TV Reviews : Principal Plays Tormented Teacher

Victoria Principal keeps changing around. Ordinarily she’s pretty and very, very well lit. She was Bobby’s well-formed wife on “Dallas,” later a high-ticket mistress, a blind avenger, a wily prosecutor and others.

In a diverting, trickily plotted psychological twister, “Don’t Touch My Daughter,” airing at 9 p.m. Sunday on Channels 4, 36 and 39, she’s a dowdy high school math teacher named Linda. The movie was written by John Bensink and Rick Husky from Marjorie Dorner’s book, directed by John Pasquin and executive produced by the star and Tom Patchett.

As you can surmise from the title, someone is after Linda’s 11-year-old daughter (Danielle Harris). It’s a fiend named Ryter (played by Jonathan Banks, taking a bad-guy break from his “Wiseguy” nice guy), who snatches her on her way home from school and molests her before she can break away.

Ryter is arrested, then freed on a light bail--then sets about to torment Linda with evil intentions.

Ah, but Ryter curiously kills himself. Or maybe not. Lt. Willman (Paul Sorvino) neatly unravels the mystery.

Principal is convincing in what essentially is a dark, depressed role unadorned by lovely cosmetics. You wonder what she’ll do for her next role. Maybe a mutant turtle. She hasn’t done one of those yet.