Battered

Gritty social commentary rather than entertainment, Farrell & Grassle, Burton & Fields and Duff & Blondell play the respective couples from different socio-economic, demographic situations experiencing domestic abuse. The system is depicted as a perverted haven for wife-beaters, with no viable solutions to end the violence in fear of it merely escalating (which it appears it inevitably does either way).

It's a departure from the lighthearted TV that Grassle, Fields and Farrell were co-starring in at the time, whilst Burton was fresh off the plantation fields of his ground-breaking show 'Roots'. Also good to see veteran Blondell in one of her final roles, even if it's a tragically sad state of affairs for her character, suffering at the hands of her husband (Duff) an abusive alcoholic.

Also featuring in smaller roles are Diana Scarwid playing Blondell's adult daughter trying to escape her own struggles, and Ketty Lester (also from 'Little House on the Prairie') playing Fields', no-nonsense, tough-love neighbour.

Three different stories (two which overlap) and three distinctly different resolutions offer some glimmer of hope but it's regularly uncomfortable and at-times distressing, typical of the halcyon era for telemovies in the 70s/80s, not as cultivated as motion pictures would handle the subject matter, but still capable of moving an audience.