THE mini-series Woman On The Run: The Lawrencia Bembeneck Story (Pearl, 1.35am) has all the ingredients of what television people call a banker: murdered ex-wife, accused new wife, sex, dirty cops and Playboy bunnies. Personally I would have liked a few people with terminal diseases, but you can't have everything. Anyway, that comes in ER (Pearl, 8.30pm), more of which later.
The problem with Woman On The Run - apart from the long title - is that it had all these ingredients first time round and not much has changed. It was shown in Hong Kong late last year, when it was good, but probably not good enough to show a second time so soon. Nevertheless, Pearl has its budget constraints and we must accept it.
Despite all the potentially explosive elements, writer-director Sandor Stern has resisted the temptation to turn the series into a Judith Krantz-type potboiler, all pouting lovelies with big hair and men who ride horses. Instead he has created a sensitive production that proves enlightening about the inadequacies of the American judicial system.
Tatum O' Neal empathically portrays Ms Bembeneck, who made headlines in the US in December, 1992, when she was released after 10 years in prison for a murder she consistently and constantly claimed she did not commit. In fact her story attracted enormous media attention as early as 1981, when she was charged and found guilty. This four-hour drama - a telepic is the jargon of choice - was made with her assistance and makes a powerful case for a miscarriage of justice. ER makes a powerful case for nothing in particular - shorter hours for nurses or more doctors who look like Sherry Stringfield in your local hospital perhaps - but does so with a conviction that springs from its own irritating self-confidence. In this episode, Hit And Run, it is young neophyte student Noah Wyle's turn to perform the cock-up of the week. He tells the wrong people their son has died in a car accident.
DIRECTOR Robert Zemeckis' hugely successful Back To The Future series got back on track in Back To The Future III (Pearl, 9.30pm).
The first film set standards that the second failed to match, but in this one Zemeckis and much of the same cast breathe life back into the gasping Western genre, one which Hollywood later reincarnated completely with Dances With Wolves, Wyatt Earp, Tombstone and a handful of others, all memorable for their general mediocrity.
