Kay McFadden / Times staff columnist
'Reagans' biopic flap sets wrong TV standard

	JAN THIJS / CBS CBS pulled its miniseries "The Reagans," starring James Brolin, above.
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He gazes heavenward, then lifts his hands, prophetlike, and says, "Thy will be done."

No viewer hearing this statement should think it's a literal transcription. Screenwriters were not hiding behind a couch. The Smart family, whose accounts form the core of Sunday's 9 p.m. film, were asleep upstairs.

Yet by this week's newly minted standards for TV movies based on real life, "Thy will be done" flunks as surely as when an allegedly homophobic Ronald Reagan (James Brolin) stated, "They that live in sin shall die in sin" in an earlier version of CBS' "The Reagans."

Indeed, "The Elizabeth Smart Story" is full of speculative scenes and peculiar omissions. It and NBC's "Saving Jessica Lynch," another ripped-from-the-headlines film airing Sunday at 9, represent a very particular point of view.

So does "The Reagans" — not that viewers will be able to judge for themselves. Amid an atmosphere riddled with threats, the marketplace of ideas has succumbed to the marketplace of money.

PAUL DRINKWATER / NBC Laura Regan, on stretcher, stars as Pfc. Jessica Lynch in the NBC movie "Saving Jessica Lynch." It airs at 9 p.m. Sunday.

On Tuesday, CBS announced it would yank "The Reagans." The four-hour miniseries, which was to have highlighted the network's November sweeps schedule, instead will air next year on sister cable channel Showtime, also owned by Viacom.

CBS' decision came after a siege by conservatives and Reagan fans. The great Cold War liberator was championed by those who want a Berlin Wall of the mind erected between the media's free expression and the audience's right to choose.

Their tactics were effective. Protesters vowed to boycott advertisers such as General Motors, which banks on end-of-year car sales, and producing studio Hallmark, whose sentimental classics draw its biggest ratings between November and Christmas.

Electronically generated form letters flooded CBS, local CBS affiliates and newspapers. The Republican National Committee also got into the act, demanding "The Reagans" periodically carry a bottom-of-the-screen reminder that it was fictional.

The main objection to the movie — based not on the final cut, but on a short promotional trailer and earlier scripts — was that the former president and his administration were depicted unfairly.

Leaked teleplay excerpts found at various Web sites imply Reagan was heartless as well as dilatory in response to the AIDS epidemic, and that his presidency may have been diminished in later years by the onset of Alzheimer's disease.

The trailer, sent to critics, portrays Nancy Reagan (Judy Davis) as the power behind the throne and Reagan himself as a likeable and somewhat detached man whose leadership was influenced by personal impulse and his wife's preferences.

Such elements, along with the casting of self-stated liberals Brolin and Davis, stoked fury.

Bias accusations were hurled at CBS and producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, whose previous work includes the TV biopics "Life with Judy: Me and My Shadows" and "Martin and Lewis," plus Oscar-winner "Chicago."

For CBS, it became a nightmare on several fronts.

The network long has been a target of conservatives because of a perceived leftward slant in the news division. At the same time, CBS' mature viewer base veers toward more traditional values. Older demographics also doom the network to ads for humdrum pharmaceuticals and household goods instead of high-end cars and blockbuster films.

USA Today reported Monday that over the past two weeks, CBS oversaw at least 18 changes to "The Reagans" script. The line "They that live in sin shall die in sin" was excised. So were several unflattering scenes with Nancy Reagan.

Objectors were unappeased. They wanted the film killed.

And so, faced with the prospect of scaring away top-drawer advertisers, possibly alienating its older audience core and losing the support of some Capitol Hill politicians, CBS caved.

The network tried to cover itself, as did CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves. In a speech at Yale University on Wednesday, he said, "Upon seeing the finished product, I felt the movie was quite biased against the Reagans. And it wasn't the movie I promised the public."

One has to wonder where Moonves was while all those recent script changes and cuts were going on. His distancing act is akin to the White House blaming intelligence agencies for faulty information on Iraq. Who's in charge here?

Conservatives, meanwhile, scored a major victory in stopping the nation's viewers from reaching their own conclusions about the worth or worthlessness of "The Reagans."

Thanks, guys. But given your objective — just the plain truth — it's kind of curious the crusade didn't encompass other TV movies like "Saving Jessica Lynch" or "The Elizabeth Smart Story."

"The Elizabeth Smart Story" is a plodding woman-in-peril exercise that doesn't match the skill or suspense of an average Lifetime flick. Worse, the film is hampered by a disingenuousness that hog-ties the plot.

Elizabeth Smart's sexual abuse during her long captivity is not mentioned during the film. Without being lurid, surely the script could have found ways to demonstrate this considerable factor in her intimidation and brainwashing.

Bizarrely absent is any mention of the Mormon religion. Surely a faith whose past practices included multiple wives was a factor in the police investigation and a legitimate source of concern in the Salt Lake City community. Instead, it's covered up.

While "The Elizabeth Smart Story" is a muddle swayed by the input from one family, "Saving Jessica Lynch" suffers from a worse fate — irrelevancy.

Too bad, because it's a better-made movie as well as near-monument to painstaking research. NBC and writer John Fasano rewrote constantly as new information was revealed and the official angle shifted from a heroic G.I. Jane to a brave Iraqi rescuer.

Unfortunately, this accuracy reduces Pfc. Lynch's role to passive spectator.

She wasn't wounded fighting; her legs were broken when her truck crashed. NBC should have focused its flashbacks on Mohammed al-Rehaief and his family, not on the Lynches.

The scenes where Lynch and her fellow supply convoy soldiers go astray and then are ambushed have a terrifying vividness. So does the carefully restrained violence.

But it's all for naught. "Saving Private Lynch" fails because it was predicated on a premise that no longer exists: being the patriotic highlight of a short, successful war.

Instead, the movie has been overtaken by far grimmer recent events, and we have more heroes every day.

That's a truth worth investigating.

On "60 Minutes" on Sunday, Mike Wallace interviews Pfc. Patrick Miller, who was awarded a Silver Star for actions that saved the life of Pfc. Jessica Lynch and several others; 7 p.m. on KIRO-TV.

Kay McFadden: 206-382-8888 or kmcfadden@seattletimes.com

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