Melissa Gilbert is Terry Granger, the 19 year old law student daughter of 62 year old New York retired judge Evan (George C Scott) and his 38 year old wife former concert pianist Marisa (Jacqueline Bisset). Terry finds she is pregnant to her ex-boyfriend medical student Scott (Steven Flynn) and must face her father's objections to her having an abortion. The issue becomes complicated when Marisa too becomes pregnant.
Gilbert wears her wavy brown hair in a short triangle style and gives spunk to Terry as a rebellious teen. We see Terry swimming laps in a one-piece suit, wearing an American Rock Café waitress uniform, and dancing in a low-backed short slinky shiny black dress wearing glitter eye make-up. Although she can't match Scott's intensity, Gilbert tries hard, smiling at one of his jokes, and using an effective pause before answering a question. She is vulnerable when telling Scott about the pregnancy, and touching when crying with Marisa, though later she squeezes her eyes to force the tears.
The teleplay by Judith Parker includes pro-choice and the right-to-lifer's via picketing outside a clinic, and the treatment is free of cliché. Director David Lowell Rich uses an odd low angle for Terry's dancing, and presents Bisset unflatteringly. She doesn't embarrass herself opposite Scott, who is gruff and funny, but she does have a stream-of-consciousness monologue in a church that she strains to perform.
Gilbert wears her wavy brown hair in a short triangle style and gives spunk to Terry as a rebellious teen. We see Terry swimming laps in a one-piece suit, wearing an American Rock Café waitress uniform, and dancing in a low-backed short slinky shiny black dress wearing glitter eye make-up. Although she can't match Scott's intensity, Gilbert tries hard, smiling at one of his jokes, and using an effective pause before answering a question. She is vulnerable when telling Scott about the pregnancy, and touching when crying with Marisa, though later she squeezes her eyes to force the tears.
The teleplay by Judith Parker includes pro-choice and the right-to-lifer's via picketing outside a clinic, and the treatment is free of cliché. Director David Lowell Rich uses an odd low angle for Terry's dancing, and presents Bisset unflatteringly. She doesn't embarrass herself opposite Scott, who is gruff and funny, but she does have a stream-of-consciousness monologue in a church that she strains to perform.