Season 36

Promise is a 1986 made-for-television movie directed by Glenn Jordan. PLOT: Promise represented the first of several momentous TV-movie teamings of James Garner and James Woods. Garner plays an affable middle-aged salesman. When his mother dies, Garner is compelled to fulfill his long-ago promise to her: to look after his schizophrenic younger brother Woods. What begins as a fitfully painful experience for both men culminates with an unexpected, powerful climax, predicated by a memory-laden fishing trip. Piper Laurie co-stars as an old flame of Garner who finds herself a compassionate spectator to the troubled and bizarrely touching relationship between the two long-estranged brothers. Written by Richard Friedenberg, The Promise premiered December 14, 1986. Emmy awards were bestowed upon James Woods, Piper Laurie, Richard Friedenberg, director Glenn Jordan, and the film itself.

Adaptation of the novel by Norma Levinson. After the death of her parents, Leah Lazenby, a Boston teacher of learning-impaired young people, seeks to supplement her modest income by turning the family homestead into a boarding house. She makes the parlor her living quarters and rents rooms to six tenants, who include a gentle classical cellist. Although Leah has ""a way with the wayward"" in her work, at home she's strictly a loner. Gradually, however, professional and personal crises draw her out of her shell and awaken her to the lives of her boarders.

Adaptation of the stage play by Hugh Whitemore. A middle-class homemaker becomes involved in a 1961 espionage investigation in her suburban London backyard. Straightforward yet reserved Barbara, sharing a quiet life with her loving husband and their teen-age daughter, is visited out of the blue by an intelligence agent who cites national security and sets up shop in the couple's bedroom to watch for a ""suspicious character"" seen in the vicinity. But the agent is really after the family's neighbors, one of whom is Barbara's very dear friend. As the intrigue intensifies, Barbara undergoes a crisis of conscience that tests her loyalties, her confidences, and her sense of ethics.