Although it features Kristy McNichol, Lance Kerwin, Leif Garrett and Alexa Kenin (McNichol's future co-star in "Little Darlings"), all this young talent isn't enough to boost paltry Afterschool Special, a made-for-TV melodrama about a young girl getting back at her remarried dad by humiliating his new wife at school (seems the new Mrs. is the girl's English teacher). You really can't fault the film for looking cheap and ugly--which it does--but so did many of the TV movies from this era. The ABC network is to be commended for producing (and, for the most part, succeeding with) these lessons-learned specials targeted at kids, yet the writing here is at such an unstimulating, uneventful level. For fans of Kristy McNichol, then riding high from her role as 'Buddy' on the nighttime drama "Family," she has a good crying scene at the school dance (the movie's best moment), but she's not handled well by the director and has some fearsome dialogue.
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