Friday Edition: I Watched 1974's Born Innocent So You Don't Have To!

And oh man, it's is bad bad bad.

TW: Sexual assault, violence, fetal death, and bad judgment from a TV network.

After recovering from a tooth infection, I was exhausted. There were things I wanted to do (clean my room, catch up on reading), but I was just pooped. I didn't have much energy, but I saw a TV movie that briefly changed television. It is still pretty shocking forty-nine years later.

Darlings, I saw 1974's Born Innocent.

What? You never heard of Born Innocent? Fasten your seatbelt, babies. It's going to be a bumpy ride.

Linda Blair was a shining star in 1974. She had been nominated for The Exorcist, and NBC wanted her to star in a TV movie. They wanted to capitalize on her fame. How? Adapt a twenty-five-year-old book about a detention center for girls. It was told from the center director's point of view. The TV movie would be different. Very different.