“All’s Steamy on Homefront”
by Matt Roush, USA Today, Sept. 24, 1991
Three out of four stars
When Johnny comes marching home...who’d have thought Peyton Place awaited?
Homefront may be a litmus test of whether today’s fickle TV audience has the patience to follow a lush, bustling primetime serial. Worse, it’s a period soaper (1945) that’s much too quaint in production design if not in its randy content.
Taking over the time period from thirtysomething, this is a comedown in ambition and relevance. That aside, it’s infectious, entertaining and slick.
If you’re going to launch a big-cast ensemble drama, go to the masters - in this case, Lynn Marie Latham and Bernard Lechowick, who guided the scrumptiously escapist Knots Landing through some of its finest years. Few are as skilled at the effortless transition, the clever intercutting of stories to make compelling sense of the most tangled webs.
They’ve crafted a doozy in River Run, Ohio, a sleepy burg waking up to the future as its young boys return as men.
There are undercurrents of social realism: Women are losing their factory jobs to vets, and in the least convincing and worst acted subplot, a proud black soldier struggles against discrimination. But Homefront’s heart is below the belt.
GIs return with their foreign war brides – some a surprise, others resentfully welcomed. One newcomer is an opportunistic British tart, another an Italian waif with a concentration-camp tattoo. The one boy who stayed faithful is in for a shock: His hometown sweetie is hooked on his kid brother.
All unfolds seamlessly. And if the boys and girls are hard to tell apart without a scorecard, ditto their too-youthful parents, blame Hollywood. While not The Best Years of Our Lives, this is better than most.