‘Cyber Seduction’ follows old formula
Actress Kelly Lynch first got my attention as a stone-cold junkie in the 1989 film “Drugstore Cowboy.” Now she’s playing the mother of a teenage jock with a very serious problem in the cautionary TV drama “Cyber Seduction: His Secret Life” (9 p.m., Lifetime).
Teenage swimming champ Justin Petersen (Jeremy Sumpter) has it all.
He’s going to the state finals and is on track to get a huge scholarship. He’s got a sweet girlfriend, Amy (Lyndsy Fonseca), who’d be ever sweeter, thinks Justin, if she wasn’t so hung up on church and abstinence.
But Justin soon has other problems.
While attending a party with a rougher crowd than he’s used to, he is exposed to Internet pornography.
But while the other guys seem to take this rough material in stride, Justin develops an all-consuming interest.
His mother, Diane (Lynch), notices, and she demands that her husband give him a talking to. But Justin’s dad sees this as a normal rite of passage and even recalls the hidden Playboys of his youth.
Since this is a pretty predictable and didactic film, we soon learn that Dad’s boys-will-be-boys approach is outmoded.
Internet porn is a pervasive multibillion-dollar industry designed to entice and seduce, and it’s all just a keystroke away. What we never learn here is just why Justin goes bonkers over the smut while his friends remain so blase.
In quick succession, he loses interest in school, family, his sweetheart, the swim team and life itself.
Internet pornography may just be a 21st-century plague, but “Cyber Seduction” proves that the formula for movies like this really hasn’t changed much since “Reefer Madness.”
Fresh from a youth detention center, Kris (Genevieve Cortese), a fetching teen with a gift for horse training, is given a second chance working at a ranch owned by a ludicrously good-looking family in the two-hour pilot of the summer series “Wildfire” (8 p.m., Family). Eleven additional episodes will air on Mondays at 8 p.m.
“Great Performances” (9 p.m., KSPS) presents “Swan Lake,” starring Gillian Murphy and Angel Corella of the American Ballet Theatre. Even if you don’t know a jete from a fouette, you will be wowed by this presentation.
Luminaries gather to honor George Lucas at the 33rd “American Film Institute Life Achievement Award” (9 p.m., USA). Word has it that Jar Jar Binks and Howard the Duck will be no-shows.
Other highlights
Teens sharpen their No. 2 pencils on “The Scholar” (8 p.m., ABC).
Ray’s crack is not taken in jest on “Everybody Loves Raymond” (9 p.m., CBS).
Robin Williams stars in the 1998 embarrassment “Patch Adams” (9 p.m., ABC).
A Monty Python veteran invites you to join him on top of the world in the two-hour special “Himalaya with Michael Palin” (9 p.m., Travel).
A rapper’s thug life is more than an act on “CSI: Miami” (10 p.m., CBS).
An apparent suicide may be foul play on “Medium” (10 p.m., NBC).
Cult choice
Joanne Whalley has the difficult job of portraying “Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis” (5 p.m., Lifetime Movie Network). This 2000 TV biopic originally aired as a miniseries.
Series notes
On back-to-back episodes of “Still Standing” (CBS), Bill can’t bond (8 p.m.), and daddy-daughter time (8:30 p.m.) … Joe Rogan hosts “Fear Factor” (8 p.m., NBC) … Parents need help on “Nanny 911” (8 p.m., Fox) … Spirit hits the distilled stuff on “One on One” (8 p.m., UPN) … Charlie feels overwhelmed on “7th Heaven” (8 p.m., WB) … Ruben Studdard appears on “All of Us” (8:30 p.m., UPN).
A killer on the lam arrives on “Las Vegas” (9 p.m., NBC) … Gordon Ramsay behaves like a beast on “Hell’s Kitchen” (9 p.m., Fox) … Dad’s wedding leaves Jabari depressed on “Girlfriends” (9 p.m., UPN) … Older surfers impart advice on “Summerland” (9 p.m., WB) … Love hurts on “Two and a Half Men” (9:30 p.m., CBS) … Mona feels slighted on “Half & Half” (9:30 p.m., UPN).