‘Stranger’ Tries to Freshen Genre

Anyone familiar with the so-called “Babes Behind Bars” genre knows exactly what to expect: hard-boiled femmes, sneering guards, sadistic wardens, hair-pulling cat fights, lesbian lovers and, of course, the obligatory shower scenes.

Or, uh, so we’ve been told.

“Stranger Inside,” an HBO telefilm premiering tonight, takes a mostly realistic, uncompromising approach. It’s the story of a tough 21-year-old prisoner (Yolonda Ross) transferred to a state facility for women, where she sets out to find the mother she never knew, a coarse, dangerous lifer named Brownie (Davenia McFadden).

Co-written and directed by Cheryl Dunye, “Stranger” seemingly wants it both ways. On occasion, the film is an earnest examination of a wayward daughter’s need for love and acceptance. At other times, it’s just as brutal and predictable as any of its trash-talking, bottom-of-the-barrel predecessors.

In a sense, Dunye is asking us to sympathize with angry, bitter, resentful characters who committed crimes and are now paying their debt to society. Along the way, she interweaves boisterous scenes set in group therapy, where the inmates release their pent-up frustrations over life’s inequities.

We can sympathize to a point, but eventually Dunye surrenders to the formulaic conventions of other women-in-prison films, i.e., class warfare, drug running and unscrupulous guards getting a piece of the action. And that’s when we lose interest, happy to be on the outside looking in.

* “Stranger Inside” can be seen tonight at 9 on HBO. The network has rated it TV-MA-LSV (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 17, with advisories for coarse language, sex and violence).

Surf Report

SERIES

“Xena: Warrior Princess” ends its six-season run with a two-hour finale (8 tonight, KTLA) in which the rump-kicking heroine (Lucy Lawless) and Gabrielle (Renee O’Connor) face a samurai ghost determined to enslave 20,000 people in feudal Japan.

“Save Our History” (8 tonight, History Channel) examines the condition of Civil War battlefields being paved over by spreading commercial and residential developments.

SPECIALS

“Free to Dance” (8 p.m. Sunday, KCET) is a three-hour “Great Performances” study of the role African-American dancers and choreographers have played in modern dance.

SPORTS

In baseball, the Padres visit the Dodgers (tonight at 7 on FSN2 and Sunday at 1 p.m. KTLA) while the Angels play the Mariners (tonight at 7 and Sunday at 1:30 p.m. on KCAL).