Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 14, 1992 TAG: 9203140206
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAMES ENDRST THE HARTFORD COURANT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Your life as a child was a disaster, or you're a fan of "thirtysomething."
That's because Ken Olin, who played Michael Steadman on the ABC series that examined the modern-Angst-ridden lives of a group of friends, is director of this top-drawer, made-for-TV movie from Fox to be broadcast Monday night (at 8 p.m. on WJPR-Channel 21/27 in the Roanoke viewing area).
Like the critically acclaimed "thirtysomething" (now seen in reruns on cable's Lifetime Television), the drama in "Doing Time on Maple Drive" hits close to home.
As anyone who's watched television in the last decade knows, the American family as depicted in such '50s and '60s sitcoms as "Father Knows Best" is a nostalgic impossibility in the '90s, a lie.
So when a flag unfurls in the opening sequence of "Doing Time on Maple Drive" and gives way emblematically to a picture-perfect suburban scene where all would seem safe and good and proper, it is obvious that this is a dream world.
But in "Doing Time on Maple Drive," the curtain is pulled back to show a nightmarishly dysfunctional family, exhausted and finally collapsing under the weight of its own collective delusions.
James B. Sikking ("Doogie Howser, M.D.") and Bibi Besch ("Steel Magnolias") star as Phil and Mary Carter, a couple looking forward to the marriage of their youngest son, Matt (William McNamara) just back from Yale, his fiancee Alicen (Lori Loughlin) in tow.
It is intended to be a celebratory weekend but, as often happens in real life, the occasion triggers an emotional landslide that shakes the the family to its very foundation.
By all appearances, and that seems to be what matters most to Phil and Mary, the Carters look as if they have everything going for them, as if they've done everything right.
Mom vacuums, buffs and polishes her suburban shrine of a home with a worshiper's devotion, spritzing away smudges on the family photos - frozen images of happy perfection - displayed on her walls. The wounds go too deep to be captured by Kodak.
Dad, a relentless, competitive and self-absorbed taskmaster crisply portrayed by Sikking, has driven his children to despair and self-loathing.
Eldest son Tim, in a surprise star turn from James Carrey of Fox's "In Living Color," is hopelessly alcoholic, a bright student who dropped out when he realized he would never be able to win his father's affection.
"Instead of being so damn sorry all the time, you might just try a little discipline," says the Carter patriarch, later telling Tim that every time he looks at him he's glad he has another son.
Mom, in denial so deep it threatens the lives of her children, is intently oblivious to anything that doesn't fit her Hallmark vision of family. (Watching Besch should be enough to make most viewers - even those with perfectly happy lives - flinch in recognition.)
"Cut the celery in half before you slice it," she instructs daughter Karen (Jayne Brook of "Kindergarten Cop"), who moments later discovers her mother has left her alone in the kitchen talking to herself about her problems.
Photographer son-in-law Tom (David Byron of "Soapdish") sees the Carters in a more realistic light, which puts him outside the family, even out of reach of his own wife, Karen, who is most concerned in with pleasing her impossible-to-satisfy father.
But Matt is the real powder keg - a pent-up soul who's trying to keep it together but can't withstand the forces within.
It turns out there's a little problem with the wedding.
Matt is gay. But his mother won't hear of it. And, dutiful son that he is, Matt does his best to deny it as well, though in the end he can't.
"Doing Time on Maple Drive" suffers at moments from television's propensity for worst-case-scenario stories, but Olin (who also directed the recent ABC movie "The Broken Cord" starring Jimmy Smits) hasn't forgotten what made "thirtysomething" the success it was.
On "thirtysomething," the little things, the aggregate, seemingly mundane details of life and love, became the big focus, adding up to something far greater than they might first have appeared.
"Doing Time on Maple Drive" ends on a less than tidy note with problems left unsolved and important relationships hanging in the balance - just like real life.
Or just like the beginning of a new series.
Either way. It works.
by CNB