The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I remember watching the first two episodes of the nighttime soap and thought it had potential, but it turned into a rather boring mess. Mainly the plot involved Terry Mears (played by Meg Tilly) move to a suburb of Chicago, Oak Ridge and her trials and tribulations with her young son, Nicky. Yes a lot about Mears sex life was involved. What I hated was that it seemed to waste the talents of a lot of promising actors/actresses such as Harley Venton, Paige Turco, Sandy McPeek and Ed Begley, Jr. The fact that Venton played another flawed villain (by the time this show aired Venton was better as flawed villain -- see: his second go round on "Murder, She Wrote", "Cybill", "Silk Stalkings", "Diagnosis Murder" and "Models, Inc." -- then as his earlier incarnations as hero or later ones as just flawed characters) as Terry Mears ex-husband and father of Nicky, but they only called on Venton for a guest appearance twice showed how inept the PTB were on this series. Sandy McPeek showed the promise he'd eventually show greatly on "The O.C.", but again only relegated to guest appearance, was stupid. It was known to be headed for a quick death when NBC pulled the third episode, that was known to be too violent for NBC's taste back then.