Creator 1985

Dr. Harry Wolper [Peter O’Toole] is an eccentric medical professor at a small Southern California college who becomes obsessed with cloning his wife Lucy Wolper [Karen Kopins], who died in childbirth 30 years earlier. He hires Boris Lafkin [Vincent Spano], a struggling pre-med student, as his personal assistant to secure lab equipment and work in a backyard shed, a setup where Harry rewards Boris with love-life guidance aimed at an attractive student named Barbara Spencer [Virginia Madsen], who slowly becomes smitten with Boris. The relationship dynamics set the stage for a controversial experiment: to push his cloning research forward, Harry brings in a young woman, Meli [Mariel Hemingway], who practically moves in and contributes her ovary sample as part of the progress. Meli gradually falls for the much older Harry, who begins to question his ethics and his own vision of true love.

A rival, fellow medical professor Dr. Sid Kuhlenbeck [David Ogden Stiers], sees Harry’s work as a threat and schemes to derail him, intending to remove him from the university so he can take over Harry’s lab at a less prestigious venue. Kuhlenbeck’s plan hinges on a move to Northfield, an outlying branch of the university where real research is scarce. But his scheme backfires when Harry secures a substantial research grant; grants, being awarded to individuals, follow Harry to Northfield, much to Kuhlenbeck’s chagrin and strategic frustration.

Tragedy and renewal collide as Barbara suffers an aneurysm and is hospitalised by Sid. Her parents push to turn off life support, yet Boris fights to keep hope alive and is allowed to speak with Barbara in her coma, where a remarkable turn of events leads to her waking. In a climactic personal reversal, Harry pours his dead wife’s cells into the sea and then marries Meli [Mariel Hemingway]. With the stakes elevated and the future uncertain, the story closes as one by one the characters choose to follow Harry to Northfield, drawn by a mix of loyalty, ambition, and the unsettled lure of a groundbreaking but morally fraught science.