‘Murders’ Offers Above Average Crime Fare
It’s bad enough you had to go back to work after the long weekend. Now you’re home to face a night of reruns as prime-time begins its trying off-season grind.
If you scan the dial, you’ll find a couple of winners. Tonight’s best bets are on cable and PBS. See highlights below.
On the networks, CBS goes back to 1994 for a decent TV movie. In “The Forget Me Not Murders” at 9, Richard Crenna reprises his Detective Frank Janek role in an outing that features an engaging turn by Tyne Daly.
Janek’s romantic interlude in Niagara Falls is interrupted by the shocking news that his college-age goddaughter has been murdered while jogging in a New York City park. Daly plays her therapist who, it becomes obvious, has problems of her own. Sufficient twists and turns help make this an above average mystery.
What makes the “Janek” movies so enjoyable is that they are a cut above “Murder, She Wrote,” “Diagnosis Murder” and shows of that ilk without being as grim as the stories told in prime-time’s endless chain of fact-based TV-movies.
Highlights
“Nova,” KSPS at 7: This is a hot one. “Hunt for the Serial Arsonist” is a real-life mystery solved by high-tech investigative techniques. It’s nice every so often to see detective work outside the stylized world of television drama. Repeat.
“Deadly Invasion: The Killer Bee Nightmare” (1995), FOX at 8: There are B movies and there are bee movies. This one fits both categories.
Robert Hays (“Airplane”) stars as Chad Ingram, a husband and father of three who tries to protect his family from a swarm of agitated African killer bees that buzz into a small California town near the Mexican border.
Seal those windows! Arrrrgh! They’re coming down the chimney! Quick! Into the basement!
It’s so awful, you keep expecting it to turn into a genre parody.
“NYPD Blue,” ABC at 10: This tense repeat of the 1995 season premiere focuses on two of the series’ “other” detectives. Martinez (Nicholas Turturro) and Medavoy (Gordon Clapp) are surprised by a gunman. Martinez is gravely wounded. Medavoy deals with the guilt.
“P.O.V.,” KSPS at 10: “Taking on the Kennedys,” is an eye-opening film shot in Rhode Island two years ago during a congressional race between political novice Kevin Vigilante and 26-year-old Patrick Kennedy, son of Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts.
The documentary is something of a political coming-of-age story for Vigilante, an accomplished physician. Vigilante goes from idealist to mud slinger as the campaign deteriorates into a bitter battle of negative advertising.
It’s a rare insider’s look at a unique race in an eccentric little state.
Cable Calls
“Marlon Brando: The Wild One,” AMC at 5 and 11: Francis Ford Coppola, Anthony Hopkins, Dennis Hopper, Shelley Winters and Martin Sheen are among the stars interviewed for this unblinking assessment of the legendary but singularly bizarre actor.
The movie channel runs Brando’s “One-Eyed Jacks” (1961) at 2:30 and 8:30, and “Guys and Dolls” (1955) at 6 and midnight.
Earlier in the day, it’s “A Streetcar Named Desire”(1951) at 11 a.m. and “The Men” (1950) at 1:05 p.m..