduced by Madness: The Diane Borchardt Story" (Sunday and Monday), which stars Ann-Margret in the story of the famous Wisconsin case in which a woman seduced a couple of her high school students into blowing away her estranged es·trange tr.v. es·tranged, es·trang·ing, es·trang·es 1. To make hostile, unsympathetic, or indifferent; alienate. 2. To remove from an accustomed place or set of associations. husband. The advice here: Watch "Gone in the Night," a superior study of what happens when politics and law enforcement conspire con·spire v. con·spired, con·spir·ing, con·spires v.intr. 1. To plan together secretly to commit an illegal or wrongful act or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action. 2. to obstruct justice. Based on a 1988 Chicago case and the book that followed, "Gone" succeeds because it goes beyond the standard humans-in-distress formula to peer at the crime-solving pressures that can lead to the railroading rail·road·ing n. The construction or operation of railroads. Noun 1. railroading - the activity of designing and constructing and operating railroads rail technology of innocent people. Doherty and Dillon portray Cyndi and David Dowaliby with compelling believability, and it's heart-rending to watch as their accusers transform flimsy circumstantial evidence circumstantial evidence In law, evidence that is drawn not from direct observation of a fact at issue but from events or circumstances that surround it. If a witness arrives at a crime scene seconds after hearing a gunshot to find someone standing over a corpse and holding a into a mandate and set the persecution bandwagon in motion. The Dowalibys' lives are destroyed because the abductor ab·duc·tor n. A muscle that draws a body part, such as a finger, arm, or toe, away from the midline of the body or of an extremity. abductor that which abducts. left few traces of forced entry, and it's simply unacceptable that the case be labled a mystery in a society where careers hinge on the fingering and apprehending of suspects. The film's second night builds to an intense crescendo, as the Dowalibys - young and poor - struggle to clear their name with heroic assists from David's mother (Dixie Carter) and a relentless detective (solid work from Ed Asner). Meanwhile, "Seduced by Madness" is noteworthy mostly for the chilling, against-type performance by Ann-Margret as the conniving, abusive, demonic Diane Borchardt. In the story, Borchardt - who for years had mistreated her husband and two stepkids - is sent reeling by the overdue news that hubby Ruben (Peter Coyote) was leaving her for another, far saner woman. To exact revenge, the teacher and T-shirt shop owner known in her Jefferson, Wis., town as "Mrs. B" uses her sex appeal, manipulative ways and concocted tales of abuse to convince one particularly smitten, impressionable lad to murder the lovable Ruben. He recruits a couple of buddies, and on Easter Sunday 1994 the deed is done. It takes the better part of six months for the silence to unravel, but unravel it does. That's when "Seduced by Madness" grows tiresome. You begin to feel as if you've seen it all before, and a bland inevitability sets in. That said, Ann-Margret is quite the convincing head case. More than one man will, no doubt, see the spirit of his ex-wife residing inside her warped soul. |
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