Directed by the nephew of Herman J. Mankiewicz, writer of Citizen Kane.  Written by the first cousin of the Director.  Starring Mariel Hemingway, grand-daughter of Ernest Hemingway.

It would be easy to blame the nepotism of Hollywood, but these people have some decent credits among them.  Here, though, they came together to produce a pretty disappointing episode.

It’s a given that any show which involves fantasy or the supernatural will eventually have a love potion episode.  Maybe two.  I have no beef with revisiting the classic tropes, but you still have to put some effort into it.

The direction is sluggish — once again we have a guy at the helm who doesn’t seem to understand what the show is supposed to be.  At 28 minutes, it is one of the longer episodes and for no good reason.  Just trimming 5 minutes out might have helped.

Sadly, Mariel Hemingway is not much of an actress.  The awkwardness she brought to her role in Star 80 seemed like a great performance, but in retrospect, it might not have been acting.  On the plus side, she looks great in several lingerie scenes, and has insanely nice long legs.

Andrew McCarthy is a screen-writer who becomes infatuated with his actress neighbor. There is a fairly pointless sub-plot with a chain-smoking, mostly unseen apartment manager.  He gets the potion into McCarthy’s hands, but the part seems set up for far more.  General Burkhalter’s sister shows up, which is always nice but also mostly pointless. Yada yada love potion yada yada irony.

There are a couple of fun points, but it kind of loses me when McCarthy slugs Mariel Hemingway.  Overall not worth any more words.

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