Evergreen (1985)

I must admit I'm biased when it comes to "Evergreen" because I watched it three times when it originally aired.  A ban on watching television during the week in my household did not include taping programs and watching them on the weekends or holidays.  And thus, for some reason, I really connected to "Evergreen."

However, that doesn't mean it's a perfect miniseries.  It just means it grabbed me at the time, but of course, I was a lot younger then.  Let's see how I feel as an adult.

The biggest asset in "Evergreen" is, of course, its leading lady, Lesley Ann Warren.  She had already survived both "Beulah Land" and "Pearl," two incredibly stupid miniseries, though through no fault of her own.  In fact, she's the highlight of the latter, the only one who bothered to act.  It's also three years after her greatest performance, that of Norma in the film "Victor/Victoria."  Indomitable and believable, Lesley Ann Warren can survive anything with class and finesse, as proven through six hours of "Evergreen."

Here is an interesting case of a miniseries that had the option to go full-on romance or mix it with a lot of history.  The novel on which it's based hedges a great deal, but the miniseries opts for simple fluff.  Unfortunately, with three nights of air time, that's not always enough.  Lesley and co-star Armand Assante are fantastic, but as the hours wear on, they become less and less important; the other generations simply are not interesting (think Jane Seymour in "East of Eden"--once she disappears from being in nearly every scene, the Bottoms brothers aren't quite up to her level of contribution).  

This saga (based on the Belva Plain novel) begins in 1909, where a baffled Lesley has just arrived in America from Poland, plopped onto the Lower East Side by a woman who tries to steal her purse and is then crammed into a relative's apartment.  She practices her English at her sewing machine in a factory and her cousin wants to marry her off a year after her arrival.  All of this happens in the first five minutes or so without much exposition because, as miniseries fans, we have of course been down this road many times.  Immigrant stories, poor like this one or rich like "Zoya" always follow the same course, so let's be thankful the creators here gave us a break and raced through this part.  Stereotyping hits us over the head here like a cement block, but we had to expect that.

Not the first man I would pick to play a poor Jew is Armand Assante, having survived "Rage of Angels" (the actor, not his character, who met a grisly death there).  Lesley's cousin has set them up on a date but didn't tell Lesley, who is shy.  "I almost didn't show," he says, "they try to marry me off to every girl who gets off a boat."  Jeez, that's a lot of women and I can't imagine they all look like Lesley, so be thankful, both of you!  "Evergreen" employs only the direst looking extras, so pairing up the only two pretty people we've met yet is a big deal!  

It's here that Lesley finally admits her reason for not wanting to be married, and though it's a lovely speech, it comes down to this: vanity.  She doesn't want to age prematurely because she's caring for a family and working herself into middle age at 30 or so like her haggard cousin.  "Come, let me introduce you to the other America," Armand says, finding out she's never seen any of the city but the Lower East Side (not that the rest of Manhattan in 1909 was at all indicative of America, but point taken).

They get awfully personal very quickly.  Somehow a discussion of his job comes up and suddenly he's doing an ad for American patriotism, saying, "I have faith in America, I have faith in God…" Is he the first Jewish televangelist?  They walk all the way to Central Park, which is quite a hike from the Lower East Side, but they are both so very interested in each other.  Armand promises Lesley "one day I will take you to dinner" at the Plaza and they merrily pass the mansions of the super wealthy.

CHARACTER FLAW ALERT: Armand seems like a very nice man and he's liking Lesley, but he promises one day he'll be as rich as the people who own the mansions, though there's a wrinkle in that he's Jewish.  As we all know, once a character show base ambition for something like money, there's trouble a-brewin'.

Lesley is more practical and decides to apply for a job at the mansions doing menial work.  When she's hired, Lesley can't believe that she's living in a room with electric lights and a bathtub.  The Jewish owner of the manse is Ian McShane, who is awfully kind to Lesley, at least partly because he's a horn dog.

He strikes up a conversation with her over breakfast and tells her to cancel a date with Armand because he wants to take her out.  As expected, he picks the most glamorous establishment and Lesley, in the same outfit she's worn the whole time, is dazzled and doesn't know how to behave.  While licking everything she can from the fork, she tells Ian that her parents and sisters are all dead.  As for Ian, "everything has been done for me," explaining his silver spoon syndrome.  Ian lays it on thicker than tar, not only in the restaurant, but back at home when he shows Lesley a painting he claims his mother says looks like Lesley.

And up swell the violins, the whole damn string section, in fact, so Ian can plant a very chaste kiss on her.  She likes it, but knows she can't go further.  This makes her time with Armand a bit stilted.  Then again, he brings news of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, a surefire mood killer.  Lesley winces for a moment, but then goes off into a fantasy about seeing Italy, because she's read about it in Ian's book.  Armand is livid when he hears this since he's permanently chip-on-shoulderish when it comes to the rich.  But, a scene later, any romantic notions Lesley possesses about Ian are shattered when it's announced he's about to be married.

This means that Lesley has to marry Armand.  Well, it's doesn't exactly mean that, but the vagaries of romance novels and epics teach us it does.  You never saw a less enthusiastic bride than Lesley, who stares blankly beyond Armand, who is unsettled to see this look in her eyes.  Armand may have the beginnings of a capitalist prick, but he clearly adores his wife and she claims to be happy with him.  We then go right to Lesley feeling her baby kick to the kid being five.

Armand has a money making scheme and wants Lesley to ask her former employers for a loan.  She refuses, not explaining why, but he insists.  When she gets there, Ian is the only one around since the rest, servants and all, are in the country.  She wants only to ask Ian's mother, but Ian insists on doing the lending.  "It would give me pleasure to do something for you," Ian notes and Lesley, suddenly a banking expert, explains the terms of the loan and Ian writes out a check.  He confesses his longtime love for her, claiming to think about her every day.  Romantic that she is, Lesley dashes across the room, the string section even busier than before, to kiss him.  They have sex and Lesley feels terribly guilty.

For someone who used to be so anti-money, Armand is awfully excited to have some to start a real estate venture, but he's also confused as to why Ian wrote out of the check and not his mother.  He questions why Ian would simply write out a check, though he doesn't pursue it because the check isn't rubber.

Cue pregnancy.  Oh, come on, you aren't really surprised, are you?  This happens in every similar tale.  She tells the doctor it wasn't planned.  "Some people call that an accident," he says, as if she's 11 years old, "I call it a miracle."  Pro-life before such a thing existed, the doctor reminds her that "every child brings its own good fortune."  As she walks home gloomily, Armand honks at her from his brand new car!  "That's a baby and a motorcar on the same day!" Armand exclaims in delight when Lesley coyly tells him of her pregnancy (thank goodness Maury Povich and his incessant DNA tests are 100 or so years in the future).  Hopefully, the excitement is in that order.

By 1928, things are booming for Lesley and Armand.  They have bought an enormous house, Lesley wears a fox stole, the kids are enrolled in private school and they even have a cook!  There is a supremely awkward moment at the daughter's birthday party where Lesley's cousin says, "you don't look like your mother, you don't look like your father, whose child are you?"  Thankfully, everyone else is chattering and no one hears.  AWKWARD!  But, if she notices, it shouldn't be too long before others notice too.  To make it even worse, at least for the viewers since we know the truth, Armand delivers a lengthy speech about the bond between fathers and daughters.  DOUBLE AWKWARD!

After gooey sweetness like that, it's about time for some angst, wouldn't you say?  Right on cue, the son  decides he's bored with synagogue and doesn't want to go one particular Saturday so he can play with his friends.  "None of my other friend have to go to shul," he whines.  "None of your other friends are my son," Armand rages in return.  Are you absolutely sure?  After all, you're not really your daughter's father, but that's a plot point for way down the road.

Lesley and her daughter bump into Ian and his mother, the latter chirping to the daughter, "you don't look like your mother, you must look like your father" and then Ian joins them, staring at the girl.

A real corker of a scene follows.  While the bratty daughter is practicing piano (badly), Armand sees in the paper that Ian's mother has died, but Lesley refuses to go to the funeral.  Armand thinks it's because she's "risen too far in the world" and reminds her what that family did for them.  True, but of course we know there's far more to it than that!  Incidentally, so does her daughter, though not exactly what.  "You wish I'd never been born!" she snaps as Lesley brushes her hair.  "I'm not pretty, I'm plain," the girl says, ending the scene with a dippy non-sequiter.

As if this night can't get any sadder, Lesley's cousin's husband, Ron Rifkin, comes to borrow money and Armand refuses him, not willing to "put my family in danger."  So, Ron does what a lot of people did after the bottom fell out of the stock market, he jumps.  Armand is guilt-stricken big and bad when he gets the call.  Also ruined is Armand's business partner, Brian Dennehey and, in fact Armand's whole real estate business.  Bad news comes in threes, so when Armand gets home, he's greeted by the news that Ron had no life insurance.

To cut down on the pathos for a bit, Ian shows up to see Lesley, but is greeted instead by the surly daughter.  He leaves a big box, which happens to contain the painting from his house his mother always swore reminded her of Lesley.  Dour daughter suggests selling the painting, but Lesley mandates, "nobody is selling this painting."  Ian pays another visit, this time to make sure the daughter is his and Lesley is forced to admit it.  He then decides to take Lesley and the daughter away so they can all be together.  Oh, yeah, that's going to go over well with Armand!  She admits she loves Ian, but can't leave her husband.  He begs her to consider his proposal, giving her until 4pm the next day to deliver an answer.  Lesley does her best thinking in a negligee that evening, and goes to the rendezvous spot at 4pm the next day.  "I cannot leave him," she tells a crestfallen Ian.

The first of "Evergreen's" three parts ends here (with more cascading violins).  In roughly two hours, we have wedged in everything but the slumming vet (and WWI which slipped by unnoticed).  Torn between two lovers, paternity questions, humble beginnings, death, bratty children and a brave heroine to tie it all together.

Part Two begins on a high note.  Lesley's grown son, Tony Soper, has gotten into Yale and his little sister (who hasn't aged, even though there's a new actor playing the son) has knitted him a big sweater.  Even more, Armand and Brian have gotten a big loan to expand their business.  When the son makes a toast, he lays on the schmaltz.  "To my mother, who is a goddess.  To my growing-up sister, who is not a little devil, who is an angel, and to my father, who gives me a lot of trouble sometimes, but who is truly a king among men."

At Yale, the new freshman meets WASP drunk Boyd Gaines (giving an over-ripe performance that would not anticipate his 147 Tony Awards).  The matriarch of the family is Betty Buckley (bingo, now we have the slumming vet, who actually had a Tony by this point).  The problem is that Boyd's family hates Jews, well, except daughter Kate Burton, who falls in love with him.  Romeo and Juliet have arrived, as they always do in a romance miniseries.  "It won't be easy for me, being in love with a Jew," Kate chirps.  "Don't worry, I love a good challenge," Tony laughs.  Boyd is not in a joking mood when he warns Tony to stay away from his sister.  Not only is Armand displeased, he throws the persecution of Jews in Germany into the conversation!  "I won't change," Tony promises.  "Cut off my right arm," is the reply to that, before Armand decrees that they will get over their supposed love and find people of similar religions to marry.  "Don't bring the unthinkable to pass," Armand says as he hugs his son, sounding more like John Gotti than a Jewish real estate mogul.

With Armand and Lesley upset over Tony's decision, their daughter grows up to be Joan Allen, who can't get her parents' attention, and growls at them because of it.  She is told her brother "will not be sitting here again."  He married secretly the day before and both families have cut them off.

If Tony and Kate are Romeo and Juliet, Lesley, who hasn't been around much, is Lady Macbeth, mopping a perfectly clean floor at 3am.  She gets one of those yowling explosions that every actress in a miniseries has (Lesley's experience in a musical version of "Gone With the Wind" about a decade earlier must have helped greatly), beating her husband and then crumpling into his arms.  It only lasts a few moments so we can return to Tony and Kate getting smashed on a bottle of wine because he's gotten a job selling kids shoes.  Zzzzzzzzzzz. This is the downside of generational sagas.  Not all of the generations are interesting.  Take this moment: Tony comes home and Kate is knitting.  We know what that means immediately, but it takes what seems like an hour for Kate to tell Tony.  Paint by numbers, this whole section of the miniseries is without any surprises.  "Little babies don't cost that much," Kate says.  That's a humdinger of a line, a scene-ender, no less!

Joan defies her father and visits her brother, though Armand says he wants to hear no mention of it.  When Joan returns, Lesley is thrilled to hear she'll be a grandmother, news they decide to lay on Armand.  "This is not my grandchild, because my grandchild is a Jew.  [Tony's] child is nothing.  He's a nothing," is all he cares to say on the matter.

Let's see how the other family reacts?  Kate goes to see her folks.  Betty is in the garden, gardening gloves on and holding a cigarette while the gardener does the actual work.  "I don't think your father is going to be very happy to hear this news," Betty says, stifling a smile because she's actually thrilled.  Papa is Robert Vaughn, wheelchair bound and crabby as all hell.  "You're a fool," he chastises her, but it's obvious he wants to crack and get his daughter back.

That went better than expected, so Lesley is the next to crumble, going to see Tony at the shoe store.  From there, she goes to Armand and Brian's office.  Brian takes the news of a male grandchild to be of great importance, but Armand sticks to his policy.  "When did you become unforgiving?" Brian snarls and Armand tells Lesley she can have the family over for dinner.  "Don't expect me to say a word the whole night.  I can't get involved," Armand adds, though not very believably.  In fact, Tony and Kate get invites from both families.

Check your rulebooks.  You know when people achieve sublime happiness in a miniseries, not only the rug, but the whole floor is about to pulled from under them.  Joan answers the phone call from Boyd saying Tony and Kate have been killed in a car accident, but the baby is alive.  Armand is there and then they have to tell Lesley.  All she needs to do is see their faces to know.

It's time for a trial.  You knew one had to pop up eventually.  Which grandparents should have custody of the baby?  Well, Brian actually has an interesting take, grumbling that "the Catholics and the Jews should write the laws.  No one else understands about family."  That's not particularly helpful, but it's said with conviction.  We are actually spared court theatrics, just told that the judge granted custody to Kate's parents.  Armand feels guilty.  "I killed him," he says, referring to both Ron, the jumper, and Tony, hit by a truck.  "I cannot help.  I am empty," Lesley says, unable to give him the sympathy or forgiveness he needs.

In case you care, and I'm absolutely positive I don't, Ian is still around.  He and Lesley meet for lunch at the very same restaurant they went to all those years ago (which has the same decor and all).  After lunch, they go up to a cozy lodge in the mountains, swim, dance and talk about Joan before, well, we have to guess as the darkness overtakes everything.  

By 1946, the grandkid is wheeling around Robert Vaughn, giving him a lesson in civics, telling the kid it's wrong for Jews to be moving into the neighborhood.  "Colored with coloreds, Americans with Americans," Robert says.  "David Freidman thinks he's an American," the kid replies.  "Well, he's misinformed."  Egad, that's awfully strong dialogue for marshmallow stickiness like "Evergreen!"  It seems that Robert and Betty haven't told the kid the truth about half his family.  Armand and Lesley are moving out to the suburbs to a big house of their own.

Into their lives comes Jan Triska, a Plastic Surgeon who outran the Nazis and managed to get to America.  Everyone wants to set him up with Joan.  As he tickles the ivories, they have a very deep conversation, perhaps the deepest so far, but it's way too late and far too stilted to pull in yet another mysterious new character.  His proposal is rather clumsy, but she accepts anyway.  Lesley and Armand are happy in bed knowing their daughter's future is secure.

Uh huh, until it's not.

And that brings the second portion to a close, and a rather happy one.

And just for that, the final portion of the miniseries starts as sadly as possible.  We're told that Robert Vaughn has already died (after less than six minutes of screen time total) and Betty Buckley is sporting bad make-up, so when she tells her little grandson, "I'm going to die soon," he shouldn't really be surprised.  Understandably, the kid wonders where he's to go, and though Boyd says he wants him, Betty feels it would be best if this little blond kid went with "your father's people."  The kid definitely isn't pleased to hear the new people are Jewish and trots out Robert's ethnic slurs before cozying up to the Jewish kid in school.  That doesn't go well.

The day of the hand-off arrives and, true to form, Lesley has more food than twenty people could eat, living up to at least one stereotype.  The whole episode is very awkward, with only Lesley able to manage a chipper demeanor.  Armand is scared and the kid is just petulant, though he softens a bit when seeing a picture of his father.  Even more bizarre is the conversation between Lesley and Boyd, who removes enough luggage from the car to clothe 12 kids.  Lesley says she personally knows what it's like to be "uprooted" at a young age and they talk about how Tom and Boyd met.  "A young man falls off his bike and so many lives are changed," opines Lesley.

The kid runs away and is brought back by the police, and Lesley begs Armand to stay out of this particular conversation.  She's rewarded with his loyalty.

With that settled, Lesley turns her attention to Joan, who speaks in riddles about her marriage.  "Sometimes I think I love him too much," is one such line.  What does it mean?  Beats me.

For his birthday, the kid wants to join the local club, but they don't allow Jews.  Armand has matured in his thinking somewhat and tells him he can be Jewish, Christian, whatever he wants, and if he wants to join the club, to do it.  This means the kid has some thinking to do.

At a fancy banquet for a building Armand and Brian have created, Ian shows up to be introduced around and Armand reminds everyone that it was Ian who gave him the first seed money they ever received.  A round of picture taking leaves Ian alone at the table with Joan and her husband.  "Are you a father…you seem like someone who should have children," Joan notes, with Ian fumbling and lying that he's not.  Then Ian and Lesley get some time together to catch up on 18 years.  Ian invites her to dance and Lesley smiles, saying, "I suppose there is no harm in two people dancing."  Not in real life, no, but this is a miniseries, where worlds are changed by a look or a mistaken gesture.

There's an inside joke on the dance floor that I had to stop and share with you.  Ian wants to meet Lesley the next day, but she says no, she's going to a matinee of "The King and I."  The dance ends and Lesley's son-in-law asks her to dance, leaving Ian and Joan to wait uncomfortably until deciding to dance together.  Once they start, the take over the floor, the music swells and everyone else stops.  The inside joke, of course, is that it very much resembles the climactic moment in "Shall We Dance?" in "The King and I."  Do with that information what you please.

Ian shows up at the theater when it lets out, spotted by Armand, who sees the two of them together (neither the theater nor the marquee are correct, FYI).  The car ride home is uncomfortable for both, though it's not until they get home that Armand tears into Lesley.  Armand upends a table, but Lesley plays it well, sticking to the truth, though of course holding back the historical details surrounding it.  Just when it seems she's calmed him, he slaps her hard across the face.

Let's jump ahead to 1959 (and pray lesley has no desire to see "The Sound of Music").  The kid is now grown up Mark Keyloun.  He has been approached by Uncle Boyd to work in the oil business in the Middle East, which he claims makes Armand's building business seem "dull."  Aunt Joan gives him some good advice and to do what he wants, not what Grandpa or Uncle Boyd wants.  That leads him to worry about going to anti-Semetic Iran with Boyd.

Unexpectedly, we veer from the main characters long enough to dispense with Brian Dennehey, who develops an ulcer and decides to move to New Mexico.  Just so you know.

Before starting work, Mark decides he wants to see Israel, which of course thrills his grandparents.  A kindly bus driver, who use to drive a cab in Brooklyn, tells Mark that one must "walk into Jerusalem" the first time one goes, so as the faux Jewish music goes into overdrive, Mark rushes to see the Holy City.

With her cousin in the hospital, Lesley is already tired and worn out, but Joan finds out Jan is having an affair and needs her mother's sympathy.  After all, Lesley is still the glue of the family.  Lesley's advice is to "do nothing," and Joan can't understand why, but accepts it.

Enter Cecile Callan, a perky Dutch girl who works on a Kibbutz after having come to Israel simply for "SCUBA diving and boogying," but stayed to volunteer, even though she's not Jewish.  Ah, how "history repeats itself" of them!  The ominous music starts when we move over to Syria, where naturally the bad guys reside, spying on Cecile's Kibbutz and attempting to blow up a tractor.  The Kibbutz residents are ready, having plans ready for such occurrences.  This would be the exact moment Mark picks to arrive looking for Cecile.  Mark takes to Kibbutz work like an old pro, skipping around and generally spreading mirth.  He ten gets a shower scene during a Hebrew lesson.  That's the first attempt at ANY sexuality in this entire miniseries.  A scene later it gets even more hubba-hubba when Mark and Cecile go skinny dipping.

Mark also befriends a, well, friendless kid, a tough little boy who keeps watch in an abandoned water tower with a broom for a gun.  They are both orphans, always a convenient bonding device.  The three make a nice insta-family.

Armand gets a letter saying Mark is getting married, so he and Lesley rush off to Israel to try to get him to return.  They do not want him staying in scary Israel.  Neither looks excited when Armand says, "Israel…homeland" on the plane (where Lesley has a super-comfy middle seat, and of course does not dream of complaining).

This time, the Syrians hit the tractor and kill a man.  That sends the Israelis into war mode (and the movie into a ton of repeat footage).  Mark's lithe pal takes up his spot in the old water tower while kooky supporting characters get mowed down.  Mark saves him just before the tower is blown up, but the next bomb hits them.

Armand and Lesley are waiting at the hotel for Mark's arrival, having no idea what has happened.  It's left to Cecile to deliver the bad news.  The kid survived, protected by Mark's body.  Joan is worried about Armand, who has remained totally silent, but Lesley sends them all home.  The pain kills Armand, whose funeral is next.

The only good news is Cecile calling, saying she wants to see Lesley, and of course we know something is up before Lesley does.  Cecile, alas, is not pregnant, but only because she's already given birth to Mark's daughter.

And there you have it, everything is neatly wrapped up and ti…oh, wait, no it's not.  There's another character we forgot (no, not Joan, who has gotten short shrift since birth).  Yup, Ian.  He comes for lunch, but arrives hours early to see the love of his life.  He announces he's moving to Italy, and naturally, that has been a connection of theirs for what, 800 years?  Now the whole damn orchestra booms its last and the miniseries ends.

I must admit, "Evergreen" isn't quite as spectacular as I remembered, but I was younger then.  I don't think it was ever a great piece, but it's not terrible either.  With Lesley Ann Warren at the helm, that would be utterly impossible.  She's the heart of the movie and she does it beautifully.  It's only a shame she can't be in every scene.  Able assist comes from Armand Assante, who knows his way around these pieces as well as she does, but his character is created as the heavy, so he doesn't have as much chance to delight as Lesley, who glows being the loving wonderful centerpiece.

Pearl (1978)

My friends, it's been a long time since we sifted our way through a World War II miniseries, and there are only about 407 more to get through, so let's just jump right into "Pearl."  As in the harbor.  As in you know exactly what is going to happen before we even start because we know how war miniseries work: toss a jumble of characters together with secrets and lies and them hit 'em with the war when they least expect it, unraveling all of those secrets and lies for the lucky characters who survive.

Oh, if this strikes you as at all familiar, it's because it's the exact same ado as "From Here to Eternity."  "Pearl" predates the remake of the latter as a miniseries, but still steals generous helpings of it from at least the novel and the original film, both of which are classics.  "Pearl," well, is not.

If you need the narration to tell you what happened at Pearl Harbor, stop reading this and pick up a book, any book.  However, the narrator is there as a reminder, but awfully overzealous and flowery.  "More than human life was lost that morning.  A special world died too, the world of American innocents," he gravely intones.  It's not untrue, but it's been said better.  But, let's not think of December 7 yet.  Let's go back before that.

Our narrator almost loses his breath (seriously) while describing Oahu before the attack.  Not only does take great pains to list every nationality present on the island, but he insists all was utterly perfect as if the war in the rest of the world didn't matter.  Well, that's a bit of historical re-invention.  It was the base for a naval fleet, one that was growing and growing in anticipation of someone finally flipping the switch to enter the US into a war it would inevitably have to fight.  What was going on in "this honeyed land" was years in the making; it's no coincidence that we were able to declare war the minute the Japanese bombed.

The story begins on December 4, with the Japanese fleet navigating through stormy waters somewhere in the Pacific Ocean and assembling its air force for readiness.  War councils are conducted in Japanese, but that's way too boring, so we instead start to watch a bunch of flesh rumps doing the hula in extreme close-up.  It's a class for the most bored and boring housewives on the island.

In comes their "social director" (named Midge), Angie Dickinson, with a mane of blonde hair.  She is easily the least appealing person for that role, immediately castigating the women for not bothering to ask  why they are in a hula class at 9am the day after all of them arrived on the island.  One brave but very stupid woman says it's "keen to learn the hula" and she wants to "learn all the island customs."  With that, Angie realizes it's pointless to talk sense and gives them back over to the hula instructor.

Then aren't a whole lot smarter, it seems, but at least they know why they are there (or think they do, at any rate).  It's not to play handball, though that's how we meet Lieutenant Gregg Henry and Captain Robert Wagner, the latter head to toe in white, but somehow not sweating.  Gregg is thinking of leaving the army.  Uh oh, that makes him instantly unlikeable because the American miniseries is insanely patriotic.  Of course, in ten minutes, we have yet to meet a character who is likable, which is strange.    We should be head over heels for SOMEONE by now!

The Japanese fleet is told that though Americans are "shallow...they could prove a formidable foe."  Okay, two issues.  First, yes, Americans are shallow, but we should be taking personality lessons from the Japanese of 1941, trying to bludgeon the world because no one paid them any attention since we opened up their land against their will 100 years before?  Second, "could" be a formidable foe?  Okay, that's giving the Japanese no credit at all.  Neither the Germans nor the Japanese were at all surprised by the sudden might of the war machine once it was decided to get the US involved.  The minute it happened, the talk in Europe switched from how to survive to what to do with the continent after the war was over!  Is there ANYONE this miniseries wants us to like or believe?

It's sure as hell not ass-kissing Sgt. Brian Dennehy, the army's most out-of-shape soldier, or Colonel Dennis Weaver, who talks while brandishing a whip just to discuss how unhappy he is with the driver RJ hired for him.  Dennis is also completely humorless over a dozen jokes about the driver's name and is all pissy that his wife Angie has been making snarky remarks to the other officers' wives.  She's bitter, he assumes she's drunk and they speak like they hate each other.  How about Private Christian Vance, the incompetent driver with the funny last name who Dennis accuses of not liking women, the true crux of his issue with Pvt. Finger (yes, that's his funny name).  "Just look at him!" Dennis snaps, because the boy is too pretty to be straight, but RJ is there to defend him, 30 years pre-Stonewall and three drinks just to get through this bizarre scene, one that has the flow of an Escher painting.  By the end of the scene, well, I have not a clue what has happened.  I think the pretty private still has a job.

The Japanese are given the order to attack Pearl Harbor at 8am on Sunday and be prepared to "die for our Emperor."

Awwwww.  However, when she offers to give away her car for free, I'm wondering if she's not thinking of jumping off the nearest volcano.  Sixth grade health class, the second way of telling a person is about to off herself--giving away possessions.

There's a ridiculous subplot going on about slot machines.  Apparently, Dennis is getting back at Company A for dumping the possibly queer kid on him by impounding Company A's slot machines for his company.  I wish it took just one scene to waste this time, but no, it keeps going.  We have A LOT of time to kill before the Japanese arrive.  The capper is a conversation RJ and Brian have about grasping for drumsticks and always being second best that has no bearing on anything other than to prove that the two men are very different.  Yes, we understood that from their rank and from RJ's perfect Southern manners as compared to meathead Brian is portraying.

You didn't think we would escape more than 30 minutes without a mixed race romance, did you?  Oh, come on!  Our fated Romeo and Juliet here are Gregg, who grew up on the island in all of his blond splendor, and Tiana Alexander, the hospital worker/journalist Lesley Ann so unfairly slashed a few scenes ago.  They went to school together, though she can't imagine how he would remember one native girl from all the others.  He helps her fix a tire and she drives him to the hotel where he's both meeting his family and she's covering a Chamber of Commerce meeting.  Cute, I know.  Can you stand it?  It's a shame they have zip in the chemistry department or it could have been a fun little scene.

Gregg's family, well, they also leave something to be desired.  Papa Richard Anderson is another career soldier and Mama Marion Ross seems a bit grouchy, not to mention the requisite annoying little sister, Mary Crosby.  Richard is already speaking like a haunted ghost because he has a desk job in the war he knows is coming.

Tiana gets to take in Dennis' speech where he announces "the Japanese are using Hawaii as a stepping stone to world conquest," and does so in glasses so we take her more seriously.  He feels this way about Hawaii before Japanese invasion, fearing that "American culture" is being "melted" by Japanese intrusion already, a "conspiracy" as Tiana challenges him and to which he agrees.  This sets him off on a tirade against in-breeding that makes him sound wowingly racist, even by the standards of 1940.  Sorry, but aren't the Americans the ones who took Hawaii from Pacific Islanders?  Okay, maybe the Japanese too, but they are also Pacific Islanders.  The all-white audience doesn't totally buy Dennis' blather, but RJ has to run after Tiana to explain his commander.  "When you print the story, don't be kind," he quips.  There's that Southern charm again.

"So, how you makin' out with the new girls out here?" Mary asks Gregg.  "You know your brother is engaged!" Marion reminds her.  WOAH!  Gregg, who just arranged to meet Tiana at the fruit market at 6am is engaged?  That's news to everyone but the family, apparently.  Gregg answers that by saying he's resigning his commission, moving out on his own and, naturally, not marrying this faceless girl.  The conversation is WASP heaven, ending with "I'm the Scotch" from Marion when the waitress brings the beverages.

Dennis goes poking through Angie's things (spraying her perfume on his hand is either wistful or creepy) and finds a wrapped up photo at the bottom of a drawer of her...no, I'm not going to say lover...daughter.  A cute little blonde kid.

Now, the story needs a nympho and obviously it has to be Angie Dickinson (Pepper Anderson notwithstanding, she did kind of make a career out of this role), who shows up to seduce Robert Wagner, which apparently she's never been able to fully do.  He sidesteps her to do 50 laps in the pool (maybe Brian Dennehy isn't the most out of shape man in this movie), but she merely walks into the pool fully clothed.  That's the kind of ballsy dame she is!  After she kisses him, he tells her, "you don't need a part-time lover...you need a full-time friend."  "What Victorian novel did you get that out of?" she asks, stealing the words from right out of my mouth!  A few more cold pieces of banter and RJ resists her arms, sending her off to a hot bath with the butler.  I think we have our hero!  Doesn't even sleep with the boss' wife...well, not yet at least.  I don't see Robert Wagner taking on any sexless roles, but let's wait and see!

That night, there is, by Pearl Harbor standards, a gala movie affair.  They are showing "Gone With the Wind" and Angie is dressed for a red carpet that isn't there.  "This man is new, isn't he?" she asks Dennis as the poor maybe-gay driver looks right through her upon opening the car.  Wow, this minuscule plot line is already running out of steam, the poor kid.

After Dennis gives one of his usual foot-in-mouth speeches to introduce the film, he takes his seat next to Angie, who is sitting beside dry-as-dust Audra Lindley (yup, Mrs. Roper), who hopefully can't help but provide some extra good entertainment.  They are rivals.  The more-than-half-empty theater is treated to some war footage first, about how well England is coping with the Battle of Britain (yeah, the foreshadowing is pretty obvious).  Lesley Ann bolts the theater and not only does her date run after her, but so does Robert.

The date seems unconcerned, but Robert follows her outside, noting her license plate.  He's practicing for "Hart to Hart" already, I suppose.

It's finally Friday, December 5.  We're getting there, folks.  Slowly and totally unsurely, but getting there.    Dennis is up at the bugle, showing off some rather infantile pajamas, and Angie, in her separate bedroom, snaps "another day in the trenches."  I have no idea what this dame sounds like not sarcastic since that's the only way her lines have been delivered so far.  Dennis wonders aloud if he shouldn't "do what Clark Gable did to Vivien Leigh," in the previous night's movie, but Angie heads him off there, finishing it with, "you wouldn't leave me," rather than letting him get any sexual ideas into his head.  Instead, she goes to her mirror and utters a fantastic line!  "I need four hens.  Two to get by with and two to hold back the lines."  Someone write that down, I love it!  She is then uncharacteristically reduced to tears by the picture of the dead daughter left out by Dennis.

Poor Christian Vance is hassled with gay-themed pictures his fellow grunts have drawn and this starts a big fight.  Perhaps we're inching away from micro-plotting.

We all know the reason we bothered to wake up so early was so Gregg and Tiana could meet at the market.  They have "only six hours" until they each have to be somewhere.  "I'll shop fast," Tania says before haggling with the  merchants, smile ablaze.  She makes the mistake of asking him about his family and he launches into a boring speech about wanting to leave the army and how it didn't sit well with his folks.  Her incessant haggling gets annoying, but luckily both brought bathing suits, so we won't spend six hours in the market.

It didn't take Robert long to find Lesley Ann's place, and he shows up with flowers, which should be even more bizarre since they've never met.  Indeed, good actress that Lesley Ann is (we're lucky to have her here, that's for sure), she is awfully perplexed, but RJ barrels his way in while she's trying to puzzle it out.  Putting the flowers in water, he asks her out on a date, and somehow she agrees!  With a complete stranger who has tracked her down through her license plate.  This comatose woman agrees to a date for that night?

But wait, it gets better!  Better!

Robert leaves and Lesley Ann decides to down a bottle of pills.  She hesitates, looks at the waves, and goes to gulp when in bursts Robert.  Literally!  Kids, I can't make this up, this happens for real in "Pearl."  And freeze, commercial.

"You're thinking, how did I know, huh?" he asks her.  She doesn't answer, but I, for one, would love to know.  He then goes on to actually explain how he figured it out, with a straight face that somehow she shares.   If his Miss Marple routine doesn't have you doubling in half, you are a lost cause, stick with "War and Remembrance."  The corniness endures as he goes back to the Greeks to explain why suicide isn't such a bad thing, which probably isn't helpful, but naturally works in this Velveeta parade.

After a brief check-in with the Japanese, RJ and Lesley Ann have graduated to a beach horseback riding session as they get to know each other.  He rattles on and she's not paying any attention.  He asks if she wants to hear more and she says no, but he continues.  Now the actors are as oblivious as the script?  She tries to escape his clutches, but he insists and orders her to stay at his house.  Smart Dr. Lesley Ann somehow goes along with his program all because he promises things will be better as "you got me."  Not inspiring.

For the first time, Angie shows a little bit of sadness, moaning to pal Katherine Helmond that "when I look in the mirror, I don't see myself anymore."  That cliche line is from the same script as the Robert and Lesley Ann are in?  War does crazy things to a miniseries.  "You only come over here to complain, you don't listen," Katherine says, noting how Angie actually enjoys her battles with Dennis and will never leave him.  At least this scene explains what the hell is going on with Angie and Dennis, though through LONG exposition from bratty Katherine.

We pause for a bit of history on the radio that tells us...not what you think.  No, just that Washington has sent the Japanese ambassador a "ten point memorandum" about Japanese activities in the Far East and expects a reply.  A forgotten fact of US entry into World War II was that negotiations were going on in the nation's capital that would have gotten us into the war at some point, but on terms far more favorable than a surprise attack that nearly clobbered the navy.

This is all going to make Gregg and Tiana's romance even more awkward because she's Japanese.  The fact that she announces to the born-in-Japan family that she has a date with a white man doesn't go over any better with her family than it will with his.

That day passes very quickly because it's already December 6 (which means this day is going to take FOREVER).  It starts badly, with RJ back in the swimming trunks.  But, Lesley Ann is all smiles in her one-piece, followed down the beach by the butler with drinks.  He offers her the entire weekend (oops), she assumes that means sex, gets pouty, but he explains it's only for "affection and support."  She glumly agrees.  First, though, he has to check in and headquarters and sees suspicious fire signals.  He and a g-man discuss it and decide the Japanese won't make an attack (oops).  The g-man is more worried about "sabotage" from the local Japanese.  RJ decides to note it to Dennis anyway, but it's not taken seriously (oops).  Dennis has a ball to throw that night and nothing is more important!  He's doing Cole Porter proud, but it's bad news for the navy.

Privates "Gayface" Christian and Adam Arkin go over to a brothel run by...surprise...Katherine Helmond!  She knows Adam well, has his usual girl ready and wants to please Christian very much, but he can't find a girl he likes and wants to "look around on my own."  Luckily, he's not on driving duty because Audra and her general hubby are picking Dennis up.  Angie has just bolted the premises when they show up, so Dennis has to fumble for excuses before joining them.  Audra knows something is up, something more than just her eyebrow.  Anyway, the current plots collide when Angie passes by sad-looking Christian on the street and offers him a ride back to the base.  I guess she's gotten over her fear of him from movie night.  She hasn't forgotten him, actually, just her fear, because she cracks, "you drive my husband around, I drive him crazy" as a bonding tool.  Christian is so dim-witted that when Angie parks the car in a secluded spot, he wants to check a map to see where they are.  "I'd forgotten things could be beautiful," she says melodramatically staring at him in the moonlight before kissing him.

"Please ma'am," he says, pushing her off.
"Please do or please don't?"

He worries about breaking the rules, as diddling an officer's wife is "second only to treason."  I've not seen that in the rules anywhere, but then again, I've never attempted to write a kitsch "From Here To Eternity" knock off.  She's not giving up, so he gives in.  Hah!  Who is gay now?  You go, Christian, with a hundred violins, no less.  And, all before the Japanese can interrupt.

You know what Adam likes to do with the hookers?  Paint their portraits.  That's disappointing!  So, the only people on the island getting it on are Angie and Christian?  That's unexpected.  Making it worse, he's a painter-philosopher and we have to listen to the mumbo jumbo that comes with the latter (aka, a time killer).  Good thing the gal he has for the night also likes to chat in that manner.

Lest we forget anything serious, Tiana brings Gregg in to meet her parents.  He brings gifts, is exceedingly polite, but is, as expected, ignored.  Also, as expected, he's a good sport about it.  She delivers a resolute speech to her father that she respects her ancestry, but she is going out with this hunky white guy.  It even turns into a civics lesson, but Pops ain't budging.

What wold a whorehouse be without a brawl?  Adam's paintings come in for some jokes, so he thrashes everyone he can find.  Katherine doesn't seem to mind.

The navy ball?  It's a snooze.  Dennis, dancing with Audra, isn't thrilled to see Gregg dancing with Asian Tiana, but he doesn't recognize her from a few days ago because, "I have trouble telling one from another."  I've been waiting hours for that line.  Though RJ promised he wouldn't try to have sex with Lesley Ann, he does, she panics and bolts.  She finds comfort on a swing outside, going back and forth like a crazed woman as he professes his love for her.  Already?  When did he have time to fall in love?  Was it at the aborted pill swallowing or did the swings clinch it for him?  And the swings, now we're borrowing from "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

Gregg tells Tiana more about his boring life, but she's enough history and asks him point blank why he hasn't made a move on her.  Well, he's kind of used to Asian women being "confirmed virgins or karate experts."  She lets that one pass because she's damn horny and not ashamed of it.  She's further turned on by his lack of experience with girls, and that's when, uh oh, he mentions the discarded fiancee.  Nope, that doesn't scare her either.  "Can we make love?" she asks.  "When?" he replies nervously and follows with another 20 questions before finally kissing her.  When a girl is that ready, what red-white-and-blue straight guy holds out so long?

Angie has no such problems.  She drops Christian off and is found by Brian Dennehy.  He wants money to keep it quiet, which she absolutely expected.  Frankly, she's insulted at the low amount she wants so she grabs his gun and flattens his tire (the car tire, not his spare one), with a threat to kill him if he blabs.  At least this character has some surprises to her.  I was beginning to think the approaching Japanese were the only interesting people in the movie.

Speaking of, dawn has broken and it's December 7.  Tiana greets the day at a Shinto shrine, with Gregg looking on proudly.  "I'm also a Methodist," she informs him.  They hear the planes, but Gregg doesn't think it could be anything important so early.  Saucy Angie has been out all night and returns to a smack in the face from Dennis, which we know is pleasing to her.  Robert is playing polo (polo?) when Lesley Ann comes to ask him to escort her to the boat off the island.  Katherine is taking the painted girl to church, with oodles of been-there advice.  In other words, no one is paying any attention to the skies above.  Tension should be building, but none of these people are fascinating enough to make that happen and we know that history can't be put off forever.

It takes a nameless character to realize the planes dropping bombs are Japanese on the attack, but Lesley Ann is just getting to the reason she's been so darn upset (dead boyfriend).  Take your pick, you can mute the sound because of the attack or the dialogue and you won't miss much.

Finally, the alert goes out and everyone knows what those pesky planes are really doing up there.  Some are slower to react, such as Dennis, still howling at Angie as his naval base is bombed to ruins.  There is always time for a pointless argument, Angie still full of quips.  If you are still on mute, consider yourself fortunate.  A constantly ringing phone eventually ends this scene.  "We're at war," Dennis tells her.  "You and I have been at war for the last 18 years," Angie clucks, still not getting it.

Some, like Gregg's father Richard Anderson, are quick to mobilize, while others get the gabs, like Adam, who has an insanely long speech while the whole navy is running around him.  He even has time to answer some sex questions from Christian.  That's just a blatant waste of time when we know we have tearful partings from couples like Gregg and Tiana (big kisses and he has to get to work).  Oh, and Robert says out loud that he's happy for a war because it's keeping Lesley Ann on the island.  That makes as much sense as anything else he's said to her, so she doesn't find it shocking.

Alas, the plot churns and so I must report the windings.  At first, everyone we've met so far survives, though in various states of hysteria (Mary Crosby is particularly ripe, worrying about being raped, but veteran scene-stealer Marion Ross out-does her).  Richard is the calming effect, telling his family, and thus us, that the Japanese can't land on their particular island.  Maybe another, but not this one, so air raids are to be the worst of it.  It sounds convincing, I suppose.  "If I didn't know any better, I'd say my father planned this thing to make sure I didn't get out of the navy," his son Gregg says to mates.  Just for that, the boat he's on is bombed, sending him into the water, but alive.

Dennis is excited to put some plans into action, plans someone was careful enough to draw up in case something like this happened.  He mentions there will be censorship and even the bars will be closed.  "Not that bars, sir!" Robert sneers, as if he has some better plan just waiting to be unfurled.  Dennis warns him, "we must not take advantage of the awesome powers that are to be delegated to us," which also gets a sarcastic rejoinder from his know-it-all inferior knocking Dennis down a few pegs.

The FBI makes a beeline for Tiana's house, questioning her father's need for so many pigeons and tossing around threats.  But, Tiana is understanding, agreeing that "you have to worry about such things now."  Her father shows he's no traitor by killing this pigeons.  One by one.  In real time.

Need we guess who is the first true hero?  It's RJ, of course, the marquee star.  He not only saves a child from a burning house, but a Japanese child and stays around to worry about the other houses on the street while Dennis drives off to do his work.  Oh, don't worry, the first time his hair gets singed, he'll forget all about the kids, even the I'm-so-noble-I-save-the-children-of-potential-enemies part of him.

It's the enlisted men who are smartest, giving their superiors great suggestions and even letting Japanese civilians help out (seems dubious, but okay).  Naturally, there is must use for Lesley Ann's surgical skills, but there is a lack of help at the hospital, soon filled by...the hookers!  "My girls are cleaner" than anything on the island, Katherine demands and they are allowed to help.  War breaks down all barriers.

After weasel Brian Dennehy claims his jeep was hit by enemy fire (it was just Angie, remember?), Dennis is told of the mounting casualties.  "Murder!  Murder!  By God, now we're taking control," he finally decides.  A little late to the game, but still welcome.  He has so many hams around him that he's stayed fairly muted, but it's a miniseries and everyone wants an Emmy.  Not that anyone here stands a chance.

Our first big "uh oh" moment comes when Robert and Tiana see a bloodied and very wounded Gregg wheeled into the hospital.

(FYI, the battle scenes, which are impressive, are unused footage from "Tora! Tora! Tora!")

A very confused Angie pays a lucky cab driver $100 to drive her around, first stopping at Katherine's to hear that "a very special world around us is dying" (I'm assuming she means this is bad for her business) and then insisting on going to the naval base!  "I have to do something and I'm not afraid any longer," Angie announces to Katherine, revealing what is apparently a long-dormant second personality, because we've not seen this Angie previously.

Back to the hospital.  Gregg is awake and asking for Tiana, though RJ insists the soap keep bubbling, demanding to know of Lesley Ann at this particular moment, in the middle of the hospital on this day, why a girl with such smarts would try suicide.  I like her reply.  "Leave me alone!"

There isn't a scratch on Gregg, looking awfully fresh upon waking up and being cleaned off.  "My parents will love you.  I'm gonna tell them all about you," he says to Tiana, who agrees.  We all know what happens to characters who promise the future in a miniseries.  They don't usually live to see it.  Unaware of that law, Gregg proposes and Tiana accepts, then it's off to surgery for Gregg.

Grinning and laughing, Brian is excited about the war and tells Private Christian it's for two reasons.  First, the war guarantees that they need every man, so he, less than a year from retirement with his superiors trying to boot him, is safe.  If that isn't enough, "you and the Colonel's slut," is his ace in the hole.  "I know you're a lot bigger than I am, but I don't care.  I'm not going to let you call the Colonel's wife what you just did and get away with it," Christian says after abruptly stopping the car.  I'm not sure which part he objects to really, but Brian says they will discuss it later, causing Christian to go on a free-wheeling car zoom that scares the hell out of Brian.  They go off the side of the road and Brian escapes before the car blows up, four or five explosions.  At that moment, Adam Arkin drives by and is pulled away from the wreckage like a horrified boyfriend.

And thus, we our first cast casualty, one that owed nothing to the Japanese directly, making it seem more than a trifle trite.

Gal-on-a-mission Angie forces her way onto the naval base, full of bluster and threats in her first serious speech of the piece (the soldier she humiliates in this scene gets to take out his aggression on a Japanese telegram delivery boy who has a coded message for the general, though he lets him through anyway).  Dennis is busy reading Brian the riot act for not getting to the printer on time, though Brian does have a good excuse.  "Has my car been damaged?" is Dennis' first question.  Yup, and so has your driver.  "I told [Robert] that homo can't drive!" Dennis replies, only THEN finding out that Private Christian is dead.  Brian is haunted by the episode, but Dennis has war fever and finds this all just a fiasco.  "I will not permit madness to infect my section!" he demands, oblivious, as always.  "It won't happen again, sir" Brian replies, as stoically as possible with a lunatic for a superior.

Angie and her cab driver somehow get to the landing strip where the second wave of Japanese aircraft is devastating the planes by not only shooting them but crashing into them to create huge fires.  Angie is horrified at what she sees, but the cab driver seems more than happy to let her sit and watch.

Upset at losing his special friend, Adam tells his superior about the whole debacle and when asked if he's okay, Adam loads on the heavy New York accent and avows, "nothin's gonna kill me, not you, not this stinkin' army!"  Perhaps not, but the storyline and bad acting might.

Thrilled now, Dennis loves barking orders and issuing commands.  RJ is there when he says any Japanese sympathizers can get the death penalty.  So, very slowly, Robert lays into him, defending the actions of all the brave Japanese people living on the island.  Dennis decides to counter this with "an old Hawaiian proverb," and wait until you hear it: "the canoe is not swamped by the outside wave, but by the inside wave."  WHAT?  What is an inside wave in a canoe?  That does not end the scene, alas.  Robert continues to argue, even asking for "an apology on our part, a sense of regret, not a sense of joy at the prospect, not elation."  An apology to whom?  No one has been arrested yet.  Sure, the FBI looked at Tiana's dad and his birds, but no one rounded him up.  "Are you accusing me of enjoying this tragic day?"  "I'm your exec, sir, not your accuser."  "I'll expect you to remember that at all times," Dennis says, having gone far more bonkers with power than perhaps even Captain Kurtis.  The scene only concludes when Dennis orders Robert to inform all the bordellos that there is a curfew and anyone in violation could be shot.  Sure, kill off the last vestiges of pleasure left on the island, blame the hookers!  They've been busy wrapping bandages all day, if anyone cares to remember.  They will be too tired at night anyway.

So, off Robert dashes to Katherine Helmond's establishment, apparently deciding she's keenly interested in his rhetoric about "personal freedom" and some other rot that is obviously some writer's personal passion yet doesn't particularly belong here.  It works.  "Captain, after a speech like that, whatever brought you, the house is yours!" Katherine says, fluttering her eyelids at his Southern charm but no doubt hoping her next film role is better.  His new rules are that she operate in the daytime and install blackout curtains.  "The whole town will become a red light district," Katherine portends.  You see, she's not at all scared by the military, because she feels that making a ghetto of the neighborhood will cause more girls to come and soon she will have to "expand" to streets with "decent families."  Never try to best a Madam, they will ALWAYS win.  "I suspect you're right," he tells her.  "I'm always right.  I wish to hell I weren't."  Why?  You've done pretty damn well for yourself, thriving business, big house on the beach.  It doesn't seem so bad.

In case you're wondering, Driving Miss Angie is still happening.  She finds her way to a meeting of the all the war wives, where Audra is yowling in a fury of patriotism, firing off false information.  "Why don't you stop blowing it out!  For once in your life, why don't you start dealing with the truth?" Angie demands to know of a character who has never been accused of lying.  He'll she hasn't had five lines total so far!  Audra thinks she's protecting the women from the truth, but Angie, all bug eyed with reports from the naval base, tells them what she's seen, the fires, the planes and ships gone.  "The days of hula lessons and bridge socials are over!  The Japanese just blew them away!" Angie shouts.  "If I were a man, I would knock your head off!  You are nothing but a disgusting tramp," blares Mrs. Roper.  "We all know that you are a drunk and that I sleep around," Angie agrees, still insisting that the wives deserve the truth.

Once the Americans take to the air things don't instantly improve.  The Japanese are still on the offensive, trained and ready.  Planes from both sides are destroyed with guns blazing, but eventually, the Japanese disappear back to the Pacific and we're left to pick up the pieces of the plot.

First, Lesley Ann has to deliver the news to Tiana that Gregg died on the operating table.  Tiana wants to see the body and Lesley Ann hugs her, slowly walking her to the body as a nurse with a pile of dog tags leads them to the body.  He looks just as hunky as ever, his face completely unharmed.  "Talk to me!" Tiana cries to the body, while Lesley Ann is feet away breaking down (again).  Once again, only because Lesley Ann Warren is such a capable actress does she come off as believable here, rather than just a victim of horribly bad characterization.

Gregg's family doesn't know yet.  Marion and Mary have barricaded themselves in their hotel room (much to the consternation of the maids, since they have left the "please make up room" sign on the door but deadbolted it from the inside).  Mary keeps howling in hysterics as Marion spins fanciful stories of what the Japanese might be doing to everyone (with the backdrop of palm trees and the beach behind her).  Robert does his best to comfort his wife, though it's not particularly good news that he has gotten himself commissioned to Pearl Harbor.  He's sending his family back to the mainland, but Marion refuses to go.  She won't leave the island where Japanese servants are apparently poisoning hot chocolate?

And then the phone rings.  Mary and Marion guess the news before Robert even puts the headset down.

The hooker Adam has been painting (Char Fontaine) somehow is able to drive out to the beach where the grunts are waiting for Japanese ships, so she can talk to Adam.  The sarge in charge is baffled that the hookers are following them.  "We've always been camp followers, back to the Greeks and the Persians," she schools him.  "Yeah, and look what happened to the Greeks and the Persians," he replies, as if ladies of the night did in those empires.  Rome?  Maybe, but not the Greeks and the Persians.  He relents and Adam gets five minutes with Char, as the rest of the men hoot encouragingly.  She wants him to paint her again...at home, where she has to be, alone, at night.  She even gives him the key to her home.  He clearly does not get that she has a crush on the lug, but he agrees to go.  "Make it soon, okay?" she says, like a demure girlfriend (in her demure yellow dress buttoned up demurely to the neck).  I hope this is leading somewhere, because the crawling pace has returned to "Pearl" just when it's time to wrap things up.

When Tiana shows up at Robert and Marion's room, Marion is suddenly very welcoming and sweet to her.  Tiana explains the act of bravery Gregg committed that caused his death that brought down a Japanese bomber.  She explains how good the medical staff was to him and how hard they tried to save him.  Marion clings to her with a most motherly embrace.

True to the order, the Japanese are rounded up from monasteries and graveyards.  "Every dog on the island," Dennis barks over the phone to someone questioning the orders.  Robert is not pleased to see Buddhist priests and "simple fisherman" treated in this manner.  He asks to be relieved of his duty to Dennis and wants combat duty because he can't countenance what Dennis is doing.  Dennis turns it into a rambling discussion about Robert's family money, dreaming up a notion that Robert's family has a plantation with servants, like the Civil War just started, not World War II.  He clearly has an inferiority complex going.  Robert listens with all the zest of a stand-in as Dennis blows out the bile, demanding that Robert remain, refusing to ever let him go, promising, "I am going to break you."

Pause for a sec.  Okay, this sort of plot revelation is actually interesting, because it gives Dennis' character some depth, but unfortunately, it comes out of nowhere.  There has been absolutely no indication anywhere else in the saga so far that Dennis grew up poor resenting rich people, most particularly his aide.  They certainly have never liked each other, but the writers here should have made it clear, at least to us, a lot earlier what the stick up Dennis' ass was all about.  At this point, he's coming off as a raving racist nutcase when this could be a moment to show how a character's whole life of pent-up jealousy and hatred is being taken out on innocent civilians just because of their race.  How can we be expected to have anything but utter competent for this character now?  He's played the buffoon for the entire movie up to this point, and now suddenly he does everything but twirl his mustache to become the ultimate villain, the embodiment of every apologizing nobility this movie has wanted to display when it comes to race relations (remember, it's 1978 when it was made, so this is not really about Asians and Caucasians, this is much larger in the context of the racial tensions of the 60s and 70s).

Unpause.  Robert reacts to this by rescinding his offer to resign his position, "because nothing is more important than this, this war between us.  I promise you, sir, if I just once find you stepping beyond the powers you now enjoy, just once, violating any law, any regulation, I shall use that against you on behalf of a country and an army I believe in, despite men like you," Robert says slowly and methodically, mistaking pretend earnestness for good acting, but helped by the patriotic music played under the scene.

At the sink after surgery, a very impressed doctor tells Lesley Ann he wants her to stay on because she has been such a great help.  She's, as usual, in a world of her own, turning to him with a big smile and saying, "I cried today!" with triumph before rushing out.  Very good, doctor!  How about tomorrow we learn our colors?  She then puts on her civvies, trying not to let the grief of everyone else at the hospital ruin her insta-happiness and hops in her car.

The Japanese aren't exactly overwhelmed with glee themselves, feeling that though they sent out two very important runs that virtually decimated Battleship Row, it wasn't honorably done (they hit first at 7:55 AM, five minutes before the declaration of war--maybe their watches were just fast, calm down already!).  The commander feels "we have succeeded only in awaking a sleeping giant."  You didn't think of that before?  Come on, let's not be dishonest to history here, people.  As I said earlier, everyone on earth knew the US was mobilizing, it just needed an actual reason to get into the war and the Japanese were the part of the Axis who gave it to them.

"Last stop," Angie finally tells her long-suffering driver.  "You've been a brave and cheerful companion, aloha," Angie adds, as if the day has been all about getting to know a stranger.  She passes Brian on the way into see Dennis, baiting him a bit and then offering apologies to Robert.  "What's happened to you?" Robert understandably asks after she delivers her speech.  "Pearl Harbor, I don't know."  Lady, we don't know either.  Her second apology to him is in advance of what she's going to say to Dennis, telling him everything.  She orders him to follow her and to bring Brian as well.  "What is this?" Robert asks.  "Pearl Harbor, my version."  Angie's two personalities are colliding and I'm afraid.  So is Robert, clearly.

Understandably, Dennis finds her visit a bother, but when Robert and Brian enter, he has no choice but to put the war on hold and deal with her.  And then comes the BIG speech.  She starts with the dead daughter and explains how she died, a story none of the other men knows (why should they know?).  She turns from zealous prosecuting attorney into crying lump.  Regaining her composure, she forges ahead.  The ramble makes very little sense at this point.  Sure, we need to finish Angie's plot, but as with Dennis earlier, there have been very few clues, not enough to warrant this grandiose episode and the sheer amount of time it takes.  "I'm leaving you...just three little words," she announces, continuing with another of her infamous animal metaphors, "we're like two old horses, joined at the hip, side by side pulling at a junk wagon, just going along, day after day, year after year, picking up more junk and pretty soon, it's not each other we feel, it's the weight we're pulling.  I'm unhitching us..."  She confesses to trying to seduce Robert and insists Brian tell what he saw.  Brian now gets his big acting chance, but Robert whips out his gun and offers to shoot Brian.  How about the director instead?  Leaving a grade A mess in her wake, Angie grabs her purse and says, "well, I'm going.  God forgive me how good I feel!" She brings back the "Gone With the Wind" parallel, exiting with Rhett's final line and slamming the door.  This is the most insane scene yet, I suppose inevitable, but so badly handled.  I can't even find anything else to say.  "Pearl" is its own worst enemy.

Dennis is left alone in his office with a stack of paperwork as he dissolves into a quaking crying mess himself.

That would leave just Lesley Ann, who managed to onto the base as the curfew is about to take effect.  Some grunt tries to get her to go, but it seems Angie's grand exit wasn't enough to end her character's participation.  Leaving the building, she's recognized by Lesley Ann and insists the soldier take her to see Robert.  Never mind, he's coming out of the building at that moment anyway.  She gets to tell him the FULL story of her misery.  It's rather anti-climactic, and more than a touch bonkers, but at least it's acted well...or, in context, better.  "They asked me to stay at the hospital, but that depends on you.  Do you want me to stay?"  "Oh my God, yes!" Robert replies and his dirty body gets a hug and giant kiss.

Roosevelt's declaration of war to Congress is played as all of the characters listen.  The narrator returns (I was hoping he wouldn't, but whatcha gonna do?) to tell us "nothing was ever the same again."

It's just stupid!  Second-hand stupid.  "Pearl" has no reason to exist other than to copy "From Here to Eternity" and doesn't even do it well.  The characters are a jumble of non-existent plots and horrendous acting and the script might have been better suited to more than five hours because there is so much going on, yet none of it at all important.  How one can actually manage to trivialize the events of December 7, 1941 is beyond me, but that is the only thing at which "Pearl" succeeds.

Beulah Land (1980)

Read this description: "An epic story of the Old South...follows the trials and tribulations of...a strong-willed woman who runs a thriving plantation in antebellum Georgia.  Married to a man whose wasteful ways take her family to the brink of ruin...struggles, to endure family betrayals, extramarital affairs, financial hardships and General Sherman's troops in a sweeping series..."

Even with the ellipses, it sounds familiar, right?  "Gone With the Wind," no?  No.  "Scarlett?"  No, we've done that, remember?  "North and South?" Oh, come on!  That's not a female-focused story!

Nope, this would be "Beulah Land," a decade and a half before "Scarlett," (giddy where "Scarlett" is maddening).  But, it might as well be "Gone With the Wind," because it's virtually the same story.  Countless Civil War tales of vibrant heroines followed Margaret Mitchell's, and we know that the miniseries adores Civil War fables.  "Beulah Land" is actually on the early side of miniseries history, right on the heels of "Roots," so this story wasn't as tired and familiar to TV audiences as it would be by the time "Scarlett" came around to wrap up the genre.  However, it's also not nearly as decorous or well-written as "North and South," which really did define Civil War miniseries (from the white point-of-view). 

Lesley Ann Warren, who did valiant work in a slew of miniseries, is the Scarlett stand-in here, though her character is a smart and much-loved woman.  Curious that she would take the part, less than a decade after having actually playing Miss O'Hara herself in a musical version of "Gone With the Wind," which closed on the road to a planned Broadway production.  But, the handful of audiences who saw her in that barely matter compared to the viewership of even the most forgotten of miniseries.

"Beulah Land" really has the potential to be riotously funny, but other than some very wrong performances, it's actually nothing more than predictable.  The plot twists are obvious and it could have been done in less time, but it's also not terrible.  In 1980, the genre was young and fresh and even a much-told chestnut like "Beulah Land" keeps on the right side of the quality line, especially with Lesley Ann Warren giving a fantastic performance. 
Everything looks mighty content with the slaves in the cotton fields.  Riding through the fields are Aunt Martha Scott and her two young nieces, who don't realize this is all part of the majestic plantation, Beulah Land (which does not, I'm afraid, seem to have a theme song of its own like Tara).  The super-friendly black coach driver explains the history of Beulah Land ("it's from the Book of Isaiah") and even grins when asked if the head honcho is a "good master," though managing to give an evasive answer. 

The so-called master is actually a kid, young Todd Lookinland, who is out in the fields being mischievous.  Dedicated house slave Clarice Taylor (an awfully lively take on the "Mammy" character) and his mother Hope Lange are obviously fed up with him, and he's not there to greet the arriving kinfolks on this fine 1827 day.  The coach driver fetches Todd, who is greeting in the foyer by a big slap from his mother.  "You knew company was comin', but you deliberately ran off," Hope snarls. 

Equally nasty, but far scarier, is overseer Paul Shenar, who wants to beat young Todd's slave friend, though stopped from doing so.  Pissed that he has no one to whip, Paul hisses, "this black snake is thirsty, boy, better stay out of his way," referring to his whip, though it took me two tries to figure that one out.  He flicks it for good measure. 

Now, Aunt Martha showed up with two young nieces, one blonde and loving every minute of being a Southerner (thrilled to go when invited to see where they hang the slaves at Beulah Land) and one brunette, a quiet sweet type (the opposite of the sisters in "North and South," where Genie Francis was so sweet it hurt and Teri Garber was so nasty it tickled).  The little brunette is so adorable that she helps Todd get a plate of food, brought to him by his slave friend, who claims, "any food you got, we got too."  Since when?  The little brunette even wanders through the Bible to find the reference to Beulah Land.  No one doubted it, but the little blonde cracks, "that sounds foolish" because it sounds too idyllic.  Directly after that, she's horrified to see the overseer whipping a slave, though Hope and Martha can't understand her frustration.  Martha and nieces finish their visit with only Todd sorry to see them go.  He's taken a shine to the little brunette.

Let's jump ahead seven years and get rid of the pesky kids.  The little brunette has become Lesley Ann Warren, everyone's darling.  Madeleine Stowe is as sullen as ever as Hope's daughter (she's only happy hanging out in the kitchen with Clarice's daughter, Jean Foster), though handsome Don Johnson (yup, Don Johnson, temporarily antebellum before pastel sport coats overwhelmed his career) tries to be nice to her.  And the master is more grown up, a very perky blond Paul Rudd (not the Paul Rudd you think, just an actor with the same name). 

What do all pre-war young men of stature do before the horrors will either kill them or turn them earnest?  They get drunk in town, just like Don and Paul, who overdo their accents, stumble and tell crass stories.  Don confesses he wants to get busy with someone.  "Now you know what they say, pedigree or not, they all lay eggs," he notes, before revealing it's Lesley Ann's blonde sister he worships.  "She's be mighty good for what ails you," Don notes, but Paul wonders about Lesley Ann.  "She's an angel, she's gonna be a virgin 'til she's..." Uh oh, he realizes that Paul actually fancies Lesley Ann.  Well, he had a confession to make himself.  Though he's all talk about women, it's Madeleine he really loves, though Lord knows why, she's so damn miserable.  Paul is thrilled that they might be brothers-in-law.  They cackle and continue their drunken revelry. 

Paul Shenar visits a house of ill repute, where he wants only Jenny Agutter, though the other gals can't understand why.  "Every time you come for [Jenny], you have to wait," one says.  Well, I guess popularity is a good thing in their trade.  Actually not.  Paul is very jealous of any man who spends time with his beloved British tart.  "Waiting is waiting," he snarls.  "And work is work," she replies, "but play is play" and leans down to kiss him.  "When you and I go upstairs, people know better than to wait," she laughs as they head up for some privacy.

Approaching Hope bravely, Don asks for Madeleine's hand in marriage.  Clarice praises the heavens.  Hope asks if it's actually true, and Madeleine actually seems happy to admit it is, though when she looks at Jean, the latter is staring daggers.  Hmmm, exactly what has been going on between these two since Madeleine was a girl and crashes the all-black hoe-downs to dance with her slave friend?

Rushing through the woods in a carriage with Jenny, Paul Shenar is stopped by one of the local landowners who needs to borrow money.  The guarantee behind it is his land.  Paul tells Jenny he intends to own so much land that it will make even the owners of Beulah Land quake.  Villains are never subtle in these pieces, but in under 30 minutes, we've seen Paul Shenar commit pretty much all of the seven deadly sins.  Of course, we know how he'll ultimately end up, but hopefully he'll be mean old fun until the inevitable.  The next day, Jenny is introduced to Hope and her frizzy-haired son Paul, whom of course she knows as "Mr. Jones of Charleston," aka a frequent visitor to the whorehouse.  "You're not going to tattle on me?" she coyly asks.  "Not if you don't tattle on me," he replies with a toothy smile. 

Lesley's blonde sister has grown up into Meredith Baxter (with Birney here), a braying brat.  In order to get Lesley's attention through the wall, she goes into a howling routine, and of course Lesley falls for it.  The reason is to inform her that she's fallen in love with an actor whose company is leaving town.  Next morning, when Aunt Martha Scott hits the floor with a scream, a slave merely clucks, "she fainted again?" but Lesley sees the note in her hand: yup, Meredith has eloped with the actor.  Aunt Martha cries the entire way to Beulah Land, having missed Don and Madeleine's wedding.

Don is also missing Don and Madeleine's wedding, so drunk that he not only knocks over furniture, but rips Madeleine's dress as she recoils in horror.  "You gonna take them clothes off or am I gonna have to take them off for you?" he asks her as she realizes she apparently made a mistake marrying him (let's get together a big chorus of "I told you so" for when Jean finds out).  Madeleine tries to resist Don's advances, but he slaps her down to the bed, telling her, "you can scream, but ain't nobody going to get involved in this private matter" and rapes her. 

A friend to all slaves, because she's so gleefully angelic, Lesley is trotting through the woods with one slave while waving hellos as another (Dorian Harewood is the grown-up version of Paul Rudd's childhood friend), when they come across that other great-friend-to-the-slaves, Madeleine, bloody and nearly passed out.  She's taken to the slave quarters where Hope is summoned.  "Did you refuse to consummate your marriage?" Hope asks coldly.  "You have humiliated me," she adds, puts on her iciest face and walks out as quickly as she came in.  Egad, that is one bitch of a mother! 

"Mother's not someone you love or hate.  She's someone you accept or hate," Paul Rudd tells Lesley as they poke along through the woods on horses.  She was a bit aghast at Hope's reaction to her daughter's beating.  This worries Lesley because she's crushing on Paul.  "I wonder if she really likes me or just approves of me," she wonders aloud with a flirty smile.  "With mother, I think they are the same thing," he reassures her.  Stay away from the crazies, Lesley!!!!!  Oh, and if Hope isn't scary enough, overseer Paul Shenar and his ex-hooker wife also look at her funny whenever she's around.  Only Dorian Harewood treats her nicely, forging a ring for her in his capacity as blacksmith.  He's doing his best to get Paul Rudd to propose to her. 

When Don shows up to claim Madeleine, still looking like a drunk devil, Clarice meets him at the door and gives him the strangest pep talk in miniseries history, claiming he can't see her because she and the others need time to talk to her and get her to realize her wifely duties.  What the hell goes on at Beulah Land?  Is it Stepford 150 years too early?  "You tell her I'm coming back here to take her home," Don insists.  Clarice then catches her daughter Jean running around the house with a gigantic knife, saying, "I'm not going to let him hurt her again, Mama."  Clarice wrestles the knife from her and Jean goes to visit Madeleine, finding her catatonic in bed.  She actually responds to Jean, holding out a hand for her. 

"Marry me.  I and Beulah Land need you," Paul Rudd uses as a marriage proposal because Lesley is set to depart.  These two are so happy and chaste, they have never even exchanged cheek pecs, but she agrees and they couldn't be more excited.  Before we know it (literally, the next scene), Paul Rudd is hung over from his bachelor party, going to Dorian's hovel to first complain of his physical state, then his excitement and then his nerves.  Unfortunately, he and Dorian can't be friends like they used to be, and Dorian is rather unpleasant to him about it. 

Everyone is invited to the wedding.  Don's parents tell him to behave and not make a fuss, even if Madeleine does not put in an appearance.  The slaves are all decked out in ridiculous livery for the occasion.  Only the Paul Shenars are missing because they are in a huff having not been invited to all the festivities, only the ceremony.  Madeleine and Jean watch from a window, upsetting Don, who misses his cue as ring-bearer.  Paul slips on the new wedding ring as well as the one Dorian made, though he's had that dipped in gold.  "I know that Beulah Lane is going to be in good hands," an uncharacteristically chipper Hope tells brother-in-law Eddie Albert and Governor Peter Hobbs.  Only the kitchen slaves seem to be upset, and then just a few of the women who know they can never enjoy such a lovely day and wedding of their own. 

Governor Peter Hobbs chastises Hope for teaching her slaves to read, and she replies that it's actually a good thing, because "they never run away."  He's only worried about his re-election and how this could affect it.  Frankly, I don't see the connection.  "Let's just hope we don't have another Nat Turner on our hands," he mutters to her.  Don pounds on Madeleine's door as the guests are leaving and demands she return home with him.  Jean opens the door, points a gun at Don and tells him, "go away and never come back!"  As you can expect, he does not react well, shouting until his father slaps him across the face. 

Lesley takes to her role as mistress of Beulah Lane like gangbusters as we jump ahead a year.  She summons Paul Shenar and rails at him for whipping a slave.  "I sent word to you that I do not approve of whippin'," she tells him, but he replies, "but you did not forbid it."  She officially forbids it.  He pulls out one of the hoariest excuses of all slave ownership and most overused line in moviedom about it, noting, "slaves are like children.  They must be punished or discipline will be destroy."  All whippings must be approved by her or her husband.  Furthermore, she wants him to stop pulling "my slaves" out of school.  By the way, the school is taught by Madeleine and Jean.

Lesley is not thrilled when she learns that Franklyn's father is her husband.  "It happens all the time," Madeleine and Jean tell her, that plantation owners "have their way" with slaves whenever they want.  In a rage, she confronts her gun-cleaning husband about it, and he tells her the true story and then snaps, "a Southern lady should NEVER mention such matters to her husband!"  Hope, who is obviously dying, tells Lesley she had to treat her son with cruelty over the matter because "the only thing that matters is to keep Beulah Land thriving."  Thank you, Gerald O'Hara.  Lesley finally admits her unabashed love for Beulah Land. 

Two years later, Paul Shenar, having trouble with Dorian Harewood, comes to discuss "the North Field."  Lesley has given "specific instructions" on how that field was supposed to be handled, so the surprise of her dippy husband, who clearly doesn't care, and now Paul Shenar wants to reprimand Dorian for following Lesley's orders.  Naturally, Lesley puts the kibosh on it, so Paul Shenar retorts, "I do hope your mother is doing better these days," as a swipe at Lesley.  "Don't you think I know who's running Beulah Land?  Every time I try to be the master, I end up being the fool!" Paul Rudd yells at Lesley in frustration. 

Paul Rudd flits off to see his sister-in-law Meredith, who is in town with the theater company.  They flirt hot and heavy from the onset, and since she's tarted up, TV-speak for "I'm ready to have sex," they are kissing in the middle of sentences and thus an affair begins.  And wouldn't you know (of course you do, because we know how plot twists occur in pairs in these things), that's the very night Hope picks to die.  When Lesley tells Madeleine, hiding in her room with Jean, Madeleine tells Lesley to plan the funeral. 

Eddie Albert gives everyone the news Hope's will decrees the lead slaves (though four with speaking parts) have been freed, but Jean reacts angrily since it's technically "illegal in the state of Georgia" and they "can't use the papers unless we leave the state."  "You may not want them now, but someday they may be very valuable to you," Eddie cautions.  He must know the Civil War is fast approaching. 

Looking even more tarted up, Meredith pays a visit to Beulah Land.  "Actors don't usually come home unless they're hungry," Don Johnson's smart-ass mother wryly adds.  This is going to be uncomfortable for Paul Rudd!  Meredith is pregnant, allowing Lesley to think the baby belongs to her actor husband, who abandoned her long before Paul arrived in her life and knocked her up.  "It's so great to be home," Meredith keeps cooing, though Beulah Land has never been her home.  Details, details.  Oh, and she flirts shamelessly with her old flame Don. 

Meredith turns out to be a first class bitch.  "Of course it's yours!" she yells at Paul when he asks if it's his baby.  And what does she want?  "To be treated as a first class lady...after all, it's me who is giving you a child," a nasty swipe at her sister, who has yet to become a mother.  After he leaves Meredith, who is actually cackling, he gets drunk and ends up riding past Jenny's house, where she's lonely, though okay with that since "the more he [Paul Shenar] beats on them [slave women], the less he beats on me."  He declines her offer of sex (for now) and stumbles home drunk where he insults Dorian.  Lesley tells him he can't keep getting drunk because "Beulah Land needs you."  "You're Beulah Land," he slurs and crumples to the floor.  More Melanie than Scarlett, she cradles him with only sweetness in her demeanor. 

Dorian fixes a parlor table with a metal piece and when they look under the table to wonder at it, their hands touch.  Just as they are realizing the attraction we've long seen, Clarice sees it too and calls everyone out to see one of the slaves breastfeeding absentee Meredith's baby with her own, "just like I done" with Paul Rudd and Dorian.  Dorian leaves Beulah Land because of his attraction.  Paul Shenar wants to go after Dorian because he stole a horse, but Eddie Albert arrives just in time to say he gave him the horse, defended by Lesley, who said as uncle to her husband, he had every right to do so.  To Dorian's parents, she says, "be proud.  He must have had a good reason or he never would have left us.  He's a good man!" without a trace of irony or self-awareness.  More "God bless yous" are exchanged than fist bumps after dessert at Hooters. 

In the middle of the night, Lesley catches Meredith fleeing, suitcases in hand, to start a life with Don Johnson.  They argue and Lesley asks how she can leave the child, which she admits is Paul's.  "I give her to you," Meredith coldly announces and Lesley demands she leave.  She runs into the bedroom and starts beating her husband for his women.  He weakly apologizes, but she and the music are way too angry!  The only thing that calms her down is the baby, which she can now raise as her own.  "You're gonna have a mama now, a real mama," she tells the baby as the score changes to triumphant and determined.  That's as good a place as any to end the first installment.

We pick up the story in 1838.  Paul Shenar and his wife Jenny now own land and are two years gone from Beulah Land.  Paul is thrilled because the family he so detested has fallen on hard times and needs money.  "I am gonna be the master of Beulah Land before this is over," Paul declares to his wife.  Paul Shenar wants to buy five slaves to help with the cash flow, but Lesley would never sell slaves because she doesn't see them like that.  "Slaves don't care who owns them," Paul Shenar tells her.  She's indignant, refusing to sell slaves to a man she knows will beat them.  "We will not sell, but if we are ever forced to sell, we will not sell to you," she vows. 

Cue the warehouse fire.  Yes, that's where all the cotton is stored, so this will bankrupt them for sure.  There's always a warehouse fire in these stories.  Lesley knows Paul Shenar did it, but "we can never prove it."  Meanwhile, manning the water brigade, Eddie Albert has a stroke (don't worry, he'll live to mug another day).  Paul Shenar returns with an offer to buy Beulah Land, but Lesley once again refuses, steely as ever when it comes to this slimeball, who gets in a dig as he leaves that "I thought [Paul Rudd] was the master of Beulah Land."  He tells Lesley, "we have to swallow our pride," accepting responsibility for the "change in our fortunes," but Lesley is adamant they not sell to the former overseer.  "We're gonna pray for a miracle and we're gonna find a way!" Lesley rages, just as Aunt Martha Scott arrives for her annual visit.  Deux ex machina-in-petticoats, she gives them a check to cover all the money owed on Beulah Land.  "I hope it helps," she says sweetly.

Also back at Beulah Land is an obviously successful Dorian, who of course sports a mustache as proof of his success.  His parents are overjoyed, though dad takes his hammy time getting there.  Paul and Lesley are happy too, though Dorian tells them he's learned, "being a colored man, saying you're free and being free are two different things."  They ignore that comment.  Paul invites Dorian to be the overseer, the first black man ever, so they will call him "foreman."  With everything but the bugles, the three decide to "get Beulah Land back on its feet!"

1846 sweeps in with the speed of a title card.  Dorian's father has died, though there is only a ramshackle headstone to note it, where Dorian finds her, rather than at her big fancy party.  A portrait painter, Michael Sarrazin, has come to Beulah Land.  He first painted Madeleine and Jean, looking like perfectly miserable lesbians in the picture, which means they must be quite happy together.  Michael is a smooth one.  Unable to get Lesley to sit still long enough to be painted, he tells her "the challenge will be not only to portray you, but also your devotion to the land."  Oh, for crying out loud!  Naturally, there is an attraction between them. 

Once she finally does sit, Lesley and Michael discuss abolition, morality, the history of slavery, etc., all the boring stuff that needs to be said to make this educational as well as entertaining.  Michael keeps saying the settings and dresses Lesley wears are all wrong so he can stretch out their time together and discuss politics.  Lesley fills the little scenes with terrific acting, but Michael is as wooden as a stick of furniture, so it's easy to tune out.  Finally, Michael kisses Lesley and she him (seen by a slave in the bushes).  The finished portrait shocks old ladies and causes Lesley to give her patented laugh when it's suggested perhaps Michael might fancy her.  On the night before he leaves, he finally confesses his love for her, speaking of her in the third person, as someone who "is already married to a great plantation, to a way of life."  She admits, in the third person, that she feels the same way. 

The slave who saw Lesley and Michael kissing (who is Paul Shenar's son, by the way), follows her into the woods.  When she doesn't return home, the whole plantation goes looking for her.  Loyal slave Franklyn Seale finds her, her clothes torn, having been raped.  Franklyn, who has adored Lesley his whole life, shoots the rapist point blank.  Lesley wants to make sure Franklyn is safe, so Dorian and Eddie prepare to send him off with a gift of money and a plan for safety.  Just as it's all happening, Paul Shenar comes galloping up to the house.  He demands Franklyn for a beating, but Dorian refuses.  Paul tries to whip him, but Dorian catches the whip.  "You're life ain't worth a torn hamstring off this plantation," Paul snarls.  Huh?  Is that something that would have really been said in the antebellum South, or did the writer just come from the gym?  With every appearance, Paul becomes more a villain, which means his downfall will be extra fun (though we have a looooooong way to go before then). 

Welcome in 1853.  Meredith's daughter has grown up to become brazen flirt Laurie Prange, lusting after young lawyer Jonathan Frakes, Don Johnson's nephew.  Lesley has to tell Don's mother Allyn Ann McLerie that Don has been killed.  "He was not nice...been lost to us all these years," she says rather distantly about her son.  The story is that Don had "gold madness," played cards for the gold, was accused of cheating and was shot. 

The news of Don's death has Paul Rudd rushing to the bottom of a bottle and, as always when he's drunk, he comes upon Jenny, also drunk and looking haggard (given bad make-up, fake teeth, etc.--this is high budget!).  "Bring me a bottle every now and then, won't you love?  For auld lange syne," Jenny requests. 

Bad penny Meredith shows up with more tall tales, though they make Lesley laugh.  "Three times a wife and never having been married at all?" Lesley asks, only half scandalized.  Only after a few glasses of wine, does Meredith ask about her daughter, whom she hasn't seen in 17 years.  Things get heated when Meredith wants to reclaim her daughter, now that all the hard work has been done, but Lesley hisses, "she is my child...she considers me to be her real mother!"  "You are welcome to stay here on one condition, you do not shock [Laurie] with any great revelations of the past," Mistress Lesley decrees.  As ludicrous as Meredith is, once again, it's Lesley who manages to ground both her bad acting and the inane dialogue with her surefooted work. 

Meredith can't wait to claim her daughter, but Laurie, who gives a performance that suggests serious brain damage, knows the truth, but considers Lesley her mother.  Apparently Madeleine long ago spilled the beans (she hasn't been seen in hours, remember Madeleine?).  "You and Mama are the same blood, but you couldn't accommodate me and she could," is how Laurie has chosen to deal with the truth.  This leaves Meredith nostrils flaring, still a decade and change away from Betty Broderick. 

It's 1860 and war is on everyone's mind.  Young Grand Bush tells Dorian he's excited for the Union Army to free the slaves, but Dorian isn't convinced freedom will ever really make a difference.  Just in case there is a war, Paul Rudd has enlisted, but the army told him to stay home; he's too old.  "If there's a way, it will be a short one," he notes, wrong as always.  Madeleine (seen for a flash) and Jean are teaching all of the plantation kids to march and Eddie Albert is STILL kicking, able to sit outside in a wheelchair.  It's to him Lesley delivers the news that Michael Sarrazin is back in the South.  "Shouldn't I feel guilty?" Lesley asks him.  Not at all, Eddie says, because Paul steps out on her every chance he gets.  Eddie actively pushes Lesley into meeting the man she obviously loves, tell her, and I'm sure this will gross you out as much as it did me, that even he himself has "tasted the sweet peach of sex" with women other than his wife.  In fact, cheating saved his marriage!  It's the Southern way.  "Justifiable skulduggery," he calls it, laughing.

So, Lesley goes to Atlanta to rekindle the sparks with Michael.  Both of them sport full 80s make-up, despite the 1860s fashions.  Without a work spoken, they fall into an embrace and kiss passionately.  And more, apparently, since we next see them in bed naked.  Then comes the expected montage of "things lovers do," include wine, room service and gazebos.  The montage is more welcome than Michael's yawningly bad acting.  "There's a war coming," he reads from the page.  "And you're a Yankee.  How could this have happened to us?" she replies (does she want the biological or geographical answer). 

"Do you realize you and I are recognizing the end of a way of life?" Paul asks Dorian?  "I reckon so.  Is that bad or good?" Dorian replies.

While the rest of the cast is rolling bandages, Dorian comes in with the news that war has been declared.  Some are worried, some are excited.  Paul Shenar, whose mutton chop whiskers are now gray, pays a visit to Paul Rudd.  He's "come to finish it."  Paul Shenar acknowledges his bastard sons, though he does it with a nefarious glee and with epithets.  Oh, and also, Lesley and Michael were seen having sex.  Paul Rudd whips out a pistol, shoots Paul Shenar and then himself.  Well, it does leave Lesley a free widow, I suppose, the most gracious act he's committed for her. 

We skip most of the war, heading right to 1864.  That's mighty peculiar for a miniseries, or would be, as they grew more and more expansive.  We haven't seen so much as a stock footage battle scene to concentrate solely on the story.  Allyn Ann gives us the speech of "what happened to our people?" that we fully expected someone to give.  She wonders if perhaps Meredith didn't have the right idea, escaping the South.  Not so, Lesley remarks, because just that day she's had word that Meredith was booed off the stage in Philadelphia, accused of being a Southern spy and is on her way back.  "Heaven help the Confederacy," Ally Ann quips. 

The citizens of Atlanta are fleeing since Sherman's army is only five miles away.  I suppose this is our big set piece, our connection to the war that we've so far been missing.  In the confusion, we spot Meredith, entering the city rather than leaving.  She even gets to play witness to a massive array of bodies laid out, just like in "Gone With the Wind."  Heaven forbid we miss that yet again in American film.  She witnesses the worst of the war horrors.  She's the wrong character to be going through this, but she is roped accidentally into nursing during an amputation.  Actually, she takes to it and soon finds wounded Jonathan Frakes, apparently blind.  He tells her Eddie and Martha are dead, but as far as he knows, everyone else is fine.  The doctor tells Meredith that Jonathan will never regain his sight, a dire situation because the Yankees are about to cut off Atlanta and any chance they have of mending the wounded.  Meredith decides she and Jonathan have to get home somehow. 

Meanwhile, Laurie ss suffering from fever, wondering why Jonathan hasn't written in so long.  She believes she hears a carriage and gets out of bed, with Allyn Ann fighting to keep her in it.  They both go tumbling over the railing to their deaths two stories below, the swiftest character deaths in the movie.  Meredith and Jonathan walk with the rest of the citizens of Atlanta, past burning buildings they don't even notice anymore.  They narrowly avoid being taken by Union soldiers.  "We're goin' home, nothing's gonna stop us," Meredith promises him.  In a moment made for drama, Meredith pretends to be pregnant so a passing carriage will take her and Jonathan.  It's a bit much.  However, they do arrive at Beulah Land, spotting hunched-over Clarice (how the hell old is she by now?).  Part 2 ends with this happy family reunion. 

Dorian is to be married, but promises he'll stay at Beulah Land and Clarice, still alive, gets her scenery-chewing moment when Lesley comes to visit the ancient woman and bring her squirrel soup, the best that she can do under the trying circumstances.  When the Union soldiers show up at Beulah Land, they are commanded by none other than Michael Sarrazin, who is as deadpan and virtually dead as ever.  Lesley is furious, but Michael says he's trying to protect her "from worse."  The soldiers pick Beulah Land pretty much to the bone, though Michael promised they would leave enough for Lesley and company.  Dorian takes all the valuables from Beulah Land to safety, including the portrait of Lesley that Michael had done.  Why would anyone want to steal that? 

A scary band of Union soldiers passes by Beulah Land, but does stop at Jonathan's plantation.  They accuse the family members of treason because of an incident in town where Ilene had provoked their ire.  They kill the remaining horse there and tie up Jonathan's son and father, but not him because he's blind.  Jonathan tries to swing at a soldier, but misses and is shot.  From Beulah Land, everyone can see the smoke that says the other plantation is no more.  The soldiers circle back to Beulah Land and accuse Lesley of treason, saying that the whole family is a "secret rebel force just waiting to knock off a Yankee."  The soldiers destroy everything they can find, a real old fashioned raping and pillaging expedition.  The leader even rapes a pregnant woman!  This is actually a very terrifying sequence, unabashedly violent without an attempt to make the Yankees at all sympathetic.  They kill Clarice and then burn the big house.  Lesley does her best to attack, but the leader takes her wedding ring (tossing aside the horseshoe ring Dorian gave her when he was a child for her to find the next morning in the grass) and the soldiers finally depart. 

Having paid the Union army to do it, one of Paul Shenar's sons is delighted to hear Beulah Land has been sacked.  Dorian pledges to kill those responsible and Jonathan's young son wants to go with him.  Lesley refuses, but he goes anyway.  Since the soldiers killed his father and grandfather, he says, "I am a man!"  Dorian has no choice but to take him since the kid refuses to return home.  It's the bad Yankee soldier that finds Dorian first, so Dorian puts on an act and pretends absolute stupidity.  It works.  The soldier trusts him and is even willing to sleep with Dorian there.  The kid shows up and Dorian is able to grab the soldier's gun.  The soldier claims everything was all "a misunderstanding," ransacking his father's grave, killing his mother, raping his wife, burning his house, etc.  Ultimately, of course, Dorian and the kid have to kill the soldier, which is no loss to humanity. 

Dorian and the kid return to Beulah Land with all of the soldier's plunder, some horses and even Lesley's wedding ring.  Ilene, whose firebrand talk caused all the trouble and when she shows up at Beulah Land, Lesley attacks her, blaming and slapping her.  "I have not forgiven you and I never will," Lesley howls.  Michael shows up, alone, with the news that Lee has surrendered and the war is over.  He offers any help, but Lesley refuses his offer, saying "Beulah Land was built without any help from enemies and it will be so again." 

Another seven years fly by, and now Lesley's grandson is fully grown (and blond, where he was completely dark-haired as a child).  He's at the dock with his grandmother, awaiting the return of Franklyn, now that's it's safe for him to return.  Grandson Patrick Harrison is goaded into hitting a man in a bar after a series of insults, all with the sheriff watching.  Franklyn's half brother Peter De Anda, who had paid the Union army to destroy Beulah Land, proof of the few blacks who have been able to make money since the war, though dependent on white backing.  Franklyn is happy to see Beulah Land again, now rebuilt to look just like it did before (literally). 

Outside church, a wagon rumbles into view with Dorian's dead body in it.  Lesley is so hysterical, they have to give her chloroform.  At the funeral, Lesley takes Dorian's young son aside and delivers a teary speech, one of many she's had to give, and all convincingly. 

The young generation is pretty damn uninteresting.  Peter's son sees him going into the shack of a field worker and when he tells his mother, she grabs and ax kills him and the woman.  Patrick has land of his own and is sweet on a girl whose parents do not approve of him.  She brings the news of the murder to Patrick, who says, "we have no enemies living next to us" since Peter's son is friendly to the whole family.  He proposes, she accepts.  Actually, he asks her if she'll "live there," but the rest is implied. 

Franklyn has opened a school, and there is trouble brewing from whites who aren't happy about it.  Meredith brings that happy news, as well as the fact that Michael has painted her portrait.  Lesley pretends not to be interested, but Meredith says he's already on his way to do portraits of her and the other school board of trustees.  Meredith wants Lesley to forget the past.  "Does Beulah Land kiss you goodnight?" she roars at her sister, but white brigands, sheriff in tow, start firing shots at the approaching students.  At that moment, Michael shows up with "the new federal Marshall," as well as a camera.  The sheriff and his men lose this battle and everyone is allowed into school, whites and blacks together.  This act of courage and fairness reminds Lesley that she loves him.  She asks him to stay.  "Beulah Land needs you.  I need you," she says.  Thankfully, she remembered herself because if I had to hear Beulah Land, Beulah Land, Beulah Land one more time, I'm not sure my television would have survived the beating. 

There's nothing terribly wrong with "Beulah Land," but there's also nothing overwhelmingly right either.  A combination of two books, it has way too many characters and plot lines for a small-ish miniseries.  Some industrious chopping by the writers before it started filming would have helped.  In the end, it's the story of a brave woman facing adversity, as are so many stories like this, and thus we're lucky to have Lesley Ann Warren taking charge because she does it all beautifully.