Tales of the City

This ten-part miniseries has some very high highs and some very low lows.

Back at Barbary Lane are Laura Linney as the sometimes annoying Mary Ann and Olympia Dukakis and the magical Anna Madrigal. Two superb actresses. Also back is Paul Gross, the original Brian. Michael is now played by Murray Bartlett, a huge improvement over smarmy Paul Hopkins in the previous two outings, but not as sweet as the original Michael played by Marcus D'Amico. Barbara Garrick also returns as DeDe, but she's a marginal character here.

Chief among the newcomers to Barbary Lane is Ellen Page as the tough Shawna, the daughter of Brian and Mary Ann .... or is she? We also get a complicated lesbian couple (Garcia and May Hong), a snoopy "reader" (Victor Garber). and a strange lesbian filmmaker (Zosia Mamet).

I found DeDe's misbegotten twins extremely annoying. I'm not sure if they were meant to be comic relief, but they ain't funny. There are several other recurring characters but they're not terribly important.

A few name actors pop up in one or two appearances: John Glover as an old cop, Mary Louise Wilson as the home resident, Luke Kirby as a 1960s cop, Stephen Spinella as a dinner guest, Molly Ringwald as an art collector, and Danny Burstein as Connie's old husband.

The standout episode of this series in #8, which re-enacts the infamous drag queen riot at Compton's Cafeteria in San Francisco. This looms as the backdrop to the flashback of Anna's arrival in San Francisco in 1966 as a 40-something woman.

And despite a largely annoying storyline that clutters the achingly sad finale, we finally clear the gaudy debris and get to the great loss we all knew was coming.

Many kudos to the indomitable Olympia Dukakis for her portrayal of Mrs. Madrigal over the decades and to Laura Linney for her chirpy performance as Mary Ann and also for producing this series.