NBC's four-hour miniseries "Degree of Guilt" is about two hours too long, even if it does more or less keep you watching.
The chief problem with "Degree of Guilt" is that it's two completely different films mashed into one. That makes sense, because the project is based on two different Richard North Patterson crime novels.The first is the tale of a TV journalist (convincingly played by "NYPD Blue's" Sharon Lawrence) who is charged with murdering a prominent novelist. She claims rape. The evidence indicates murder. The plot keeps you agreeably off-balance.
But then comes book two on the second night, in which a too-good-to-be-human hunk of a lawyer (David James Elliott of "JAG") is tried for murdering the estranged sleazeball husband of his girlfriend (Daphne Zuniga of "Melrose Place").
The second half of this mini is as dull and sluggish - and predictable - as the opening half is smart and compelling. The verdict: guilty of second-degree boredom.
Airs: 8 p.m. Sunday and Monday, NBC (Ch. 2 in Utah)
Grade: C+
National Geographic Explorer: Living Nightmares: The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out. But never do things slither and fly and suck and chomp with such creepy abandon as they do in "Living Nightmares," a Halloween-themed special that should be avoided by little kids.
This truly is the stuff nightmares are made of: vampire bats sucking blood from sleeping babies, centipedes crawling through bedrooms, poisonous snakes slithering into the house, maggots sliming into ear canals and sucking out a meal and hungry piranhas ripping baby reptiles and birds to shreds in minutes.
The camera work - much of it super slo-mo - is breathtakingly effective. Nobody does it like "National Geographic." There is one segment in which we follow the flight of a mosquito on its nightly rounds that's simply phenomenal.
The only negative comes from host Boyd Matson, who bridges segments with clunky diatribes. But otherwise, this is spooky, blood-curdling stuff, showing us that Mother Nature is more haunting than Freddy Krueger himself.
Airs: 8 p.m. Sunday, TBS
Grade: A