Out on a Limb (1987)

I must make a confession: I'm a sucker for actors playing themselves.  It does not happen often (Fantasia did it most recently), but when it's done, it's a guaranteed hoot (even stories as sad as Fantasia or Ann Jillian).  However, of the handful of stars who have played themselves in these colossal shows of ego, one ranks above all of the others:

Shirley MacLaine

In "Out on a Limb," based on her 1983 bestseller, Shirley plays herself, but it's the story that makes it such a bizarre treat.  It's not just Shirley's life or career, which, let's face it, were both pretty damn good.  This is where she came out with all of the information of past lives, trances, UFOs and all that wonderful stuff.  "Out on a Limb" is impossible to categorize as a miniseries, but just try turning this one off!  Believe what you want, be skeptical or don't believe at all.  It doesn't matter.  Just watch it for the sake of seeing Shirley act out her own wackadoo story.

"Malibu Beach at sunset.  'Magic time,' we call it in the movies.  It's that that time of day between light and dark that always makes me wonder who I am and where I fit in," Shirley says while walking on the beach to start the movie.  Then Shirley is suddenly on her balcony, saying, "I'm going to tell you a story that changed my life.  When I passed 40, I began to ask myself some serious questions because I felt something was missing.  Something I knew was there but couldn't quite touch.  Questions like 'why are we here?' 'do we really die...'" you get the point.  Oh, this is going to be GOOD!  Never has a miniseries started like this. 

All of this happened because of a "love affair."  Let's go back in time to Shirley's opening at the London Palladium, "some years ago" (in Hollywood autobiography fashion, dates are of less concern than the truth, not that I'm saying this isn't the truth, just a general observation).  We get the treat of watching Shirley on stage dancing and singing with her boys, still kicking it and showing us the fabulous dancer she was (and maybe still is).  She gets to live this wonderful opening nights, with the applause, critical bouquets and all that lovely stuff a star can't resist reliving. 

It's at this opening night, with the pearls and furs and people telling her how great she is, that she is introduced to Gerry Stamford (Charles Dance), a dashing British MP, "finally our very own JFK," Shirley's friend tells her (and a character given a pseudonym).  Shirley is smitten by this handsome man.  Their small talk is, I hope, purposely stilted, because if it's not, it's proof that stars are every bit as bad as chit-chat as the rest of us when we encounter someone we like.  Their quick meeting is interrupted by Shirley's agent Mort Viner (Jerry Orbach). 

Back in New York after a successful European tour (of course) where she "had almost forgotten" about Gerry, she's cooking in her kitchen with Bella Abzug (Anne Jackson).  So we are clear that this is THE Bella Abzug, Shirley's great famous friend, instead of the other Bella Abzug, the one who lives in a house coat somewhere in Queens with that deadbeat son of hers who steals hubcaps and the husband who broke a leg on the job, she tells Bella, "take the hat off.  You're not running for Senate in the kitchen!" 

Bella can tell something is wrong with Shirley and I would quote the line, but I had the same reaction as Bella, "can you run that by me again?"  Shirley is unfulfilled.  "I'm not talking about fame, money or success," she says, reminding us that she has all three, but feels a lack of purpose in her life.  This rather grating conversation is interrupted by a phone call from long-forgotten Gerry Stamford, which impresses Bella, who loves his intelligence.  "Intelligence has become my new erogenous zone," Shirley responds with a smile. 

Our Socialist PM doesn't let us forget his passion in life is financial equality for all, though he squires fur-drenched Shirley in a limo to a chic dinner.  He does compliment Shirley on her performance in "Around the World in 80 Days," and even she has to knock that one, where she played Hindu.  "I admire your work, and your energy, but you seem to be a happy person and I lack that," Gerry says when Shirley asks why he asked her out.  "People such as yourself are in a position of power to help change people's lives for the better and I find that extremely attractive" is her reason.  They both thank each other for the compliments.  Shirley is fascinated by his Socialism, but in the conversation, he drops the bomb that he's married with teenage kids, but Shirley is fairly undaunted by this fact.  "I felt some comfortable with him, he seemed so familiar to me.  It's as if I had known him all my life.  This mysterious attraction was part of the puzzle I would put together later," she narrates as they go in for a big clinch. 

After spending the night together, Gerry treats Shirley rather like her Charity Hope Valentine character might have been treated, dashing off quickly, though telling her he wants to see her again when she's next in Europe, but once again, Shirley is casual enough about it, though she does wince a few times.  Wouldn't you know, Mort calls Shirley with a potential part, which requires her to go to London to meet with the director. 

Staying at a friend's flat, Shirley is incognito, "employing the first of my many Greta Garbo disguises."  Shirley the star reminds in that sentence reminds us recognizable she is, but Shirley the person schleps her own luggage inside.  She makes dinner for Gerry.  After sex, she wants him to eat, but he has to leave.  He can tell Shirley is disappointed, so he says he is too, that "this is new to me too," but invites her to a French weekend.  At a dinner in Paris, permanent goober Jerry asks about how real film love scenes are, spills a glass of wine and then spots four journalists in the restaurant, which scares him.  "Stop acting so strange.  People can be friends," Shirley says.  "I think we should move at a slower pace," Gerry says, and Shirley agrees, becoming quite the doormat.  She agrees to his cloak-and-dagger routine, and though clearly disappointed, she lets him have it his way.  Good sex?  The next time they see each other, that's the first thing they do.  This is followed by one of those inevitably stupid walking-around-a-quaint-French-town montages and of course a picnic. 

"Can you find  your way back?" Gerry asks Shirley as he packs to go the next morning.  "I've found my way back from wilder places from the French countryside," she remarks with just the right touch of acidity.  He gives her back a present she gave him and doesn't even kiss her on the way out. 

Back in NYC, Bella drags Shirley to an art gallery since the owner is a potential financial contributor of hers.  They look at a piece of art, and Bella snaps, "what is it, the Washington Monument after a flood?"  Shirley is more high-minded, asking what it means.  The gallery owner introduces her to David Manning (John Heard), a composite character who admits to being fans of both notable women, and an expert on this artist.  He knows his art, but Bella is only concerned that it's a feminist painting so Shirley will buy it. 

Shirley gives Gerry the painting because "the yin energy will guarantee you the female vote," which even she doesn't understand, but that's how David kind of explained it.  Gerry is only concerned, that because she was with Bella when she bought it, Bella knows about them.  Meeting at an outdoor grocery in London, they have to pretend not to know each other when the grocer introduces them.  Dump him, Shirl! 

Unfortunately, Shirley goes the other way, rushing to London whenever she can in a series of ludicrous get-ups that she says "would be rejected by a bag lady."  Going to see him at Parliament, she's not pleased with his "combative" behavior.  He defends himself, saying he hates the "hypocrisy" of his colleagues, but Shirley chides him for not looking at his own bad behavior.  He says his affair with her is personal and therefore not the same.  The argument escalates and ends with Gerry leaving (let's hope for good, he's one of the most odious characters this side of Philip Casnoff in "North and South"). 

Her concentration shot over not hearing from Gerry, she rehearses for a new tour and is offered one of the leads in "The Turning Point."  Luckily, she runs into David, who invites her to see his work and dinner.  "I can eat two beans on a leaf," she jokes, but agrees.  She's most fascinated by his photographs of Peru, and her interest is piqued by his talk of spirituality. 

During a walk on the beach, David says he is the man who gave her stones in East Africa ten years earlier.  A freak coincidence?   "There's a purpose in everything," he tells her.  She keeps wondering what all of his little spiritual phrases mean.  He mentions past lives at one point, and Shirley is skeptical, but he invites her to a book store to learn more.  "From that day on, I began reading everything metaphysical I could get my hands on, Shirley narrates.  She devours books and is so impressed by what she reads.  She's so fascinated by it, there's a montage of her reading: at rehearsal, during a dress fitting, getting out of a limo at an awards ceremony where she drops her book on the red carpet. 

Reincarnation makes it into her act, with "Where or When?" no less!  I'm not sure Rodgers and Hart were thinking quite as metaphysically as Shirley, but I suppose an argument could be made.  She puts it in during an engagement where she still sees Gerry.  She tries to explain "New Age thought" to him, but Gerry is definitely the last person who would believe.  He openly sneers at her, "it's for people who can't accept life as it is." 

Perusing a book store, a book literally falls into her hands from an upper shelf and the woman who owns the store is quite the expert on mediums.  Thinking she's met Shirley before, Shirley assumes it's because she's playing a theater nearby.  "Oh, yes, Shirley Jones," the old lady says.  "No, MacLaine."  "Oh, yes, you're wonderful."  Good cover!  Anyway, they get to talking metaphysics and the lady tells her, "no one really dies.  All souls are alive.  Some are in this physical dimension and some are not."  She doesn't even make Shirley pay for the books! 

"I don't believe in accidents anymore," Shirley tells Gerry when they arrange to meet in Hawaii.  He will be there for a conference and she just happens to have two dates free because a booking was changed.  Though she's annoyed that she has to sneak around "like Mata Hari," the minute Gerry shows up, she caves all over again.  After a frolic in the water, Gerry asks, "what do you want from me?" in a plain way, sounding sweet, and Shirley just wants to be happy, but then adds that she feels they have met before.  This is the launch into her new way of thinking and Gerry starts to cry and then confesses his love for her, the first time he's done so. 

If it weren't for Bella, there wouldn't be a counter to Shirley's New Age learning.  When Shirley mentions reincarnation, Bella snaps, "oh, brother, these are the guys I see on the corner with the shaved heads and the orange sheets ringing their little bells.  Shirley, let's get serious here.  You're a practical person with a practical problem," referring to Shirley's issues with Gerry, even joking that Gerry's wife may be part of their past lives together.  "Oy vey," Bella sighs.

Then comes a history lesson.  Back with David in Malibu, he tells her that all of the great religious teachers were "politicians" trying to make people understand the truth, that all religions boil down to the same thing (I think).  "Why isn't reincarnation in the Bible," Shirley understandably asks.  David has an answer for that, about the Emperor Justinian booting it out of canonical thinking and then later on, Church fathers "didn't want people to assume responsibility for their own karmic destiny."  Ouch!  The first moment of catharsis comes when David tells her to stand up, stretch out her arms and say, "I am God." 

A friend tells Shirley to go visit her teacher, a man who "is not incarnate right now," but speaks through a "simple carpenter" (where have we heard that before?) in Stockholm.  Shirley poo-poos it, but then Gerry calls and asks her to meet him in Stockholm.  He brings her all the way there to perhaps break up with her, because "I don't want to lose my seat in Parliament."  Gerry makes it even worse.  "I don't understand why you love me," he says, creep that he is, but Shirley has a new argument ready.  She tells him, "if you just loved yourself more, you'd be free to love me, your wife, your family and your work too."  The conversation makes so little sense that Shirley actually utters a line of dialogue that says, "okay, to recap..."  They don't decide anything there, which means unfortunately Gerry isn't going away, as great as that would be. 

Now it's time for the trans-channeller.  The voice behind it all is thousands of years old and speaks a language Shirley cannot understand, but her friend is there to translate.  We know the spirit has entered the simple man's body when his arm starts to twitch and his eyes close because the spirit wants to see for himself, not through the trans-channeller.  During a two-hour session, Shirley learns a lot and I won't pretend I understood it all, but this is the point in the movie where the story becomes only a convenient device through which to speak of the metaphysical, which is why the miniseries format is so wrong for something like this!  The miniseries is about heightened emotion in there here and now.  It's about love and heartache, war and fear, larger-than-life characters dealing with larger-than-life issues, but it's not about outside-of-life issues.  The miniseries is not about anything spiritual. 

Anyway, someone asks about Atlantis.  The spirit says that "it disappeared because their technical knowledge exceeded their spiritual wisdom."  And all along you thought it was a tsunami!  The pyramids at Giza?  "A library of stone which we would soon learn to read."  The body is tired, so the spirit gives one last blessing and leaves. 

As exciting as her new knowledge base is, Gerry is still a major ass, brushing her off because his wife is in town.  So, she writes.  She writes about everything.  "I ate only Swedish crackers and butter" as she writes about everything she sees, feels, understands, etc.  There comes a speech that is quite interesting, but probably worked better on the page than on the screen.  At the end of a week, she tells Gerry that the answers to their relationship lie in trans-channelling.  Gerry refuses to even try to understand, calling mediums, "psycho" and "weird."  Now, I will state here that I do not understand what Shirley MacLaine understands, nor do I really believe the little I do understand, but I'm willing to at least hear her out (a book would be better than a miniseries, which, as I've said, is just plain wrong).  Gerry?  He goes on the attack so furiously that it's obvious Shirley is clawing not only at him, but at everyone who has ever refused to listen to her.  No one can possibly be as heavy-handed as Gerry, so there has to be another motive here, and I think it's to shut up anyone who isn't the slightest bit open-minded.  It's in a departing tirade that he gives the book and the miniseries its title, beating us over the head with irony, telling her he is not prepared to go so far "out on a limb." 

Shirley wants an English-speaking medium, so Kevin Ryerson (playing himself) is sent to her. In a wacky bit, she offers him a drink and he refuses, saying it gets in the way of the channelling.  "So he isn't into drinking spirits," she says internally.  I think we're meant to groan at that one.  Kevin describes the four spirits who may pop in through him, and Shirley is somewhat skeptical.  The experience in Sweden seemed to fit the bill, but this guy in the fancy suit seems all wrong to her.  "See you in a little while," Kevin says before going into his trance.  Shirley gives the spirit a really rough time with her questions, but when he asks her why she yelled "I am God" at the ocean, she's suddenly more of a believer, and then a man with an Irish accent comes through Kevin and asks for a blindfold.  Since he's Irish, he wants the tea served in a beer mug and finds a hidden bar in her living room.  Regarding Gerry, the first spirit returns to tell her that she and Gerry knew each other in Atlantis 300,000 years ago, when Gerry was a do-gooder even then, which was detrimental to their relationship.  Oh, and there are extra terrestrials.  Kevin leaves, and on the way out, Shirley admits to him "I don't understand it," but she really wants to learn. 

When Shirley next visits David, she finds him painting and drawing UFOs, just as the spirit had mentioned.  "When are you really going to tell me what's going on?" she asks.  "When the time comes," David replies, which doesn't upset Shirley.  Bella arrives to shoot holes in what Shirley has been working on, delightfully unbelieving.  When Shirley mentions ETs, Bella is about to explode.  David's call interrupts Bella and he invites her to go to Peru with him.  "I cannot go to your fundraising garden party next week," she tells Bella, "because I am going to Peru to look for UFOs."  The look on Bella's face says it all.

In Peru, David and Shirley take a crowded bus and a local man with a goat has seen people from "other worlds."  David says everyone at these high altitudes "take it for granted" that these beings exist.  Maybe it's the altitude itself.  The go to Machu Pichu, they ponder how it could have been built, and David says he feels that he was there when it was built.  There are other inexplicable wonders to be seen in Peru that have baffled thinkers for centuries.  In a rare moment of verbal constipation, David says merely, "it really makes you think, doesn't it?"  Wait, this is the man with all the answers and THIS is all he can come up with? 

When the car stalls up in the Andes, David shows Shirley a mountainside where buses go over all the time and everyone has died.  "There aren't any victims in the world.  Everything happens for a reason," he tells Shirley, who is very upset at his "detached" way of thinking of the dead.  They aren't dead, according to David, because no one ever dies.  Their "hotel" is a shack with all sorts of animals and no electricity or hot water.  "I must have done something in a past life to deserve this!" Shirley cracks.

David takes Shirley to a hot spring where he tells her to stare at a candle until she becomes "one with the candle."  This "first attempt at meditation breathing" really impresses Shirley.  This is another one of those sections that works better in a book because film is too literal and the sequence just plays like Shirley MacLaine looking at a candle for a few minutes.  David says he's been coming to this remote outpost in Peru for eight years because of something that "changed my life," but as usual, he won't divulge what it is.  Their evening ends with another schtick moment.  "Goodnight, David."  "Goodnight, Chet."  "And that's the way it is." 

They go to a sulphur spring bath where a local man is in a trance and David slips into one immediately.  "Was he actually there?  Is it possible that he was out of his body?" Shirley asks herself.  This reminds her of working with Peter Sellers, who discussed an out-of-body experience during a heart attack.  David answers her question, that he did leave his body, going into "God's universe." 

Up in the Andes, Shirley does her best to understand it all, but she's frustrated, not getting it all the first time, not being able to be happy, not in control, a discussion of "self-doubt" versus "self-righteous."  She starts crying about Gerry (who has almost been blissfully forgotten), and David tells her, "real friends are people who let you have your own truths, whatever it is."  She's upset at her part in this "psychic play," but David says her part will be better "next time." 

It's finally time for David to spill some secrets, though not easily.  There was once a woman he met who knew everything about him and everything in the world, but he didn't know why as she said she would tell him later.  He gets hysterical as he tells the story, which continues with the woman telling David to pass his knowledge onto a person who would write it all down: Shirley.  The woman was from another planet, which shocks Shirley.  "I would like to go home," Shirley says, angry that everything David has taught her may just be craziness. 

After a night of thinking, Shirley decides, cautiously to follow-up on what David said because, "I consider you to be a friend and in your right mind."  He says he did not believe what the woman had told him, but "she kept turning up" and eventually told him to go to the base of a hill where she revealed a UFO to him.  But there's more!  The alien told David a lot about Shirley, that they had "met each other in previous lives," and that she told him to deliver the stones to Shirley.  That's when Shirley realizes he's been leading up to asking her to write about it, but Shirley is incensed.  She is supposed to write about past lives and all of the rest?  She's fine with her own personal search, but she draws the line at public humiliation over writing about ETs and such.  "It's metaphysical Twilight Zone mumbo jumbo," she rails at David.  "You're a nut," she says and stalks off, but David says he was told to tell her "in order to get the fruit of the tree, you have to go out on a limb," the exact phrase Gerry had used when telling Shirley he couldn't accept her new interests.  Shirley doesn't get it even then and wants to "go back to my old way of thinking." 

"That was probably the most confusing period of my whole life," Shirley narrates.  She doesn't know what to believe, but she sure as hell asks herself a whole lot of questions.  She takes the car to go off thinking by herself and of course it dies as night falls.  This had happened before with David, but the car started after they talked about some truths.  I guess that means she has to learn something for the car to start.  She concentrates very hard and whispers, "David, see me" over and over and he's woken up in order to rush to her.  She wants to know how he found him, and he says the alien guided him. 

There's more.  During the car ride back, David tells Shirley to "trust me and don't touch the wheel."  He goes into a trance while driving and takes his hands off the wheel.  Shirley shrieks in horror as they almost crash, but then the car actually follows the road and all seems fine.  "If they could see me now," Shirley sings, with some new lyrics.

Back in the hot spring, Shirley has her first out of body experience, attached to her body by a thin (animated) "silver cord."  She goes up, up, up, beyond the mountains, off to the moon.  "I felt like a spiritual astronaut," she says.  Wondering if her cord will go to a far nebula kills the soaring and she's back in her body.  She's no longer afraid of dying because now she understands what it will be like, or, as David describes, what she just felt without the cord. 

David and Shirley see news of the big blackout in New York City and Shirley wants to know about Bella's campaign for mayor, so he takes her to a psychic.  The psychic tells her Bella will not win, so Shirley asks "are there any good movie scripts coming up for me?" to laughter from David. 

Having brought Shirley where she needed to be, David tells her he's staying in Peru.  "You've got your notes, your tapes.  You decide what to do," he tells her, "but you've gotta do it alone."  She's upset, but it definitely makes sense plot-wise because now she will never have to produce this mysterious man should anyone ask about him should she have to go out on a book tour (that's my assumption, she doesn't say that).  "When will I see you again?" she asks David?  He gives her a whole litany of catchy phrases about love and such without actually answering her question. 

Back in NYC, Shirley tells all to Bella regarding what the psychic said, so Bella commissions a new poll "and concentrate on Ed Koch," the bald man with the long fingers that the psychic mentioned winning the race.  They go to a function where Gerry is speaking and he won't even hug her.  It's definitely over.  She goes home and writes, "Malibu Beach at sunset..."

I doubt very much if watching "Out on a Limb" will convert you to Shirley MacLaine's way of thinking.  Its few hours are not nearly enough to guide someone on a path of learning, and that's exactly why it never should have been made!  What is the purpose of filming the book?  Truly, why?  The movie just skims the surface of the metaphysical.  It's not a big and brash event.  Hell, there are only four characters with more than ten or so lines.  If anything deserves NOT to be a miniseries, it's "Out on a Limb," which, even as a book, can only make one a bit curious in the hopes of following up.  The only reason I can think of is that Shirley MacLaine got a little high on the controversy her book caused and decided to ride the crest.  I realize that's not exactly the nicest thing to say, but if she was looking to preach her ideas, this movie does a very poor job of it, making one laugh instead of ponder.  Forever a movie star, there is no attempt by Shirley to downplay Shirley in order to improve the discussion of the metaphysical.  This almost seems like one very long episode of a gigantic 100-hour miniseries where the rest of the footage is lost and we're stuck with just this chapter in her life. 

How does it fare as a movie itself?  Eh, adequate.  Because it's so narrowly focused, it does tend to drag, though the last third, the part filmed in Peru is gorgeous to see.  Shirley plays herself well enough, but the best performance is by Anne Jackson as Bella.  She at least knows she's in a movie and not a treatise, so she has a grand time playing a grand character.  So far, Shirley MacLaine has not returned to playing herself, and I hope she doesn't, or at least if she does, she does it with a bit more flair. 

A.D. (1985)

From most of the gang who brought us "Jesus of Nazareth" (discussed here back in December), now we have "A.D.," the less familiar story of the Apostles as they spread the gospel.  This one is even more drenched in guest stars, more drenched in sets and costumes and more drenched in silliness, and I say that with all reverence.  If you are looking for a religious message, stick with the Good Book.  If you want pomp and pageantry in the world of ancient Rome, settle in for six hours of it!

Let's be honest: for good storytelling, you can't beat the Passion story.  Other than sex, it really does have everything a truly great story should have.  Before there ever was an official New Testament, the story of Jesus, with its heroes and villains, miracles, violence and redemption, and even perhaps the hint of a prostitute (with the biggest heart of gold of them all) is just the kind of thing with which to take around the Roman Empire and hope for conversion.  Very few organized religions can match it.

However, the story loses steam after the resurrection.  The next few hundred years couldn't hope to match the 33 Jesus spent on Earth (and most of his years are even missing--it's a very condensed story), and that is the main problem with "A.D."  You can have all the trappings money can buy, but without a whiz-bang story, even the trappings look thin.  Note here that most of the guest stars (slumming and otherwise) play Romans, who were far more exciting than the Apostles.  Why be post-crucifixion Mary when you can be Agrippina?

(Note: the DVD prints of "A.D." cut out a lot, meaning the guest stars, so be prepared to do without Colleen Dewhurst, Ava Gardner's Agrippina and Jennifer O'Neill's Messalina, Fernando Rey's Seneca and of course Susan Sarandon's Livia, most mentioned, but not shown, though they certainly are in the original TV airing--the DVD is put out by a group more interested in religion than fun.)

So, keep that in mind as we slog through some of the slowest parts.  The history of Christianity is fascinating, but most of the best stuff happened right up front and then not for a few centuries.  The stuff in between, well, it means well, and it tries its hardest, but Christianity definitely had what the theater would call "second act trouble."  Oh, sure, comic Roman Emperors and Paul's outrageous sense of self-worth are amusing, but watching it all happen convert by convert can become tiresome at times. 

It's two days after the crucifixion.  The scaffold is being dismantled, but otherwise, Jerusalem seems back to normal.  Two too-late-for-Passover visitors are scampering away from the city, soon joined by an awfully serene man who wants to hear their story.  "We got there in time for the bad news," one says, that they not only missed joining "the 12," but that Jesus is dead.  So, they went to the tomb, "but the body wasn't there...nothing is left, not even his body."  They are told not to be afraid, but to be "cheerful," because this has all been foretold.  The serene man tries his best with the two frightened men, who bleat, "there is nothing in the scriptures about the power of Rome!" but when the serene man finally shows them his hands, with big holes through them, their attitudes change.  He is, of course, Jesus (Michael Wilding Jr.). 

Jesus can't stay for dessert, despite the prodding of his new converts, who seem to understand all once he is gone and have no more fears.  This first sequence is extremely long and extremely pious, but a slow start isn't a miniseries first.

It's time to meet the Apostles, hiding in Jerusalem.  One claims he has been renamed "Peter, the rock" (Dennis Quilley).  In rush our two newly calm converts Cleopas (Todd Durham) and Zacchaeus (Anthony Pedley) with their story.  Thomas (Davyd Harries), doubts that it's true (yes, that's a Doubting Thomas joke) because he hasn't seen him yet.  Peter does not understand how he's supposed to move forward, but Jesus appears and says, "on your shoulders, strong enough to bear the weight of your mission" and now everyone sees him.  No trap doors, no fog, no smoke and mirrors.  Here he is folks, get your believing on!  Jesus gets in a second Doubting Thomas reference, but only so Jesus can prove to the naysayer that he is there and make him believe.  He tells them to stay in Jerusalem for a few days because soon enough will come the time to start spreading the word.

The Jews in Jerusalem are arguing.  Luckily, they have the slow steady Gamaliel (John Houseman, who did everything slow and steady in the 80s) to guide them.  He defends the action of turning in Jesus to keep the Romans placated.  Stephen (Vincent Riotta), Samuel (Ralph Arliss) and Caleb (Cecil Humphreys) are all present to join in with witty barbs back and forth.  Paul (Philip Sayer), isn't quite trusted by the rest because Rome has honored his family.  Gamaliel tries to calm everyone by saying despite their differences, they are all one people, but Jesus and his teachings have stirred them up and they don't know what to think anymore.  Paul is particularly vitriolic against the notion of "love" that Jesus had preached, but no one really knows if he was the Messiah or not.  "We firmly reject any claim that Jesus was anything but a good man.  We all need unity and heart.  Let us pray for this now," Gamaliel says to bring the meeting to a close. 

Freed from thinking, Stephen and Caleb wrestle in the street with everyone cheering them on.  It's all done in friendliness, but the Romans break it up and arrest Caleb.  Paul tries to save him, but the Roman soldiers merely sneer at him.

Remember Pontius Pilate (Anthony Zerbe)?  He's still the head Roman in the area, and he has still has the problems of rebels in Judea.  He is told they are stockpiling gems, but he's unconcerned.  He knows the Romans will rout them in the end and tells his aides to simply rejoice in the majesty of Emperor Tiberius.  That said, there is still the pesky problem of the new zealots.  "They are like weeping willows," he tells his aides, "they bend until they snap back with more power."  Everyone is thrilled with the expediency of the way he handled Jesus, but they need to set more examples.  Regarding Jesus, "his case puzzled me; his death relieved me," Pilate says, but does not ask for Caleb immediately, preferring to wait two days until another Jewish celebration to pronounce sentence.  "They shall have another solemn date on their calendar," he says, now just a nasty old man who loves his power.  Oh, wait!  It gets worse.  With both eyebrows raised, he asks if Caleb has any relatives and told he has a mother and two young sisters, he has them sent to Rome as slaves to thank Sejanus for "his consideration." 

I'll skip ahead more briskly than the movie, which delights in sweating the small stuff.  One of Caleb's sisters, Ruth (Rebecca Saire) is betrothed to Samuel, who informs the family that Caleb is certain to be crucified.  Samuel tries to tell Ruth to leave the house with him, sensing "it isn't safe," but she refuses.  Meanwhile, Steven wants Paul to intervene because he's a Roman citizen, but it's too late for that.  How about Uncle Matthias?  He has money.  Nope, he won't give any of it up because he believes in the teachings of Jesus.  "Ugh," Paul says, with a roll of the eyes that can be seen miles away.  "The Lord who is one will guide us," Paul says, stressing "one" to remind everyone it's still the Jewish God in whom they need to have faith.  Roman guards take the sisters, and Samuel is understandably upset.  He wants to strike at the Romans, but Steven says "violence breeds violence," stressing belief in God, who has "seen us through harder times."  "He's deaf!" Samuel yells. 

As the Apostles are delighting in baby stories from Mary (Millie Perkins), a wind kicks up, but only in their room.  It's followed by a bright light that causes them to form a circle and dance in delight before leaving Mary alone in the secret room.  Gathered outside are tons of people shouting "hallelujah" and waving palm branches.  It's the celebration day Pilate had mentioned, and everyone gathers at the Temple in high spirits.  Peter quiets them down to speak.  It turns out he's quite the preacher.  "That great and notable day is upon us.  Jesus of Nazareth...God has raised up...let all know that God has made him both Lord and Messiah!" he tells all.  He says all they have to do is be baptized and turn away from the Jewish priests who have gathered with hostile faces, including Paul. 

Meanwhile, Caleb is saved in a brave attack as he's on his way to be crucified, but Samuel is killed in the melee.  Stephen begs Caleb not to take revenge and seek out some Jewish aesthetics who are are big into water wells and "obsessed with cleanliness" but otherwise live cut off from the world.  They are definitely not followers of any new religious ideas.  Caleb gets to argue a bit with them and then we visit his sisters on the boat to Rome, where Ruth is depressed, but remembering Uncle Matthias, who is a follower of Jesus' teachings, so we get a little gospel before she's killed. 

Peter, thinking he's Jesus because he's seen a crippled man with a cross-shaped stick, touches him and tells him to rise, and it actually works!  This is seen by the Jewish priests and everyone gathered at the Temple.  No one is more surprised than Peter that it worked.  "I'm nobody, I'm nothing.  It's the power of our Lord," he says.  However, he does have a bit of ego going, so he goes a-baptizin'.  Stephen shows up to take the waters.

The action moves to Rome.  Let's face it, as nasty as Pilate is, Judea is a backwater and the story is only going to pick up steam when we transplant at least some of heroes to the sinful capital city.  We arrive in the Senate where Sejanus (Ian McShane) is making a speech, having just survived an assassination attempt.  A note from Emperor Tiberius makes him Consul.  Valerius (Neil Dickson), son on a low-born successful soldier, has come to Rome as a spy for Sejanus because there is another plot against him, but when he falls in love with slave girl at first sight, he suddenly doesn't want to spy anymore.  The slave girl belongs to Sejanus, who is pursuing her to beat her.  "I thought I was serving Rome," he tells his mother, "but I suspect I'm serving an unscrupulous tyrant."  We've only just met Valerius, but he's awfully dim-witted already.  Oh, oops, did I mention the slave girl is Sarah (Amanda Pays), the sister of Ruth and Caleb?  Yeah, but you figured that out already.  It's good storytelling.  Someone in her family deserves it.  Caleb is banished to the desert and Ruth is dead.

Speaking of Caleb, he's in Samaria now.  He's there working the locals into a lather to overthrow the local government.  "You must all think in terms of national freedom," he tells everyone, as if that's a concept with ANY meaning to small-town people in the first century A.D.  He explains how the Romans have ordered the military, down to the numbers in each garrison.  Geez, don't piss off Caleb!  Have him drag a cross halfway through Jerusalem and you've got an enemy on your hands!

Lo and behold, it works.  He gets the local men to agree and they dispose one-by-one of the troops, stealing their armor as a way in.  Well, as one can expect, this does not sit well with Tiberius (James Mason, having graduated to a flashier role since "Jesus of Nazareth"), who, historically, probably would never even have heard of rebellion in Samaria. "Have I not done more for these Jews than...than...than...than..." he sputters, having no idea what he's given then, only to get a saucy reply from Nerva (Jack Warden), who feels that this one revolt is a symptom of weakening leadership in Rome since Tiberius has gone into self-imposed exile on Capri. 

We are jumping around very quickly, where the Apostles are facing the Jewish leadership.  Gamaliel, and particularly our old pal Caiaphas (Harold Kasket) are annoyed by the gains of the "zealots," snapping at Peter, whom he deems "the son of a fisherman" with bile.  Peter can give as good as he gets, accusing Caiaphas of putting Jesus to death, but Gamaliel urges everyone to "leave these men alone."  If it is the work of man "it will collapse" and if it is the work of a higher power, "you cannot overthrow it."  I think John Houseman had the same speech in "Winds of War," no?  Alas, Caiaphas is in no better a mood than he was when Jesus was alive and he orders the whipped and to speak of Jesus no more.  The man so far called Paul (to be fair, he hasn't settled on that yet, as he's referred to as both Paul and Saul) is livid at Gamaliel for his "lenient" attitude toward the Apostles and they have a really dry doctrinal argument, though Paul has one good point at the end: a divided Jewry is only good news for the Roman Empire. 

Stephen takes that theory one step further, telling the Apostles that it's time to go empire-wide with their message.  Peter's response?  "We're not ready for THAT yet!" to a chorus of laughter.  But, Stephen is all for pan-Judaism that stretches across the empire.  He wants to go to Greece himself, but Peter says no, the work is in Jerusalem.  "Me?  I've had enough of water," says the fisherman.  To be fair, not all the kinks of theocracy are worked out so that it's easy to swallow Christianity, but the believers are awfully good at hobbling it together on the fly.  Stephen is preaching when Paul says nothing is higher "than the law of Moses," and Steven agrees that all of that is the foundation of what they are teaching, but that Jesus came with a new law, "the law of forgiveness, of love."  Sounds pretty good, huh?  Who wouldn't be at least interested in hearing a little about it?  It's even starting to have an effect on Paul, though he claims otherwise over and over again.  Stephen emerges as the best voice of the new religion, the most eloquent and the best with a ready argument. 

But, when Stephen claims to see Jesus "at the right hand of God," Caiaphas can't take it anymore.  Not being able to "see" God is one of the holiest tenets of Judaism.  "Your blasphemy cannot be tolerated any longer!" Caiaphas roars, "Get out, Stephen...you have made it impossible for us!"  The sentence is death by stoning.  He dies asking for the Lord to take his soul.  Paul wants more, to imprison the whole lot of the "Greek Jews," as they are now referred to,  and let them be judged "according to justice," i.e. more stoning.  Caiaphas agrees, so Paul gets to play hatchet man. 

To make his point, he arrests an entire praying group, or at least just the men.  Thus, the Apostles realize it's time to start spreading the word and send Philip (Gary Brown) abroad.  He first goes to Samaria, where he meets Caleb, who learns that his sisters were sent to Rome and his mother died.  Caleb also learns that for his role in losing Samaria, Pilate has been "recalled to Rome" and a replacement is being sent.  Caleb wants to go to Rome "and strike at the heart."  Philip tries to talk him out of it, but Caleb is resolute. 

Back in Rome, Sarah and Valerius meet again in a rainstorm, both having tried to forget each other with no luck.  Thank goodness for this sudsy plot.  It's hackneyed and obvious, but at least it has some dramatic heft.  Get this load of bunk as they try to deal with their differences:
He: "Suppose he [Sejanus] loved me.  This would change him."
She: "How?"
He: "My freedom would be yours."
She: "You want me to belong to you?"
He: "The two of us should have a chance to find our own way."
She: "The Jewess and the Roman soldier."
He: "A woman and a man. Being a Roman or being a Jew, I know people may find being a difference that can't be reconciled.  Me?  It's just like this rain.  Forgettable."
She: "I'll try to remember."

And then she leaves.  Lovestruck male and sassy slave woman.  That has possibilities!

The new Procurator in Judea is Marcellus (Roderick Horn), who has ordered Paul's spitefest to end because the Romans don't want bloodshed.  "Thank God for that," Gamaliel says, though Caiaphas and the others are upset because "he was doing such good work," and decide to send him to do that work in Damascus with Seth (Bruce Winant).  Gamaliel is still the only voice of reason, but the Jewish priests are determined to stamp out the growing Nazarene sect however they can. 

On the way to Damascus, Paul is annoyed by the slowness of his men, so he sends three back and continues with just Seth.  They are caught in a giant wind storm that scares off the horses.  Paul opens his eyes, now blind as he burns with fever.  He insists that they continue to Damascus.  Paul finally confesses what he heard to Seth.  "It was his voice, the Lord.  He said, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?  We are all by nature children of anger.'  I shall persecute no more," he says.  "I am to become one of them," he says and asks Seth to bring him Ananais (Barrie Houghton), who baptizes him officially as Paul, now a convert to the new religion and able to see again. 

Having helped drive his uncle to insanity and death, Little Boots, known to history as Caligula (John McEnery), is teetering on the brink of madness himself.  He orders a soldier to cut off the heads of all the statues of the gods on his property and put his head on them.  But the female gods?  "Just put more hair," he says matter-of-factly. 

Paul is worried that he's not a teacher, with more zeal than knowledge, but the believers of Damascus tell him to simply tell his story of his revelation and people will understand.  He has an uphill battle since everyone knows to hate him.  "Cannot a man change?" he asks and then goes into the new teachings, but he meets resistance. 

Caleb goes to Rome, awed by the city and looking to attend gladiator school, in the wacky notion that once he has a sword in hand, he can get to his sisters and avenge what he sees as his own cowardice for having run to the desert.  Hasn't he already taken care of that by helping the Samaritans temporarily rise up.  He's offered a good job making tents by Aquila (Tony Vogel) and his wife Priscilla (Angela Morant).

I say it again, thank goodness for the fictional plot going here, because it's ineptness gives us most of the laughs we need.  Caleb does indeed go to gladiator school, where the teacher realizes he's Jewish the minute Caleb disrobes and then sends him off to fight some bad ass.  They have a good fight and then the bad ass removes his helmet to reveal she's a woman!  Caleb is upset, but turned on.  Corrina (Diane Venora) is learning to fight so she can protect herself.  She doesn't say from what, but Caleb doesn't ask either. 

Peter and friends have made it to Samaria, where they show us what might be one of history's first exorcisms.  It's witnessed by slimy Simon (John Steiner), who wants to pay to learn their "trickery."  They refuse his money and tell him he doesn't understand that it's not magic.  This is actually quite an interesting scene because it shows another side of what people must have thought, namely that the power of faith was mere quackery.  However, since no one is making money from it (not yet, at least), it has to be honest. 

Paul is almost killed and a high-ranking Ethiopian (Ben Vereen, in a ludicrous bit of scenery chewing) is baptized by Philip after taking all of five minutes to convert.  Caligula is baffled by the Jews, not understanding their monotheism until he can turn it to himself, saying "There is one god.  The Emperor is god," as he's having statues all over the empire made of himself, which is not sitting well with the Jews in Jerusalem. 

Speaking of Paul, he goes back to Jerusalem, where his conversion is doubted (yes, by Thomas).  He begs to be a minister, but Peter tells him to go back to Tarsus.  When he refuses, Peter tries to get rid of him in another way.  "You're young, you're strong.  You're a traveling man," sending him on the road with the good word.  Paul's conversion does not go down well in Tarsus, where his father says, "there's no room for you here.  Disinherited and disowned."  It gets worse!  "A good Jew and a good Roman gets his reward  and you will get yours someday.  The headman's ax or the stones of the mob or the shame of the cross," his father predicts.  "What shame?  Don't talk of shame," Paul says, unmoved. 

On the northern coast of Gaul, Caligula assembles his troops and gives them a rah-rah speech before they go off to conquer Britannia, but he has a request first.  He wants them to pick up all the shells on the beach so they can be returned to Rome.  Our old pal Valerius finds this humiliating, "the shame of it!"  Even worse for morale, instead of the planned invasion, Caligula decides to send the ships back to Rome with the shells.

In Jaffa, Peter brings a woman back from the dead, much to his own surprise, and he's then besieged by requests from the town to heal and cure.  "Go home, it's not me!" he says to them, trying to nap.  He then he as a dream that a bunch of animals descended upon him, including some forbidden by law to eat, and he is told to dig into the buffet.  "It means you're hungry," Thomas tells him.  "It means we shall not be afraid to break bread with the Gentiles," Peter retorts.  This is a giant moment in Christianity, the moment when the new religion stopped becoming merely a sect of Judaism.  Peter is summoned by Centurion Cornelius (Paul Freeman) and he goes, now convinced that non-Jews can hear the message, though Thomas refuses to enter the "house of the uncircumcised."  The Centurion wants to be baptized, the first Roman official in the story to do so. 

Back in the fictional plot, Caleb and Corinna have fallen for each other and when he grabs her, she asks if he's "subjugating me or Rome" and he's too confused to make much sense.  He certainly wants her, that he admits, but he has to keep his eye on the goal of of destroying Rome.  They do get a big kiss as the scene quickly ends.  Sarah and Valerius get a moment alone too, with Valerius talking of Caligula's madness.  "How will it end?" Sarah wants to know.  "With someone sticking a dagger in the divine Caligula," Valerius replies quite openly.  He wants to buy her freedom, but he does not have the money.  Aquila and Priscilla discuss the problem and then, out of the blue, Aquila tells his wife, "I've just come to accept that the secret of life is hope.  That even death may not be the end.  I was led by his crucified hand out of darkness."  Wait, "just come to accept?"  Isn't that a bit strong?  However long it took, it works, because Aquila comes up with the money to buy Sarah at an auction.  He then grants her freedom and they are married.  It took nearly three and a half hours, but finally "A.D." has a happy moment!  The only one not happy is Caleb, just told of the fate of his sisters.  "Rome," he sneers sarcastically at Aquila, "tears our hearts apart and then fills them with love."  Caleb refuses to see his sister until he kills Caligula (it was under the rule of Tiberius that the bad stuff happened, but one Caesar is as good as another). 

The appearance of the statue of Caligula proves to be interesting philosophically, once again bringing up the subject of whether the new Christians are still Jews are not.  The Jewish argument against the statue is first, with Caiaphas telling the local governor that the Jews will not allow it inside the Temple and will kill to make sure it is not placed there.  The sympathetic governor offers to kill himself, but knows that won't make Caligula happy.  Then it's Peter's turn.  He and the Apostles argue about non-Jews joining them.  Some think the Gentiles have to convert to Judaism first, but Peter is playing a numbers game.  He wants converts any way he can take them.  He even argues that he would take Caligula, should he want to convert.  So, should this gang support the Jews against the statue or stay away?  Peter says, "the Temple is in our hearts" and they should stay away.  But, that will mean breaking definitively with the Jews.

As it appears that "A.D." is about to turn into an Agatha Christie mystery with everyone damning Caligula to death, Caleb and Sarah are re-united, but Caleb refuses to accept her husband.  However, neither of them knows that her husband was one of the soldiers who pledged to kill Caligula.  Sighs of relief on the part of the governor and Caiaphas greet the news that the deed is done and the hated statue has its head knocked off. 

Rome has a new emperor, the timid and awkward Claudius (Richard Kiley), who gives a stuttering speech upon assuming his new role that "the Jews must leave Rome!"  He beams with unexpected surprise to find that the Senate agrees with him. 

Okay, now I'm getting a bit annoyed at the fictional plot because Caleb, though understandably in a permanent bad mood, really does give Valerius a hard time without getting to know him.  For their first meeting, Valerius goes to the trouble of learning the Bible, for goodness sake!  "I offer you my friendship, Caleb," he says, but Caleb replies, "I can give you only my hatred in return."  On his way out, Valerius earnestly says, "I want to build peace with you," in English and in Hebrew, but Caleb remains unmoved.  Due to Claudius' new policy, Valerius has to leave Rome unless his wife renounces her faith and he has to hold a trial with witnesses to prove it.  Though Sarah refuses in front of witnesses, the witnesses report all is okay.

We've gotten so lost in our fictional plot that we've neglected our pal Paul, now in Antioch looking for converts, among both Jews and Gentiles.  Faith may have to take a back seat to practicality, because a merchant in Antioch tells Paul, "you have an urgent business on your hands" and asks them to sell Antioch grain to Jerusalem, which will be out of supplies in a few months due to failed harvests and bad leadership in Rome.  Or vice versa.  Or whatever, just know that trade is somehow tempting.  Before that, though, he is able to convert Luke (Gerrard McArthur). 

Caleb is fired as a gladiator because he's a Jew (though boss Richard Roundtree swears if it were up to him, he would keep him), so he and Corrina have to leave Rome, and Aquila and Priscilla are on their way as well, back to Corinth and teetering close to conversion. 

Uh oh.  Peter is captured and thrown into jail, and upon finding out that James has been executed, wonders aloud to Jesus how he can be "the rock" if he's dead.  Jesus has an answer for him, appearing to him in a burst of light that somehow opens Peter's cell door and allows him to escape.  Okay, maybe it's not so much an answer as just a way out.  When he hears that Peter has escape, newly-appointed Herod Antipas has an overacting fit that scare the birds right out of the trees and dies.  Peter decides it's perfectly okay to convert the Gentiles, and though there is still resistance, "understanding" is more important than circumcision.  As long as the converts don't fornicate or kill, they are okay, basically. 

Guess who comes up with the idea of a the New Testament?  According to "A.D." it's Priscilla.  Yup.  At dinner with Aquila and visiting Paul, she says that "these tales of the Lord's work must not be lost to the future," turning serious after ribbing him for some of the more outlandish stories being preached.  Thank you, Priscilla!  Wanna write it too?  Is she Matthew?  Mark?  Where is the Gospel of Priscilla?

Co-opted by Luke, as it turns out.  Paul tells them of his flair for the comic and how he's such a good writer.  Plautus without a sense of humor, if you ask me, but hey, apparently Paul thinks he's quite the snazzy scribe and the one to put it all down on paper.  "I'm to become a character in a Greek tale," Paul says, with Aquila comparing him to Odysseus and other Greek heroes.  And Paul, never one to shirk some praise, doesn't argue.  Are you kidding?  He then preaches in the next scene, listing all the places he's been and all the good he's done, tossing in a bit of guilt and a bit of the fantastic.  "When you say the man Paul has cured the sick...you say wrong.  It is the power of God working THROUGH Paul," he tells them.  It couldn't just be God, could it?  Paul has to get his name in there whenever he can. 

If Tiberius was a sick fool, Caligula overflowing with a god complex and Claudius a fraud, they don't compare to the man the latter leaves in charge of the Empire, perhaps as some huge joke: Nero.  Granted, he allows the Jews back into Rome, where Aquila, Priscilla-the-Ignored, Sarah, Corinna and Caleb enjoy a dinner where they talk about Paul (if he can't be in the scene, at least he's discussed).  Paul apparently told Aquila and Priscilla to wait for conversion, like a "slow, lingering" feeling rather than the flash of light he saw.  Why?  These two have been ready for conversion since the moment we met them!  Of all people, we're making them wait? 

Paul takes Luke to Jerusalem for Passover and there is immediately anger from the Jews that he may try to bring him into the Temple, which is forbidden.  There's a big plaque, "in Green and in Latin," that anyone of another faith entering will be killed.  Luke stays outside, but Paul enters to "perform the right of purification" and once he enters, he's mobbed, "as an agent of Rome" of all things.  Well, he is still a Roman citizen.  Therefore, the Romans in Jerusalem take the threat against his life seriously enough to investigate it.

In the fictional plot, Caleb and Valerius have become good friends and Caleb has his old job back as a gladiator.  Valerius is being sent to Palestine with the new governor, but Caleb has softened toward Rome.  "I'm married now," is his explanation for having given up his vengeance, which is really all he's had up until now.  "Besides, Nero seems willing to make concessions," Caleb chirps ominously.

The new procurate in Palestine is Porcius Festus (David Hedison).  His appearance is cheered by Caiaphas, who has thought Rome too lax lately.  He wants Festus to judge Paul's case.  Festus is furious, feeling that Caiaphas has no right to say there has even been a crime committed.  "Did you have summary justice in mind?  An accident on the road to Jerusalem, perhaps?  I've heard of these tricks before!" he thunders.  "We do not perform tricks, procurate.  We are at one over our love of justice," Caiaphas says unctuously.  Paul is in prison talking about love, getting a speech that goes on a very long time with loads of underscoring.  It's a beautiful moment, theologically, but boy does it bring the action to a grinding halt.  I mean no disrespect to the gospel of love, just its insertion right here after more than four hours of time gone by.  "There are three things that truly last," he says in summary (we could have gone right to that), "faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love." 

At Paul's trial, Festus proclaims, "this is an internal matter and does not concern Rome," completely bored until Paul says he's committed no crime against Rome.  Festus doesn't care what he's done to anger the Jews, but Paul appeals his case to Caesar.  "Okay, you've appealed to Caesar, and to Caesar you shall go," he decides.  Phew!  Paul is able to slither out of this political morass, avoiding Jewish judgment, which surely would never have gone his way.  It's Valerius who has to take Paul to Rome.  Discussing the internal struggles between Jews, Festus tells Valerius, "whatever it is, whatever it is, it's...it's...unclean, un-Roman, all too...Jewish."  A better summation of the world's attitude at the time has not been spoken in this miniseries.  Historically, what was going on in Palestine at the time, whether it concerned the Jews or the newer sect of zealots, none of it really mattered to Rome at large.  It was a blip in the Empire, only made to seem historically important by later events and then magnified immensely.  The miniseries is certainly on the side of Christianity, but it can't completely ignore historical truth, so it succinctly handles it in a short line like this. 

Without going over the entire hysterical conversation, I want to catch up with Paul as he sails to Rome, slowly, with Valerius and Luke.  They talk of the fictional characters, how they have changed, etc., and then Paul asks to stop at Sidon.  "I persecuted the Jews and they went to Sidon and started a church.  You could say I started that church," he says.  Once again, there's nothing in the New Testament he won't take credit for, and Luke is there to make sure of it!  He also gets off a few famous Biblical quotes during this voyage, tucked in there among the more self-righteous moments.  Valerius is a willing convert, so the writers use his thirst for knowledge as a way to let Paul explain all the new tenets of the religion.  Before reaching Rome, Valerius is baptized and converted. 

In Rome, no one really cares about Paul, so he's allowed to go free, trailed by a Roman soldier whose only problem is "Jewish cooking," though Priscilla aims to change that.  Valerius talks to lawyers who say that if Paul makes no fuss for a month, the case will be dropped.  And so it is.  He's worked wonders, but still hasn't changed Caleb's mind.  "The new faith won't do.  Not yet, not yet," Caleb says, suddenly a free-Judea radical again after so long as a content gladiator.  Paul leaves Rome, but with uncharacteristic modesty.  Luke, who is staying, says he will write of all Paul has done for future generations, but Paul demures, "not just Paul, but all the Apostles."  Yeah, but does he mean it?  After all, Luke doesn't know the others, so Paul's lip service to them may be just that.  He then boards a boat out of Rome with his arms raised to the crowds.

What of the other Apostles?  Peter is still around, now in Rome, gray and older, at the villa of Linus (David Rintoul), proclaiming Rome needs to be the new center of the religion, for he has had premonitions.  It can't be Jerusalem anymore because Jews and Christians are like "siblings who can't live together anymore" and in order to spread the word, they have to do it free of their Jewish kinsman.  "You will be a shepherd, a shepherd in the name of Jesus," Peter tells Linus because Linus is a true Roman who understands the faith. 

The casting of miniseries favorite Anthony Andrews at Nero is genius.  It gives him a chance to dig deep into his hammy bag of tricks and play Nero as an effeminate oddball with an Abe Lincoln beard.  When first seen, he's begging the Senate for something unimportant, claiming "the people are ready for an increase in taxation after so long a period of fiscal clemency."  It's his idea to allow Jews and Christians freedom of religion as long as they pay full taxes.  Sounds reasonable to him, but the Senate would rather spend money to rebuild Pompeii or strengthen their holds in Spain, Gaul and Britain.  That sets Nero off big time, and Andrews enjoys spitting out every syllable. 

Whereas Paul gets to preach to huge crowds and important people, Peter is stuck with a kindergarten asking questions that have easy answers, history's first Sunday school with avuncular Peter a benign happy teacher.  A Senator warns him to be careful.  "Your words have different sounds to different ears," he says, before telling him, "I want to see you again," with a creepy look that makes him seem like a teenager asking for a second date. 

The Great Fire of Rome is quite the spectacle.  Of course Nero watches, quoting poetry, but, thankfully, not fiddling.  It's left to our fictional characters to suffer on screen, but the viewer to suffer through Nero's idiotic ramblings while being fondled by a woman whose only contribution to the dialogue it to look at the burning city and call the new one Nero dreams of "Neropolis." 

Peter puts Linus in charge, calling him the Father of the Church, therefore Pope Linus technically.  He also reminds everyone that he sees a time when everyone will be "cruelly tested" before having everyone recite an "Our Father." 

Nero and his friend Tigellinus (Jonathan Hyde) have cooked up a way to whip the Senate into a frenzy against the Christians in the wake of the Great Fire and decrees that not only will they be rooted out, but with extreme violence.  Nero particularly loves the idea of public executions in the arenas, bloodbaths for the fun of it.  Peter is arrested and we can cue the lions, or, in this case, leopards (the budget must have been shot by this point and lions don't work cheap).  Peter is to face death on the Vatican hill by crucifixion, of which he claims he's not worthy.  "Let me die seeing the world as the rest of sinning humanity sees it, twisted, inverted" he tells his jailer. 

Most difficult to watch is when the Christian children are dresses as lambs (Caleb and Sarah's daughter among them) and set upon by angry drooling dogs.  Even the spectators have trouble watching this display.  Caleb and Corinna, with their gladiator training, rush into the arena, in slow motion, and kill the dogs, earning the respect of the crowd and Nero.  Valerius goes into the arena to find his daughter and picks up a dead body, but it's not his daughter, who is safe, and angrily denies  his past.  "I am not a Roman soldier anymore. I will not serve a butcher and a pack of wolves.  Rome is not this!...I renounce my rank.  I renege my service," he yells at the top of his lungs, but a sympathetic soldier tells him to hide instead of turning him in. 

Peter's upside-down crucifixion is no easier to watch, but it's kept short, mercifully.  Then it's time for Paul to face the Romans.  Expecting to be crucified like Peter, the arresting solder tells Paul that crucifixion is only for non-Roman citizens like "Peter or your...what's his name?"  "Jesus," Paul replies.  "Learn it.  You may meet him someday." 

Paul is saucy to Tigellinus in prison, unafraid of death, but Tigellinus is a smart cookie.  He feeds Paul's ego.  "You are the fish I wanted to catch.  The rest are minnows.  They will fall back to the right once you're gone," he says and Paul doesn't argue.  In prison, he holds one last service, saying he has "run the good race."  As he's being led past a line of crucified men, he says, "forgive them Lord, they know not what they do."  He has to get all the Biblical lines in, because time is ticking, only Luke is nowhere to be found with his feather and parchment to record it all.  Nero himself shows up for the beheading. 

"The church is indeed stronger than the Empire that assails it," Linus tells the faithful, and history proved him right.  He also has a chance to welcome Caleb and Corinna, saying, "I knew you'd come."  He also gives them a recently-orphaned baby.  Linus insists the the child be raised a Christian and Caleb says he can't, so Linus says the faith will come to the child, "just allow him to look for it."  They are on their way back to Jerusalem anyway, since Caleb feels, "it's time for a son to return to his mother," metaphorically, of course. 

There we have it.  Early Christianity, with its questions, its bloodshed, it's misunderstandings and it's regal power.  It's not the most engaging story, thus the fictional plot, but it does at least provide some answers and fill in some gaps.  From here, not much miniseries-worthy happens until all of Rome is converted, but let's just stick where we are for now!

I Know My First Name is Steven (1989)

As we've seen, true crime stories tend to get awfully sensationalized by the American Miniseries, but "I Know My First Name is Steven" is an example of when it's done right.  The true true story of Steven Stayner, a California boy kidnapped at age seven and kept for over seven years, the story certainly does work the tear ducts, especially the half that tells the story from the point of view of Steven's parents.  However, the other half of the story is told from the point of view of Steven and that part is honest and beautifully written.  It portrays so wonderfully how easily manipulated Steven was by a truly evil man, and how he came to believe the lies until finally committing a brave act on Steven's part brought the whole episode to a happy conclusion, happier certainly than the previous seven years.

"Christmas isn't for us anyway.  Christmas is for the kids," says Kenneth Parnell (Arliss Howard) to his cohort Murphy (Pruitt Taylor Vince) as they pass out leaflets trying to remind Christmas shoppers what the holiday is really about.  Parnell then tells Murphy that he always wanted a son, someone to "pull my boots off at night" and other assorted things that are not high on everyone's list of child-rearing.  The thought of it spurs him on to buy a load of goods for kids in 1972 and tell Murphy, "I'm gonna get me a kid for Christmas."

That child will be Steven Stayner (Luke Edwards), one of five Stayner kids of the just-getting-by Stayners (John Ashton and Cindy Pickett).  When Mom gets home from work and one of the little kids is making dinner, no one can find Steven.  Luckily, he does make it home that night, and one of his sisters asks, "is Daddy gonna give him a whipping?" to which Mom cheerfully says yes to make sure Dad does it.  "You gotta learn to respect and obey when grown-ups say something," Dad says, threatening the frightened child even more.  "Don't ever make me sorry I didn't whip you here tonight," he tells Steven on his way out of his room. 

Mom asks Steven what makes him so miserable and it's where they live.  He likes the "house by the orchard by the ocean," but Mom reminds him they can't afford it. 

"One day he's gonna thank me for making him my son," Parnell tells Murphy, as they have short scenes with a clearly unraveling Parnell talks about snatching a kid and the less mentally capable Murphy doesn't quite understand.

The Stayner household is not the happiest, but they do care.  Despite the grandfather's claim that "at least when we had a litter of puppies we drowned the runts," referring to the fact that he feels his daugther has too many kids, Mom is worried about Steven at school without his muffler.

As soon as Parnell sees Steven, he nods to Murphy, who is standing on the street handling out more religious pamphlets.  He takes Steven to "Reverend" Parnell and they get him in the car by offering to take him to his parents to learn about religion.  Steven realizes they are passing his street and Parnell tells him, "don't worry about it...you afraid you're gonna get in trouble?  Your father's never gonna hit you again.  I promise you that."  That's chilling, the way Parnell is immediately able to manipulate him already.

Back at home, Mom and Dad think it's just another day of Steven missing, and this time Dad swears he's going to belt him good.  They can't believe how he would disobey orders the very next day!  They search around and no one has seen him.  Parnell tells Steven he has spoken to his mother and she has approved his spending the night.  He then takes him 20 miles away to his trailer.  If you think it's a dumb Hollywood twist that Grandpa (Ray Walston) lives only a few hundred feet away and actually sees Parnell and Murphy drive past him, it's not.  In real life, he lives only that far away from his kidnapped grandson!

The Stayners alert the police to Steven's disappearance and though re-assured that "we will have the whole force looking out for him," neither parent is convinced.  So, they go out on their own looking for him in just about any place a child can hide.  As for Steven, he doesn't want to stay at Parnell's, but Parnell twists him.  "You're Daddy's not to happy with you now, know why?" getting Steven to admit all of his supposed crimes, for which he's now being punished.  When Steven refuses to eat green beans, Parnell explodes, and Steven is certainly aware of what anger means. 

As Parnell is feeding Steven hot chocolate, Dad is only a bit away at Grandpa's looking for him.  "Look at it this way, it's one less mouth to feed," the mean old man says.  When he returns, the police are there asking the parents if they have beaten or killed Steven, since one of Steven's friends mentioned Steven was afraid of getting a beating.  Dad offers to take a lie detector test to prove he didn't do it, but he also suggests the police request the same of his father-in-law, the one living near kidnapped Steven. 

Steven begs Parnell to let him go, but he refuses, with Murphy powerless to do anything.  Parnell does his best to act the doting parent, giving him all sorts of food and even a bit happy when Steven says he likes soda.  Between sentences rhapsodizing the area and all the fun they can have, Parnell keeps reminding Steven that "your parents are having problems" and that's why he can't go home.  "When the time comes to go, I'll take you home myself," Parnell chirps to Steven on his way out, leaving Murphy to watch the boy. 

The police suggest a psychic, and though Dad says "we are churchgoing people," Mom insists.  Anything to try and find her boy.  The psychic leads them right to the area where Steven is actually captive, but since it also happens to be near his grandfather, it's discounted, though the psychic assures Mom that "he's very much alive and very afraid."

Steven is smart enough to try to get Murphy to make a call for him, even though the closest phone is at the store.  Murphy is too afraid of Parnell ("he's crazy, scares the hell out of me") to actually do anything, and Parnell arrives mid-conversation with some hair dye for Steven and news that he plans to bilk money out of his mother and will not be back for a few hours.  He returns with a dog named Queenie and this brightens Steven a bit, until he asks, "can I take her home with me?"  Nope.  Parnell tells him that a judge has awarded him custody and "you can start calling me Dad.  I also got your name changed.  Your new name is Dennis.  Dennis Gregory Parnell."  He lays on the "your parents don't want you anymore" routine thick, especially about money, which is information he learns from Steven.  "Your parents can't afford so many kids," he says sympathetically, saying that he wanted to talk to Steven's parents himself, but they were so poor they had to move and he can't reach them.  To a kid of seven, this is all confusing, but makes enough sense that he starts to believe it.  Parnell keeps Murphy in line by threatening prison time for him too. 

A week after the kidnapping, both Stayner parents and the grandfather are cleared by lie detector and Mom gives her father a picture of Steven to show around his neighborhood.  Parnell sees it in the grocery store and walks by it quickly.  He realizes they have to move Steven and violently keeps Murphy in line.  As Parnell spirits Steven away, Steven's parents go through all the levels of grief: blaming themselves, crying and yelling. 

In a motel, Parnell reminds Steven that "if you like the dog so much, you could say thanks" and then forces him to hug him for the present, which he feels pales in comparison to the attention Steven pays Queenie.  Cutting and coloring Steven's hair, Parnell tells Steven he must "never ever tell" his story, his old name or their relationship.  "What if I forget?" Steven asks.  "Well, that'd be terrible.  You'd be in big trouble.  You'd get a bad whipping.  You'd be locked up in a kid's shelter...they are just like prisons," Parnell responds, scaring the kid into submission.  So confident is Parnell of Steven's frightened devotion that he lets his loose in town for 30 minutes with $2.  Steven doesn't know how to use the pay phone or even his phone number.  The operator gives him director assistance who tells him to call another director assistance, but by then he's spotted Parnell and instead takes the money to but Queenie a bone and Parnell a pack of cigarettes to keep him happy.

By this point, it's Christmas.  "Life has got to go on," Mom tells Dad, "we have other kids and they need this one," saying that when Steven returns, they will have a second Christmas.  Dad is too overwhelmed to celebrate joyously, but Mom tries to show some normalcy for her other four kids, assuring them that when Steven comes home, "we are really gonna celebrate."  Meanwhile, Parnell is thrilled with the pack of cigarettes, especially when he hears that Steven convinced the saleswoman to let him buy them for "my dad." 

Parnell enrolls Steven in a series of schools, and a few months shy of a year from the kidnapping, a guidance counselor calls Steven in because he seems "distracted."  Steven tries to tell her the story, but the counselor believes the story Parnell has told them and almost guilts Steven into behaving better, "about the best thing you can do is forget your old life!"  Another avenue blocked.  He tries escaping with the dog at night, but a bunch of street kids scare him into returning because his father will beat him if he doesn't. 

Steven wants to write a letter to his family, but Parnell tells him coldly that his real father had a heart attack and died.  "He's up in heaven," he says, further adding that his mother moved East and the kids are "all over the place," just like you, while reading the newspaper at a restaurant.  "You want another beer?" he asks the despondent kid. 

Two years later, Steven is smoking when Parnell brings home Barbara (Brenda Hillhouse), a plump sexual plaything who beckons Steven "to bed with me and your Dad."  Steven ignores it, bit Parnell jokes, "you heard your mother," and Steven stubs out his cigarette to join them.

Five years later, Mom is packing up Steven's belongings, much to Dad's dismay.  Mom knows he's not dead, quieting her husband from worrying that he was never baptized and thus safe.  She looks at every boy on the street, hoping she would recognize her son.

Steven (now Corky Nemec) is a confident teen on the football team who brings friends home to drink beer.  "He lets you drink?" his friends ask.  "Why not?" Steve replies, thinking it totally normal as he lights up a cigarette.  Parnell is thrilled when he walks in, joining the boys in a beer and charming them, offering to take them on his motorcycle "one by one."  Though the episode with Barbara calling Steven into bed is the only time the movie has hinted at the horrid molestation, Steven's friend tells him that his father "hit on me."  Steven tells him, "he tries to do that with my friends sometimes...as long as he's doing it to them and not me..." Steven says wistfully, but Steven forces his friend to stay silent.  Steven's friend asks why he doesn't turn Parnell in, and Parnell has Steven so brainwashed, that he says he'll end up in a shelter if Parnell goes to prison.  True enough, for the very next conversation has Parnell telling Steven if he doesn't help him on Friday (when Steven wants to go to baseball try-outs), Parnell lays it all on over again, adding, "you can be replaced." The something is a threatened second kidnapping and Parnell laughs, "if I end up liking him more than you...," another creepy manipulation technique that seems to keep Steven in line. 

Steven's friend actually tells his parents about the molestation, so the police show up.  Parnell is not a master of trickery for nothing, so he spins a wild tale about how he, the Reverend, is keeping his son out of trouble since his mother was institutionalized for drink and drugs.  So, he tries to keep the boys his son brings home on a religious path, which is misunderstood.  The policeman buys the story and goes away.  It's time to move.

By 1980, Parnell has decided on a new boy.  With the help of a teenage Deke (Jason Presson), he decides to snatch Timmy (Jacob Gelman), a little kid with a lot more fight in him than Steven had when kidnapped.  "Happy Valentine's Day.  This is your new little brother," Parnell cheerfully tells Steven upon the latter's return. 

Luckily, the police chief just happens to get a bulletin about Timmy when Steven's parents are visiting his office for a periodic check-in.  Parnell tells Timmy the same stories he told Steven, but the difference is that Steven is older and wiser, having been through it all.  He tells Timmy what has happened to him and that Parnell is lying.  Parnell goes off to a new job offering the boys advice to always gain people's trust and always be on time.  To keep them from running, he says, "I might have forgot something, so I might be back."  But, Steven immediately puts a coat on Timmy, grabs a knife and goes to leave, promising to return for the dog. 

As they try to flag down a car, Parnell passes them on the road, and Steven knows they have to get to safety quickly because Parnell will chase them when he finds them gone.  That ends the first part of the harrowing tale. 

Finally, a man comes along to offer them a ride and though Timmy is afraid of taking a ride from a stranger, Steven says, "it's okay, you're with me."  Steven takes Timmy to his hometown, but Timmy can't remember exactly where he lived, and as they are looking, they see Parnell on duty at his job.  Steve sends Timmy into the police station, but won't go with him because he actually believes that Parnell has legally adopted him and thus he'll be sent back to him.  Timmy gets scared, but the police have seen him and are told to pick up the boys.  The police recognize Timmy as the boy kidnapped just weeks previously.  They frisk Steven and find his knife.  "You might have a problem, son," Officer Warner (Barry Corbin) tells him.

Under interrogation, Steven is accused of kidnapping Timmy, but says he didn't.  Who did?  "My dad," he whispers.  "He's not my father," he says, "and he did the same thing to me when I was a kid."  From there, the whole story comes tumbling out.  "I know my first name is Steven.  I think my last name is Stayner," is all he can remember, but Officer Warner has enough to go on and finds the file on missing Steven.  Steven is shocked to hear his real father is still alive, but he will not give up Parnell, not until he realizes the extent of his lies. 

The police call the Stayner family and say Steven is on the way home, must to the excitement of the whole family.  That's not entirely true.  Timmy's parents come for him, but the police keep Steven until they arrest Parnell so he can identify him.  Now it's time for Steven to be taken home, and Nemec's performance turns spectacular.  He's a confused teenager whose reality has been completely undermined.  He still can't even stop calling Parnell "my dad" when the media descends on him.  Before going back to his real family, Steven returns to Parnell's house to pick up Queenie. 

The media is waiting for Steven when he finally returns home, so thick that one police officer quips it's "like a Martian invasion."  Adapting to life back at home is not so easy.  Steven does not actually know one sister from the other, though the family gives him the Christmas present they have put "under the tree every year since you left," as per his uncomfortable father and some bad word choices.  It's the very doll Steven had written to Santa asking before being kidnapped. 

In jail, the police find that Parnell has a record of kidnapping and molesting stretching back 30 years. 

Over his first dinner at home, Steven is peppered with questions by his family, but his parents want some alone time with him.  "This guy, he treat you okay?" his father asks, until his older brother Cary (Todd Eric Andrews) bursts in, having been camping in Yosemite (where he would later kill four women and earn the nickname "The Yosemite Killer").  Steven volunteers to sleep in the couch, saying, "I've slept in a lot of worse places." 

Mom tries to ask Steven questions, and he replies to them with obvious discomfort, but the conversation ends when he refuses to sleep without Queenie, saying he'll share the garage with her.  He then gets a chance to go through the house while everyone is asleep, trying to remember the past.  For breakfast, he wants bacon and eggs, strange for his family, but they will do anything to make him happy.

Remember Murphy?  When he sees the news of Steven's return, he knows to expect a knock from the police and one comes.

Cary tells Steven that life changed once he was kidnapped.  As for Dad, "he started crying when you left and he never stopped," becoming a softy.  The parents never come into Cary's room, and don't even know how talented an artist he is. 

The police have gone over Parnell's home a few times, but it takes a DA to find naked pictures of Steven, proof of the molestation that he has always denied.  The police come to talk to Steven about it, warning his father to leave the room, but he stays.  Apparently Parnell's bail is less than Murphy's, and only because they didn't know about the molestation.  Papa Stayner refuses to believe the allegations, but the police have proof from other boys, as well as the pictures.  "When did it start?" the policeman asks.  "The first night he took me," he whispers, which causes his father to explode, "you let that guy..." "Let him?  I was seven years old!" Steven yells.  Steven and his father both want to keep it a secret, but the police have to use the evidence and "it will probably get into the papers" because they need to stop it from happening again.  This causes great awkwardness in the home because it was still 1980 when attitudes toward molestation were very different than they would be over the next few decades. 

"He thinks it's my fault," Steven says to his mother.  She denies it, to which Steven replies, "then how come he can't even look at me?"  The kids at school are ruthless.  "Hey Stevie, you forget your purse," one teases.  The world associates molestation with homosexuality, but Steven is too traumatized and confused to either fight back or accept the sympathy of those who want to be nice to him.  And Dad simply doesn't understand, refusing to even look at his son.  Mom forces an encounter, which takes place at the garage door where Steven had written his name and gotten in such trouble for doing so.  Dad has kept it there ever since.  Dad tentatively admits that "I understand...and I don't blame you," but Steven snaps, "yeah, that's why you can't even look me in the eye."

The showers at school are a breeding ground for jokes.  One nasty kid is so awful that Steven punches him until the teacher pulls them apart.  Cary half helps, but Steven is too angry to accept any assistance or, again, sympathy.

When it comes time to prosecuting Parnell, Steven has to testify to the abuse in order to get a conviction, or else Parnell will only serve time for second degree kidnapping of Timmy.  What about the other boys?  "The other boys are scared.  We've lost them," the lawyer tells Steven.  He reluctantly agrees. 

Adjustment does not come easily.  Cary's solution is that Steven needs a "W-O-M-A-N" and gives Steven the number of a girl.  After all, he's famous and he'll be rich.  He screws a girl three times in a car, but she wants to know about the abuse.  "You still think there's something wrong with me after three times?" he asks, drinking heavily and passing out on the girl.  Mom wants him disciplined for his behavior, but Dad won't.  "I don't want to take the chance of losing him again," Dad says, but Mom reminds him he was kidnapped and goes for the tough love approach.  "We can't keep treating him like he's not one of our kids," she yells. 

Steven asks a girl out on a date, spending money he's won in court on a suit, a taxi and a fancy restaurant.  "He just needs to celebrate, have a little fun," Dad says, but Cary snaps, "I was never in a taxi in my whole life."  The fancy approach doesn't work, but Steven is able to open up to his date, confessing, "I try to do the right things, but I don't even know what the right things are...before it never mattered, I could never hurt anyone, never disappoint anyone."  He says his parents are upset to have "lost their sweet little boy and got THIS instead.  Who wouldn't be disappointed?" he says.  "I wouldn't," she sweetly coos. 

Trial time.  Timmy testifies that he fought when abducted.  Steven testifies about Timmy's abduction, but Parnell's lawyer has it spun so that Deke and his father did it.  Parnell gets seven years in prison, much to the dismay of the Stayners.

As Steven turns 16, he wants a car, but his mother is worried that he drinks too much to drive safely.  "I can take care of myself.  I did it for seven years!" he roars at her.  The school sees him as a problem child, getting in to fights and enduring slipping grades.  He has also been absent too many days and will not graduate without an additional year of high school.  "No offense sir, but I'd have to be crazy to repeat this year again," he tells the principal.  Though he wants a fancy car, girlfriend Jodie (Amy O'Neill) convinces him to buy a safer Nova.  However, she's soon in trouble with him because she wants to go to the trial and he won't allow it.  "I don't want anyone I know to hear about those things he says. 

The school bully, Birch (Harold Pruett), who has been hassling Steven, continues to do so, but Steven would rather exploit his celebrity and buy beer by telling the clerk who he is and draw on his sympathy.  "I hope they nail the dirt bag," the clerk says as he lets Steven buy the beer.  The truth behind it all is that he cannot cope with life the way everyone wants to live it.  He even contemplates suicide. 

Parnell's trial regarding Steven starts in December of 1981.  He is forced to admit to the molestation, testifying it started on the first night of his capture.  He describes how there was only one bed, it starting with some touching and then he tells of the rest in halting whispers.  Steven is angry that Jodi came, though she says, "I tried not to" in the movie's absolute worst line.  He takes her to the lake where he gets drunk and she confesses her love for him.  He responds in kind, swearing he means it.  "Sometimes I feel like you're all I have" he tells her before reaching over to kiss her.  She wants to go home, but she ends up staying. 

Things at home get worse, so bad that Mom is forced to admit "he never really came home," but it gets worse when Parnell is sentenced to only 20 months under California law.  "That makes our laws crazier than that sick bastard," Dad tells the press.  Parnell gives Steven a monstrous look when sentenced, so Steven takes Jodie on a fast and dangerous drive over a cliff, though both are fine.  "You could have killed it," Jodie says, revealing she's pregnant. 

As he threatened, Steven moves out, because he can't live under his parents' rules.  He has blown through the money, and his mother reminds him he can always come home.  With Queenie, he is gone again from the family home.  "He'll be back," Dad says.  "I don't think so," more rational Mom says.  Dad still can't face the truth or paint over Steven's name on the garage.  Steven moves into a trailer and tells his mother he wants to marry Jodie.  "That's the right thing to do," she says and agrees to sign the papers since they are both minors.  They have a heart-to-heart where he says he understands why his parents act the way they do, but that he's not a typical 16-year old.  Steven won't allow anyone to love him.  "Why do you hate yourself so much?" Mom asks.  "I let him do it to me," Steven says.  He still feels responsible, saying "there are times I could have killed him."  It's the first time he's really opened up about it, even admitting that he told his friends to deny it, for which he feels terrible guilt.  He also tells her that he expected them to "come and get me," and asks why they didn't.  "We couldn't find you.  We tried everything.  We never stopped trying," she replies as he falls into her arms in the perfect TV ending.  "You're home now.  Things will be better now." 

The very year "I Know My First Name is Steven" was released, Steven Stayner was killed in a motorcycle accident, survived by Jody (in the movie, it's spelled Jodie) and two children. 

Corky Nemec, and to a large degree Luke Edwards, are what make this movie so gripping.  Their confused complex performances are made to be the focus rather than the details, though none of them are left out.  The movie is incredibly faithful to the true story, but yet it does not feel sensationalized to the point of triviality.  While watching this story, all other stories of abduction are melted into it and the pain of the kids, as opposed to the parents, who are usually at the center of these stories, is felt so strongly.

From the Dead of Night (1989)

If you want to escape from the long tedious histories and romances of the miniseries genre, go for something supernatural.  "From the Dead of the Night," just by the cast alone, should be the remedy, but it's so inane and so boring, that I would rather sit through "War and Remembrance" again.

This time around, miniseries heroine Lindsay Wagner is a fashion designer, but one apparently blocked inspiration-wise.  It doesn't help, I'm guessing, that she works in studio of almost complete darkness.  Boyfriend Robin Thomas surprises her (after attempting to scare the viewer by showing only his shoes coming up a very loooooong elevator ride) and they have sex a few times, though all Lindsay wants to know is "what do you think about the colors?"  Of her designs, people. 

Lindsay works for slumming Diahann Carroll, wearing a Cleopatra wig and bigger shoulder pads than during her time on "Dynasty."  Another designer at the shop hates Lindsay, and Diahann chalks it up to Lindsay being "my favorite."  She will let Lindsay put clothes in the show finally after six years.  In the first ten minutes, we get a parade of outfits so outrageously locked in their time period that this might as well be "Dynasty!"

Arriving at a party for Lindsay's good luck is old flame Bruce Boxleitner, with a stewardess he met on the plane in Tangiers.  He asks if it's an engagement party, and seething Robin says, "not yet, but hopefully soon."  You mean, hopefully soon during the party or soon in general, because the way Lindsay looks at Bruce, Robin's days seem numbered.  Robin baits Bruce, telling him Lindsay fell in love with him while Bruce was gone.  "I'm an Anthropologist, I travel!" Bruce snaps.  The conversation goes cliche from that high.  Bruce apologizes to Lindsay, she's bitter and finally it's interrupted by the stewardess.  Lindsay does what all jilted women do in these situations: she ignores her guests and goes to sit at the pool with her cat.

Getting up, she trips over the cat and falls into the pool, hitting her head and all but dying.  Oh, she sees a flash of light and her spirit leaves her body before a guest sees her in the pool and starts screaming.  Lindsay's spirit, all in white, as opposed to the black she was wearing for the party, is all smiles and peacefulness (she must know her exact right sleep number).  What her spirit sees is, well, I'm not sure.  There is a tunnel of colored light and images of people, but then she hears Bruce begging her to breathe and telling her not to die.  The images of people have hands that grab for her and her spirit fights to get away.  Finally, her spirit is back in her body and she's alive, saved from drowning.  It all looked like a very cheap LSD trip.

Lindsay explains all of this to Robin, who doesn't buy it.  The person clutching her spirit's wrist was really Robin trying to save her, he says.  She goes off to Dr. Robert Prosky, who chides her.  "You know a good physical every now and then wouldn't hurt," he says, as if he's a Pediatrician.  He gives her some pills and says her "near-death experience is not uncommon," but his explanation is that it's a replay of the birth canal experience. 

Leaving the doctor, Lindsay is almost killed by a runaway car on the sidewalk.  "A split second either way and you'd be dead along with her," the glum policeman says of the situation and the driver being pried out of the car. 

"Sex."  That's Professor Bruce's explanation for why his class is so popular.  Samoans, African rituals, that's what they all want.  Well, it's more likely him, judging by a) the looks of the girls in his class and b) the tightness of his jeans.  Or, perhaps since this is Anthropology 101 and everyone looks about 43 years old, maybe they are the worlds oldest undergrads with the world's youngest professor.  After rambling for an hour, he shoos the students away with "we'll get to sex soon enough." 

"I've almost died twice in one week!" Lindsay blubbers to Bruce when she meets him for lunch.  It wouldn't be a Lindsay Wagner miniseries if something like that didn't happen to her!  Bruce actually believes in her near-death experience and wants to enroll her in a class about it.  She dismisses it, so instead, he pulls out the tarot (pronunciation on the last syllable by Bruce, FYI) cards and does a reading.  The death card is her immediate future.  "It may not be a physical death, it may mean the death of an idea," he says, trying not to frighten her.  The rest of the cards tell a very grim story, and except for a joke about sexual positions, Bruce seems genuinely worried for her. 

In her building, goblins frighten her in the elevator.  Oh, wait, it's only kids and it's Halloween.  Maybe those creepy mannequins in her apartment will be the key to her issues.  Unable to sleep, she calls Robin and asks to go away, the journey perhaps that Bruce suggested was coming in the near future.  Off they fly to Mexico, Lindsay in a coat that looks like it was once an Incan blanket.  Lucky for her, they have arrived just in time for the Day of the Dead celebration.  Lindsay and Robin unwind with what I think is supposed to be a torrid sex scene, but is barely even sexy enough to be called romantic.  They look like two spastic seniors.

Now, at the Day of the Dead parades, there are six zillion people in all sorts of masks that frighten the crap out of Lindsay, exactly the relaxation she so sought.  They are followed by an annoying used car salesman they ditch who chokes to death as Lindsay is being frightened by the sights and sounds of the celebration. 

But wait, the car salesman is on a boat with them as they look at fireworks, not speaking or taking off his mask as he has the last few times they saw him.  Instead, he climbs on top of the little boat and rocks it back and forth until falling in the water.  Like a complete idiot, Lindsay reaches out to pull him back in and of course he pulls her out of the boat, trying to strangle her.  Robin has to jump into the water for the second time in under an hour and save her, though the poor twice dead car salesman gets chopped up by the boat's motor.  "There was nothing you could do...it happens...We can't escape death.  When our time comes, nothing on Earth can save us.  Nothing," says a passer-by, unsolicited. 

Diahann is no help, so Lindsay finally agrees to go to the group Bruce suggested.  It's essentially group therapy in a very dark room.  Everyone describes the out-of-body experience, one overly-crimped lady noting that she was upset to have to come back to life.  One of the others in the group, Merritt Butrick, has had the exact same experience as Lindsay and tells her she's in trouble, but he's such a crackpot that she discounts him. 

A very angry Robin agrees to go with Bruce and Lindsay to a mysterious woman whose apartment manages to combine every bit of cliche knick-knack that the set designer could find to make her seem like an actual seer.  "She has the power of prophesy," Bruce tells Robin, who answers back, "if she has so much power, why is she living in East LA?"  As Lindsay goes in alone, with the candles, the cards, the palm reading, the covered lamps, etc., the two men argue below the apartment in a giant storm.  We can't really expect the mystery woman to answer Lindsay's questions because that would be far too easy and make the movie only about an hour.  Instead, she merely tells her that the six figures she saw in her experience are after her "and must be fought."  She's then too upset to talk further and Robin has beaten down her door to get Lindsay home anyway.  He's so cartoonishly angry that he can't live much longer by the rules of the miniseries. 

When she arrives at home, Merritt is there, telling her "it's too late," "it's already happening" and scaring her further.  "Do you know anyone who has died?" he shouts as she goes up the elevator.  Well, her mother, the woman in the car that almost killed Lindsay, the used car salesman, and probably the seer by now.  Putting on another of her endless series of overly large coats, Lindsay goes to the house of the woman who died in the car accident.  Living there is the woman who was at Lindsay's party and screamed loud enough to alert everyone.  Wow, a genuine coincidence.  Or is it...?

Lindsay is told that the woman also had a near-death experience before actually dying.  Coming out of the shower, she was sort of electrocuted, but not entirely, "and then the next day, to have her die in a car accident..." her bereaved husband sobs.  Just like Lindsay!  She has almost died a few times.  She has Dr. Robert Prosky pull the woman's autopsy records.  Those turn out to be problematic, proving she was electrocuted and actually died, before getting in her car and causing the accident.  Is it bureaucratic mix-up?  That's what the Medical Examiner calls a "walker," an error in the police report that shows someone dying twice. 

Robin is getting fed up with Lindsay and her worries.  He explains Merritt as "the 60s were the high point of his life," before assuring Lindsay that he will take care of her.  Oh, and he proposes again.  When she tells Diahann about Robin, she constantly compares him to Bruce, though it's not very convincing.  Diahann's theory is that Lindsay never got over her mother's death and that's what is causing all of this.  Yes, discussion of marriage and dead mother are in the same conversation. 

The police show up at Lindsay's apartment to tell her she needs to identify a victim of a homicide because her information was found on him.  It's poor Merritt, of course.  For some reason, everyone leaves Lindsay alone in the morgue with the corpse, doing some really horrible acting that is supposed to be either confusion nor sadness or I don't know what (this ranks high among Lindsay's worst performances, and there are plenty of those).  The body springs up and tries to grab Lindsay, but the morgue guard shoots it back to death.  Lindsay dissolves into hysterics...again. 

The Medical Examiner explains to her it was "calcium flux response," saying it's "one of nature's more macabre little tricks," but completely normal.  It makes sense to everyone and it's said with a straight face.  Even Dr. Robert Prosky believes it and explains that the woman who died twice only seemed to do so because of a clerical error.  In the best moment of the movie, Lindsay tries to explain what is going on AFTER they give her a sedative, so she babbles as her eyes are rolling back in her head.  It's the kind of a scene a soap actress would kill for but anyone else would laugh at. 

Lindsay's drugged rantings have Dr. Robert Prosky somewhat interested, so he asks Robin the details of what happened in Mexico, popping a pill and leaning against a door, another surefire sign of a miniseries goner.  After the hospital scene, she has another outrageously hideous acting exercise as she faces a bunch of visions in that loooooooong elevator of hers.  She's so scared by the time she reaches the lobby that she runs all the way back up THE STEPS to her apartment.  She calls out sick and trades her chunky day wear for some chunky night wear.

To relieve her of the gloom, Bruce takes her to what most would consider the most stressful place on Earth, a carnival.  Ah, masks, rides, fun house mirrors, etc.  That's just what her cracking mind needs!  She does win a stuffed bear and a stuffed penguin, and the admission that Bruce loves her.  Frankly, the penguin is the only one of the three worth anything. 

Dr. Joanne Linville, the leader of the group, puts Lindsay under hypnosis so she can relive her trip into the pool.  This brings on another incoherent scene for Lindsay, who battles bright overhead lighting with fits and starts of words.  The entire pool scene is replayed again, frame by frame: the splitting from the body, the tunnel of light, the bodies, though this time there is an addition of Robin and Bruce's faces.  Lindsay is in such a state of twitching that Dr. Joanne brings her out of the hypnosis slower than even her elevator ride.  If this is how a woman counts back from 10, you better hope she's never officiating a boxing match.  Lindsay leaves the entire session fed up because Dr. Joanne just doesn't seem to understand what makes such perfect sense to Lindsay, you know, that six mysterious figures are out to get her, that the dead aren't dead, etc.  Shame on Dr. Joanne for trying to be sensible!

Back at home, a clearly under-sexed Robin barks at Lindsay that "having sex used to be a team sport" when she resists his kissing. 

Dr. Robert Prosky investigates the death of the car salesman, whose cause of death is listed as drowning and...skip it, all we need to know is that he's a "walker."  He now knows Lindsay is onto something, but on the drive home, his heart issues flare up and since it's a rainy night, he has a heart attack.  He doesn't die, so Lindsay can rush to the hospital and try to talk to him.  Diahann lets her go, but "tomorrow morning, 9am..." she yells after her, never the most sympathetic boss.  Before Robert can have a second heart attack, he goes on about the "walkers" and tells the nurse to have his body burned.  When Lindsay gets to the room, he attacks her in slow motion and terrible make-up.  He's gone crazy and jumps out the window.  NOW he's dead.  It took a few tries, but now he's officially dead, though no doubt he'll have two causes of death. 

Lindsay, suddenly Catholic, goes to church with Bruce.  She tells Bruce all, though she's shushed by the priest.  Lindsay wants to go back to the seer, but Bruce says she's refused to see Lindsay.  However, she does have to go to her fashion show.  "It's the only sane thing in my life!" she yells at him (in church). 

Here comes the comic relief (if the whole thing weren't so boring, it would all be comic relief).  Lindsay is easily the worst fashion designer in miniseries history.  The outfits are atrocious even for 1989.  And the scene itself will make you nauseous because it's shot and edited like an 80s music video upside down.  Diahann brings Lindsay out as the "designer and my new partner," which is somehow a surprise to Lindsay, who has no idea how to walk a runway. 

"I knew you would come back," the seer says to Lindsay when she arrives with Bruce.  Wouldn't that be because Bruce called her and begged for a second appointment?  "For one moment, you walked in the land of the dead, traveled far, saw much.  They thought you were one of them and now the dead want you back," she tells Lindsay.  The solution is to become a strong person and stop relying on others.  But, it will only happen after six people die, but not just die, die violently.  "Who is next?" Lindsay asks, but of course the seer doesn't know.  "If you survive until midnight of the next full moon, you will be saved," the seer says.  That's two nights away.  Bruce's brilliant solution is to take her away somewhere, but any idiot knows what the seer's response will be: "you can't hide from death." 

After the appointment, Bruce and Lindsay go into Vern's Diner, an extremely hostile place, where Lindsay bumps into a particularly ornery truck driver.  He gets squashed by a truck a few minutes later but is there to glower at Lindsay when she leaves the diner.  The dead truck driver follows them, bumping into their car as Lindsay breaks into sentence fragments once again.  If Bruce would pull over and stop the car, this deathly game could be ended, but that doesn't occur to him.  Instead, he has the truck follow him into a narrow area where it can go over the side of the road and burst into flames while Bruce and Lindsay watch.  The police come, to which Bruce snaps, "damn it, not now!" because this is wasted time.  "If there's one more of these coming, I want it on my ground!" Bruce asserts before taking Lindsay home to his apartment, which is coated in all sorts of ugly rugs. 

Bruce puts Lindsay to bed and assures her he's only downstairs.  In more welcoming bluish lighting, she might just be able to fall asleep.  Bruce curls up on the couch with blankets that match his ugly rugs, but Lindsay, either afraid or horny, comes down to the couch and snuggles up with him.  "One more night, huh?  How we gonna get through it?" Lindsay asks the next morning.  Bruce doesn't know, and doesn't have time to plan because Robin shows up breathing fire.  Robin is angry at both.  "God damn it, did you sleep with him?" he roars?  "If the most important thing to you right now is if I've slipped into the sheets with another man..." she yells at Robin and then leaves, giving up Bruce, her best security. 

The last death is poor Christian Hoff, a flower delivery boy who uses a skateboard.  Lindsay had almost killed him earlier when he darted out of nowhere, but now, as he's off to deliver yellow roses to Lindsay from Diahann, he experiences his first death (again, the second death is supposed to be the violent one, but this looks pretty damn scary to me).  This gives him an opportunity to scare Lindsay and get her to run through a parking lot at night, another cliche that couldn't be ignored here.  Run, Lindsay, run, as Christian, his head cocked and blood all over him, chases her on the skateboard.  He's then hit by a second car and killed a second time. 

"He was the last one.  It's over," Bruce says.  Lindsay's reaction?  You can guess by now.  Incoherent stuttering.  She celebrates by kissing Bruce, though she does have to dine with Robin to tell him their relationship is over.  So, she soaks in a big bubble bath with a glass of wine.  Robin uses his ultra modern car phone to tell her he will be late.  Lindsay puts on a big white chunky goodbye outfit as Robin goes to the ATM, where he's robbed and beaten.  Lindsay waits by tapping on her fish tank.

Bruce is awakened by the police, who have questions about the truck driver.  I could quote the call, which is pretty amusing, but the point of it is that the truck driver did not die twice.  Bruce frantically calls Lindsay, who is asleep at her fish tank.  That means we are one death short, but Lindsay doesn't know that when she lets Robin into her apartment, Bruce racing at top speed to get there.  He should have plenty of time because Robin does have to take that looooooooong elevator ride.  Robin is in the middle of strangling her when Bruce arrives, but he doesn't take the looooooong elevator ride.  He's tough, so he bolts up the stairs as Lindsay is running through the shadows of her apartment trying to avoid Robin.  She knocks him out with a bottle, but that doesn't kill him.  He only plays dead (again).  He grabs her foot and trips her.  It's 11:55 and Robin has to kill her in the next five minutes.  Bruce is arrived and promptly knocked out, so Lindsay does the smartest thing you can do when being pursued by a zombie--she goes to the roof!  With only a minute to go, Lindsay pushes Robin through a skylight (sound the midnight clocks) and he dies his violent death, with a piece of wood through her chest.  To prove he's not a zombie, Bruce cuts his hand.  "They don't bleed.  Walkers don't bleed!" he assures Lindsay.