Once upon a time, way back in 1996, the stars aligned and gave us Yesterday’s Target, a TV movie starring LeVar Burton, Malcolm McDowell, and a Baldwin brother!
No, not Alec, too famous. No, not William, too handsome. No, not Stephen, too “funny.” The other one. No, come on, there’s another one, you just don’t remember. Think. THINK. Okay, fine, we’ll tell you: it’s Daniel. Yes, Daniel Baldwin! No we didn’t make him up; he’s real, he’s in Yesterday’s Target, and he’s travelled time to save us all, or something - so you should show him a little respect!
In this world, unexplained eleven-month pregnancies are bringing on a new generation of people with psychic superpowers - one might call them “mutants,” or “X-Men,” if one weren’t too afraid of litigation. Daniel Baldwin, who can sorta move stuff with his mind, and a couple of his psychic pals have been sent back from the future to do… something? We’re not really sure; it doesn’t quite add up, but they do get a lot of headaches and grimace a lot.
Perhaps the strangest choice the movie makes is casting LeVar Burton, the world’s nicest and most likeable actor, as a heartlessly cruel bad guy. Sometimes casting against type really works! Sometimes, it really doesn’t. To paraphrase the Reading Rainbow theme song, “Take a look, it’s in a book, it’s a bad moooovie.”
If all this sounds kind of strange and nonsensical, that’s only because it is. Strap in for a psychic time-travel romp of Baldwinian proportions, join Mike, Kevin and Bill for Yesterday’s Target!
