TV Reviews : ABC’s ‘False Arrest’ Manages to Remain Arresting

The perennial women-behind-bars genre gets yet another new entry with the miniseries “False Arrest,” in which poor Donna Mills does the time despite not having done the crime. Based on a true story, it’s an involving, lurid enough potboiler that those who watched the first part Sunday night will almost inevitably return for the second and concluding two hours tonight (ABC at 9 on Channels 7,3,10 and 42), although the finale is a bit of a fizzle.

Mills plays Joyce Lukezic, your basic upper-crust Phoenix community pillar who found herself framed for setting up a murder when her husband’s business associate and a relative were shot to death, supposedly in order for her inherit the company. She’s a victim of both sleazy culprit Arnie Merrill (Lewis VanBergen), who sets her up to cut a deal for himself with prosecutors, and overzealous police detective Dan Ryan (Steven Bauer), who manipulates the evidence to fix a quick conviction.

Bafflingly, no one even thinks of implicating Mills’ husband, Ron, a much more obviously shady character who only gets creepier as the story progresses. Part of the reason the story’s second part suffers is that Ron disappears midway through, and he’s the most compelling villain present. In a great piece of casting, if perhaps not quite a great performance, Robert Wagner plays hubby as an alcoholic, bolo tie-wearing, beer-gutted, nouveau-rich lout who--behind his barely supportive exterior--seems more bored than threatened by what’s happening to his wife.

The prison sequences in “False Arrest”--including the requisite inmate scuffles and lesbian subplots--are considerably less intriguing than the true-life thriller plot mechanisms and legal wrangling as Mills and her new, improved lawyer (winningly played as the attorney of everyone’s dreams by James Handy) make their bid for a new trial. It’s closer to camp convention than the reality it’s based on, but--false-feeling or not--somehow manages to be arresting.