TV REVIEWS : ‘Not in My Family’ an Incest Expose

Domestic tragedies are the stuff that TV movies are made of--so much so that sometimes even a rerun of “F Troop” sounds more appealing than another drama about, say, child abuse.

Still, “Not in My Family,” ABC’s earnest incest expose (at 9 p.m. Sunday on Channels 7, 3, 10 and 42), offers viewers a strong incentive to tune in: Joanna Kerns’ intelligent, deeply affecting performance as Veronica, a seemingly happy wife and daughter whose new motherhood dredges up long-buried memories of sexual abuse by her father (George Grizzard).

The memories shatter Veronica’s well-ordered life and the stress threatens to destroy her marriage. Yet even though she knows that older sister Becky (Shelley Hack) was also abused, the distraught new mother is able to fully face what happened only when she suspects that Dad is victimizing her 5-year-old niece.

It’s no surprise that a child abuse hot-line number flashes on the screen after the show. Kerns makes her character’s descent into a personal hell, with its attendant confusion, anger and denial, chillingly real. And so do director Linda Otto and writers Michael Love, Martin Salinas and Joe Cacaci, up to a point.

Two-thirds of the way through, the film’s disturbing, taut believability collapses into a series of formulaic crises--the secret goes public when the little niece runs away; Dad has a heart attack--and authorities offer pedagogic dialogue.

Even when drama gives way to public-service spot, however, Kerns and the rest of the competent cast keep things watchable.