Killer Instinct

Melissa Gilbert is Lisa DaVito, a resident psychiatrist at Chicago's Elvira Hospital, whose patient Puerto Rican Freddie Zamora (Fernando Lopez) suffers from rages. She wants to keep him in the psychiatric ward, but Ward Chief Dr Butler (Lane Smith) agrees to release him, and Freddie subsequently stops taking his medication, with dire results. The search is on - will the police or Lisa find him first?

Gilbert's makeup and hair stylist Jayson Jeffreys deserves special mention here for his overkill in the way he presents her, as if being an over-styled psychiatrist is a clue to the fate of her patients. Gilbert only looks beautiful in repose, ie when she isn't trying to be, but apart from an occasional ability to handle a laugh line, a slow reaction to news her boyfriend Stephen Nelson (Kevin Conroy) is dumping her, and a fall to the ground in tears, this role doesn't do much for her.

The teleplay by Conrad Bromberg has Lisa describe her method as `touch the hurt and clean it out', and it appears that she has no office since her sessions with Freddie are held in the men's toilet. The dialogue features such cliches as Stephen's threat to Lisa `If you go, I won't be here when you get back', and Dr Butler to Lisa `I loved your idealism. It made me young again'. Woody Harrelson is around as the hospital lawyer Charlie Daimler, though he has nothing to do except provide an 3rd romantic interest for Lisa, and director Warris Hussein over-uses the music score of Paul Chihara which it's obvious latin riffs.