Taken Away (8 p.m., Ch. 5) is one of those frequently overwrought tear-jerkers that takes you by the heart and tugs with regularity. But in this case, the subject matter is timely enough - and well-enough presented - that it overcomes the trappings of format.
Bertinelli stars as Stephanie Monroe, a divorced mom living with her 8-year-old daughter, Abby (Juliet Sorcey), in the poverty-stricken squalor of a tattered Philadelphia apartment. Stephanie is an attractive young woman who gave birth at 16, and she's proud, if penniless. She's not on welfare, and in fact she won't accept charity of any kind. She's working hard as a waitress to put herself through night computer school, and she doesn't do drugs.Furthermore, mother and daughter have an unusually loving and caring relationship. Yet one night, Stephanie makes the mistake of leaving Abby by herself while she's off taking an important test in school. Abby has an accident, falling from a counter in the kitchen and suffering various bumps and bruises. She calls 911 - like mommy had instructed - and the cops take Stephanie into custody, suspecting child abuse and neglect.
The rest of the telefilm pits Stephanie against a legal system geared to protect children from harm. Except in this case, the charges of abuse against mother are dubious and circumstantial, and Abby is unjustly kept away from her mother as social workers investigate.
Where the film soars is in its deadeye depiction of a child protection bureaucracy run amok. So strong is the odor of paranoia in the air that parents need be concerned if their child contracts a few misplaced scrapes, lest they be suspected of abuse.
Of course, the other side of this coin is that films such as "Taken Away" that are so sympathetic to a wrongly accused mother can leave the impression that most charges of child abuse are the product of false accusations and misunderstanding. That just isn't true.
Also, portions of "Taken Away" leave too many questions. Why, for instance, didn't Stephanie insist that the adamant social worker talk to Abby?
Saving the film are some convincing performances by Bertinelli in the lead and by Sorcey as her tortured daughter. Her anguish and confusion at being pulled from her mother are all too real.
"Taken Away" concludes with a predictably happy ending that comes stocked with plenty of syrup. That alone could quash a film's credibility. But it doesn't because "Taken Away," while undeniably melodramatic, is about as good as this genre gets.
- TELLY SAVALAS is back Saturday night as Theo Kojak in Kojak (8 p.m., Ch. 4), reprising the role of the bald-headed chief of detectives for the New York City Police Department that he made famous on CBS for five seasons in the 1970s (1973-78).
The difference is that Kojak is no longer a detective. Now he's an inspector. And he appears to have given up lollipops for good. Instead, he sucks on his tongue and grimaces a lot. A guy with an oral fixation's gotta do something, after all.
Based on Saturday's opener, "Kojak" worked far better as an hour than it does here in a two-hour format - unless you enjoy long, empty camera sweeps of the New York skyline and dull conversations that go nowhere.
It naturally doesn't help that the new "Kojak" - presented as part of ABC's four-pronged "Saturday Mystery Movie" - opens with a yawner of a story.
A young girl who speaks only Greek has been taken from her parents while on vacation and dumped on the streets of New York, where she happens upon the only bald-headed, Greek-speaking cop in all of Manhattan. That's right, you guessed it: Kojak.
This smells rather fishy to a new detective on the force named Blake (Andre Braugher). He suspects that Kojak is involved in it, so he peers into Kojak's personnel file and tails him in disguise. Of course, it turns out that Kojak isn't dirty, after all. But after Blake wipes the egg from his face he sees that he wasn't all that far off: Kojak was, indeed, set up to befriend the girl.
Savalas plays Kojak with his typical engaging flair, and Braugher is quite good as the overzealous cop whom Kojak inevitably takes under his wing.
But this story is simply the pits. And it's too bad, because we need more TV heroes like Savalas - crime fighters who are neither sexy nor hip.
Nice to have you back, Theo. Now get some writers.