“I heard that if you don’t give him a name, he’ll turn the children into icicles.”

It has been a long time since I have seen a decent psychological thriller, and Altered Minds is a great film to bring me back to this type of film. To give readers a frame of reference, films like Identity or Session 9: they are most certainly part of the “psychological thriller” genre, but you are led to believe there are supernatural forces at work during the film. Then, just when you think the film will have a supernatural climax, you are offered a twist ending that is not supernatural and actually makes sense to the plot. I won’t say that Altered Minds is better than Session 9, but it is definitely on par with Identity in terms of how much I enjoyed myself while watching the film.

I previously reviewed Season 3 of Sisters in May of this year, so Sisters lovers, you can go back and review. In dealing with this season, I am going to focus on character, because as much as any show can, this show focuses on the differences between people who are very close with ties of family and love. Sisters is well known to be a women’s show, and I wouldn’t disagree, nor would I intimate that it is a bad thing to be labeled as such. So many shows have been focused on an assumed male dominance in society, but Sisters was a show that brought the power of women to the forefront. It was also one of the first shows to show a female audience had an important demographical significance. But I don’t want to make this an ideological dissertation. I am simply going to look at the purity and relevance of the show, even today. The show originally ran for six seasons from 1991 to 1996, but it still resonates as a special and unique show. It was far from perfect, but its positive qualities cannot be denied. It may have been little more than a nighttime soap opera with undertones of comic absurdity. It also was in the forefront of issues at the time including dealing with rape, AIDS, and parental rights.

The characters were the focus, and each character had a unique perspective. Alex (Swoozie Kurtz) is the eldest sister who is well off, self-centered, and superficial but constantly deals with adversity with unknown reserves of strength. Teddy (Sela Ward) is impulsive, free-spirited, and strong-willed. She often takes a combative and argumentative stance but is always there for anyone who needs her. Georgie (Patricia Kalember) is stable, centered, and family-oriented but has been given to bouts of severe depression. Frankie (Julianne Phillips) is a workaholic businesswoman and youngest sister who has hidden insecurities and is hypercritical of all her failures. The husbands were somewhat secondary figures, but Georgie’s husband, John (Garret M. Brown) was the most consistent presence over the life of the show. John was stable and reliable and loving, but his marriage did have ups and downs nonetheless. The second most consistent male presence on the show was Mitch (Ed Marinaro), who was originally married to Teddy and then switched over to Frankie. Mitch was best known for being a little pigheaded and emotionally stunted but ultimately striving to be the best person he could be.

Ed Asner's character Lou Grant started life on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. The sit-com lasted seven seasons, taking a large stash of Emmy awards during its run. It also competed with All In The Family as a heavy-hitter in spinoffs. Rhoda and Phyllis each had a respectable run also in the sit-com world. But the most amazing spinoff and the most successful wasn't another sit-com at all. It was an hour-long drama that took us inside the workings of a major L.A. newspaper, The Los Angeles Tribune. There Lou Grant, fired from his television station gig in Minneapolis, lands on the doorstep of his good friend Charlie Hume (Adams), who happens to be the paper's managing editor. The job's his, and the drama ran for five seasons.

Today it might be a little difficult to imagine how a show like this could work. Newspapers are struggling and delivering their news in ways that did not even exist in 1977. But there was no consumer internet and no cable news stations. Newspapers were actually the main source of daily news to most Americans. There were no bloggers, and everyone wasn't carrying around a telephone in their pockets to instantly report and video-record what was happening in the world. The nation was still recovering from the Nixon Watergate scandal that had been revealed by two newspaper reporters at The Washington Post. For a little while, newspaper reporters were kind of heroes of the age. Lou Grant manage to take advantage of all of this with the help of wonderful characters and some solid stories often ripped from the real headlines of the day.