TV Reviews : Principal Purrs in ‘Seduction’ Stories

Omnibus, schnomnibus. Victoria Principal stars in a triple-header Sunday with the lead roles in all three parts of “Seduction: Three Tales From the Inner Sanctum” (at 9 p.m. on ABC, Channels 7, 3, 10 and 42), which ought to be a thespian’s dream, but it’s less a showcase for wildly varying acting styles than for wildly varying wigs. And the movie itself is the equivalent of a bad hair day.

Mainly, Principal purrs her way through these twist-capped tales of romance and suspense, which are supposedly based on the old “Inner Sanctum” radio series--albeit with all the lingerie that ‘50s radio drama fans only got to imagine. The stories manage to combine the kind of kinky double-crosses characteristic of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” with the gauzy photography and quasi-jazz music usually found in imported softcore cable skinflicks, without delivering on the ostensible pleasures of either.

John Terry also stars as Principal’s lover in each of the stories, and gets much more of a chameleonic workout than the workout woman. In the first, “Ecstasy,” he’s the husband of an apparently frigid wife who strikes up an affair with her hot-to-trot twin sister--but all is not as it seems. “Sacrifice,” the second and weakest tale, features Principal as the girlfriend of a tortured artist struggling to avoid reliving a crucial childhood trauma--which was not as it seemed. The last, “Temptation,” has Principal as a blond bombshell who carries on an affair under her hit-man husband’s nose--but, you guessed it, all is not as it seems.

The echoey intonations by Principal over the opening and closing credits (“Somewhere between passion and obsession . . . “ etc., per the old radio show’s intro) promise a campy approach, but a sense of knowing parody seems to have been as beyond the creators of “Seduction” as genuine drama.

Which doesn’t mean it’s unwatchable by any means. “See you . . . next time ,” Principal teasingly whispers as the sanctum door shuts at show’s end--and, indeed, this minor luridness may be just bad enough to “go to series.”