Abducted on Air (2020 Lifetime)
Cast: Perrey Reeves, Kim Shaw, Gord Rand, Bruce Dinsmore
Listen to the Lifetime Uncorked Podcast here!
Please buy me a coffee (or glass of 🍷) Support Lifetime Uncorked by leaving a $3 tip.
Synopsis (via Lifetime)
Sasha Bruder has always wanted to be a star news reporter. Working her way up the ladder at a local TV station, she often covers community events but dreams of covering a bigger story. However, when she is kidnapped and held captive, she has all of a sudden become the story. Her dramatic escape soon becomes all anyone can talk about, and yet, who would want to kidnap Sasha and why’ Sasha soon learns that she might not be as safe as she thought. Nothing is as it seems in the cutthroat world of TV news, and the threat may be closer to home than originally suspected.
Thoughts
Sasha is a hungry news reporter who is always playing second fiddle to, Diane, a more established reporter. Sasha can’t get the respect of her boss, Gavin, or get her co-worker Alex to stop being in love with her. While practicing a story in front of a green screen, Sasha is abducted and dragged out of the empty TV station. (It isn’t “on-air,” but it is captured “on camera.”)
Once she is unblindfolded, Sasha makes out with her capture. He is her married lover, whose name is Aidan. He is a professor and writer who is going to write Sasha’s life story after she becomes famous from the kidnapping, which she does. National news outlets pick up the story, and twitter goes wild with sympathy.
Diane aggressively follows the story and eventually pieces together that Aidan used to teach Sasha in college. Diane interviews him and accuses him of having an inappropriate relationship with Sasha. Diane is a REALLY intuitive and no-nonsense reporter. I can understand why Sasha is living in her shadow. (I kind of love it!)
Sasha is locked in a basement for days and convinces Aidan to give her his wife’s sleeping pills because she wants the abduction to look as real as possible. When it is time to be released, Sasha wanders the streets in a blindfold with her hands tied, screaming for help. The TV news team finds her and takes her to the hospital, where instead of getting treatment, Diane does a LIVE interview and gets more emotional sympathy than Sasha.
Aidan and Sasha foolishly continue calling and seeing one another. Sasha is less focused on the affair and more on her “meteoric rise” to the top. Sasha pitches to Gavin that since she is a victim, she should report on more stories about victims. Then she touches her hair all sexily and sits on his desk. (I will take note of this for next time I need something at werk!)
Gavin isn’t the only man at work she has been putting the moves on. Sasha slept with Alex before and spends the night with him, claiming she is too scared to go home. She drugs his drink, then plants pictures of herself in his underwear drawer and puts her blood on some of his clothing. (Poor Alex, he seems so sweet!) The next morning, Alex wakes up disoriented and shows up late to work. He gets arrested for the abduction of Sasha, and the TV news records the whole thing on camera.
Diane does a Barbara Walters style interview with Sasha. Diane asks hard-hitting questions, and Sasha plays up her emotions. Diane is not buying what Sasha is selling. She gets even more enraged when Sasha gets the lead story the next day. Diane reviews the abduction footage and notices something off with the footage. Instead of bringing it to Gavin, Diane confronts Sasha with the discrepancy in evidence. Diane is the best.
Sasha is upset that she has been caught in a lie and throws a wine glass. (Which is rude to wine glasses!!!!) Sasha tells Aiden to come clean about the affair with his wife. It turns out it isn’t the first time the professor has slept with a student. (He isn’t even a stud like that!)
Sasha takes matters into her own hands when Diane goes missing. She breaks into Diane’s house and takes photos of the crime scene to send them to Gavin. She goes live on the scene and is now the lead reporter. Aidan sees the story and is concerned that Sasha has taken things too far. He goes to see her and is trailed by his wife, who now knows everything.
Aidan’s wife, Joycelyn, freaks out on her husband (with iconic line delivery. “STOP LYING!”) She can’t believe he would go so far for a book deal. Honestly, neither can I.
Strange things start happening to Sasha. Someone mails her the blindfold used in her fake abduction. Then a bloody rope is hanging on her back door. Sasha doesn’t take it well and punches a mirror. (At least it wasn’t a wine glass this time!) While she is working late at night, the lights go off, and footage of Sasha plays on a loop. She calls Aiden and tells him that someone knows about what they did. He wants to go to the cops, and she wants to go work for CNN???
Sasha isn’t going to let Aiden stand in her way. She goes to meet with the other woman he had an affair with and gets her to sign a document confirming their affair. Sasha and Aiden meet in a spooky dark boiler room. She plans on killing Aiden and framing his wife for the murder. She shoots him dead and goes to Joycelyn’s house.
Before she can kill Jocelyn, she gets a call from, Gavin to cover a story of Alex’s release. It is a setup. Diane accuses Sasha of faking her own kidnapping and attempting to kill Aiden. (The gun was filled with blanks.) Diane reports LIVE and reviled she faked her disappearance and was working with Aiden to expose Sasha.
Sasha isn’t too concerned. When she is interviewed in the police station, she asks for a better camera angle. The end!
Things
Side Note
Minority Report: Police Officer. A co-worker in the background. That is it.
I loved the attention to detail in the news graphics. Very nice.
This writer is one of my favs; you go Barbara Kymlicka!
Don’t forget to listen to the Lifetime Uncorked Podcast available on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts!
Donate to keep the blog and podcast going 😊
Overall rating
🔪🔪🔪🔪 (4 Knives)
🍷🍷 (2 glasses of wine required.)
*Photo Credit: © 2020 Lifetime
