May 17, 1996

(CBS) 9 tonight

Most folks would double think about living in a house called Amityville or hanging around a street named Elm. Or moving to Stepford, Conn. Obviously Jodi (Donna Mills) and Mick Davison (Michael Ontkean) don't go to movies much or watch TV -- and now find themselves trapped in the horror of The Stepford Husbands.

For CBS and Edgar J. Scherick Associates, two writers, Ken and Jim Wheat, and director Fred Walton do a reverse run at the feature-film plot of the 1975 "Stepford Wives" (which was sequeled twice on TV). The Davisons aren't doing well in New York City, particularly constipated-novelist Mick, so they take advice from old Jodi pal Caroline (Cindy Williams) and move to idyllic Stepford.

Mick can't take the quiet; the utter niceness of the husbands gives him the willies. One night he's slipped a crazy drug and is carted off to the Stepford Institute for Human Behavior, funded for the betterment of husbands of the world by wealthy old Mariam Benton (Louise Fletcher). Will she nail Mick? Will Jodi save him?

Problem is, it's hard to care since this is about as shabbily done as you can get with a good-and-scary, tried-and-true idea. Flat and dull, without passion, a sort of Stepford script.

Copyright May 1996 The Hollywood Reporter. IMDB.

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