Murder: Without Warning

The caring, compassionate Dr. Mark Sloan (Dick Van Dyke) is back in a new "Diagnosis Murder" telefilm, "Without Warning," which deals with a mysterious, fatal disease, pharmaceutical ethics, father-and-son relationships, romance and racial intolerance. All these plot elements, though, can't disguise a disappointing story.

Things are way too pat in this tale, and the slight characters fail to make a real dramatic impact. With a harder edge and more believable situations, there might have been more to entice viewers. Nevertheless, fans of the "murder lite" mystery genre and especially devotees of Van Dyke and real-life son Barry may enjoy seeing this unfold.

Van Dyke is one of the executive producers of the telefilm, directed by Chris Nyby and written by Burt Prelutsky, based on a story by Steve Brown and Prelutsky. Production values are fine, even as settings seem somewhat generic.

In the telefilm, Van Dyke as Mark Sloan, a bright and affable physician, becomes a one-man Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as he takes on a fatal illness that seems to have originated in a migrant workers camp. And so Dr. Sloan and his son, police Lt. Steve Sloan (Barry Van Dyke), begin to investigate.

Where are all the other cops and medical experts, though? The Sloans seem to be in charge of it all, heading up the investigation as it suits them.

The younger Sloan also is getting involved with an attractive reporter, Ellen Sharp (Kim Quinn), and against all logic, he allows her to tag along on the police investigation. There's a big romance brewing between the two and plenty of trust issues to deal with, which simply distracts from the main story line. It's all pretty familiar stuff.

Meanwhile, not even bothering to inform the authorities, Dr. Sloan and fellow physician Amanda Bentley (Victoria Rowell) travel to Mexico to try sussing out the origins of the disease. Surprisingly, their unannounced intrusion is met with resistance. (Hey, don't the professionals at the Mexican clinic know this is Dick Van Dyke, whose motives are always pure?)

In addition to everything else, there's an antagonistic relationship between a hardhearted pharmaceutical king (Nicholas Pryor) and his idealistic son (Craig Burke) that's pretty much one-note.

Ryan Cutrona is solid as the father of the first victim of the disease, though he isn't given much to do but bluster threateningly.

The dramatic sensibility keeps derailing, deliberately, into lightheartedness, with the music supporting a goofier comic tone. Hey, people are dying here! Even a Latina leader at the migrant camp, Selena Sanchez (Elizabeth Rodriguez), heading off to Mexico for the funeral of her father and brother,