Seventeen years
ago tonight, ABC aired “Charles and
Diana: Unhappily Ever After,” a TV movie about the royal couple’s turbulent
11-year marriage.
Four days before
the film was shown, British Prime Minister John Major announced Charles and
Diana’s separation in a speech to Parliament. The news may have made the movie
timely, but it didn’t help it win many viewers: “Charles and Diana” was seen in
just 11.9 million households, finishing second in its time slot to CBS’s
Lindsay Wagner tearjerker “A Message from Holly” and ranking 30th among the
week’s 92 programs.
Perhaps by the
time “Charles and Diana” aired, viewers had had their fill of the Windsors: The
film was the third royal-themed TV movie to air during 1992-93 season, which
was just three months old.
Then again, of
the three flicks – the other two were NBC’s “Fergie and Andrew: Behind the
Palace Doors” and CBS’s “The Women of Windsor” – “Charles and Diana” received
the best reviews.
The New York
Times’ John J. O’Connor praised the ABC movie’s lead actors, Roger Rees and
Catherine Oxenberg, for delivering “solid and intelligent” performances that
gave the movie “a bit more substance than most.”
The Washington
Post’s Tom Shales called Rees “quite good,” commending him for infusing Charles
with “anguish and loneliness.”
Shales called Oxenberg
“far less compelling,” describing her acting as seemingly “motivated by the
desire not to let an expression disfigure her features for too long.”
He also criticized
the actress for making “something of a mini-career playing the princess,” noting
she had previously portrayed Diana in “The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana,”
a 1982 CBS movie.
“[O]ne can only
dread the prospect of seeing her again in 10 years as ‘Princess Diana: The Girl
Who Won’t Be Queen,” Shales wrote.
He wasn’t the
only critic to speak too soon.
USA Today’s Matt
Roush called the movie “great bad TV,” suggesting Americans should be thankful
its newly elected president, Bill Clinton, hadn’t embarrassed his country the
way the Windsors had theirs.
“This movie … makes
you proud to be from a land where the president-elect can frequent McDonald’s
and no one blinks,” Roush wrote.
If fast food had
been Clinton’s only weakness!
From
the Pages of TV Guide
Also airing Dec.
13, 1992:
8 PM FOX IN LIVING COLOR (CC)
Scheduled: Kelly
Coffield as Madonna and Kim Wayans as Naomi Campbell in a video parody entitled
“Neurotica”; a holiday visit to “The Dysfunctional Home Show.” Keenan Ivory
Wayans, James Carrey, Tommy Davidson, David Alan Grier, Alexandra Wentworth.
8:30 FOX ROC (CC)
Joey (Rocky
Carroll) takes a paternal interest in a young man who admires his trumpet
playing, but Roc (Charles S. Dutton) suspects the guy is just blowing smoke,
and may be involved in something illegal. (Live)
10:30 FOX BEN STILLER (CC) – Comedy
Guests include
David Cassidy, Mark DeCarlo (“Studs”), comedian Taylor Negron, Herve
Villechaize and Gary Coleman. Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea also appears.
[Now seen at
this new time.]
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