Produced by Victoria Principal's production company, she is Patricia Sparks, the Mayor of Albuquerque. Believing Principal as a mayor is only the first of the plausibility hurdles this treatment requires, though she does look lovely and has enough skill to pull off a scene of angry hysteria at the news of the death of a friend. The idea of casting Elaine Stritch as her mother is one that doesn't work, since Stritch is a different kind of performer to Principal, and they don't look physically right together.
The teleplay by John Robert Bensink and Bill Svanoe includes a serial killer of women, blackmail, opposition to Principal from big business good ole boys, and her romance with the FBI agent (Ted Wass) in charge of the homicides. The opening scene where Principal nearly has casual sex with Wass exists so that she can be photographed in a compromising pose, though Wass is hardly the casual sex type, and the blackmail a means to stop Principal's objections to city land development. However since the businessman are presented as overweight snakes, there's no doubt about the result. At first, the serial killings also seem to be related to the blackmail, however the identity of the killer when revealed is arbitrary.
The killer is profiled on television with psychobabble, `a born killer, not wanted in the people equation he landed in', and the writers idea of wit is `I could kill a puppy for a cup of coffee right now'. They also use `cowboy jive' in `If you can't run with the big dogs, stay on the porch', in a community which is parts cowboy, latino and American Indian. The banter between Principal and Wass, where he is meant to charm her into bed, is unconvincing, which makes her sudden change of mind after an extended kiss, all the more inexplicable. And they have a later sex scene in the open, which one would think is foolhardly considering the previous trouble.
However Principal's secretary gets a laugh from reciting phone messages regarding the photograph, `Who's the guy? When can I see the mayor? How worried is she about this? And who's the guy?'.
Director Richard Colla does nothing to enliven the interminable proceedings, each plot strand is weighted indifferently, diffusing any tension, and he overuses the music score by Bob Alcivar.
The teleplay by John Robert Bensink and Bill Svanoe includes a serial killer of women, blackmail, opposition to Principal from big business good ole boys, and her romance with the FBI agent (Ted Wass) in charge of the homicides. The opening scene where Principal nearly has casual sex with Wass exists so that she can be photographed in a compromising pose, though Wass is hardly the casual sex type, and the blackmail a means to stop Principal's objections to city land development. However since the businessman are presented as overweight snakes, there's no doubt about the result. At first, the serial killings also seem to be related to the blackmail, however the identity of the killer when revealed is arbitrary.
The killer is profiled on television with psychobabble, `a born killer, not wanted in the people equation he landed in', and the writers idea of wit is `I could kill a puppy for a cup of coffee right now'. They also use `cowboy jive' in `If you can't run with the big dogs, stay on the porch', in a community which is parts cowboy, latino and American Indian. The banter between Principal and Wass, where he is meant to charm her into bed, is unconvincing, which makes her sudden change of mind after an extended kiss, all the more inexplicable. And they have a later sex scene in the open, which one would think is foolhardly considering the previous trouble.
However Principal's secretary gets a laugh from reciting phone messages regarding the photograph, `Who's the guy? When can I see the mayor? How worried is she about this? And who's the guy?'.
Director Richard Colla does nothing to enliven the interminable proceedings, each plot strand is weighted indifferently, diffusing any tension, and he overuses the music score by Bob Alcivar.