TV REVIEW : Little Ripple Effect From ‘Writing in Water’

“Writing in Water,” airing tonight at 11 on Channel 28, is an odd, quirky show that is definitely not your typical TV documentary. Actually, calling “Writing in Water” a documentary is misleading-- docudrama is closer, but its 30 minutes are hard to categorize.

“Writing” is the tale of a rural Kentucky family whose lives are disrupted by a visit from an old friend of the father. In 1977, Dick asked to stay with Jimmy Glasscock and his family and use their garage while he repaired an old boat he had just bought.

Glasscock agreed, Dick moved in, Dick started acting very peculiar--drinking mouthwash from beer bottles, constantly changing his clothes, talking about the “mafia” looking for him. Dick got arrested (for shooting his guns while acting strangely), Dick left.

Dick is also never seen, except for a brief glimpse of him in a photograph with his boat late in the show. “Writing” consists of a series of interviews with family members and a few neighbors to recount this saga.

It’s unclear just what producer-writer-director Stephen Rozelle was trying to do. “Writing” seems to attempt to show how the Glasscock family bonded as they coped with their difficult visitor. Unfortunately, watching “Writing” is like listening to a group of strangers recount a story of an event that has far more interest for them than for you.

As one of the neighbors says in describing Dick, it was hard “to pinpoint but something was wrong.” The same could be said of “Writing in Water.”