TV REVIEW : Battered Woman Has Husband Killed in ‘Kitty’

What would TV do without real-life personal tragedies to dramatize? Tonight’s CBS movie, “The Conviction of Kitty Dodds” (9 p.m. on Channel 2 and 8), is yet another in that genre.

This time, it’s Veronica Hamel in the victim role, starring as Kitty Dodds, a battered woman serving a life sentence for having her abusive husband murdered. Kitty escapes, remarries, is discovered by authorities and returns to prison.

How Kitty begins confronting the reality of the abuse that led her to conspire in the death of her husband, how the justice system continues to abuse her and how the man in her life (Kevin Dobson) never stops loving her, is the rest of the story.

Hamel, Dobson and the supporting cast are just fine. Hamel’s fragile demeanor occasionally brings unintentional humor to her tough-talking prison scenes, but Hamel and Dobson share a refreshingly quiet on-screen rapport.

The problem is that despite the capable cast and the film’s measured approach--writer Doug Magee and director Michael Tuchner forgo confrontal histrionics--there’s nothing new here.

The victim, the flashbacks, the unjust justice system, the loyal love interest, the closing inspirational speech: We’ve seen it before, over and over. Spousal abuse is a shameful blight that should be exposed, but turning it into ubiquitous, formulaic TV entertainment numbs the outrage.