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One of the most heavily promoted TV movies of the 1997-98 season, The Lake is a complex sci-fi/fantasy yarn with echoes of such past genre classics as Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Stepford Wives. Former Baywatch babe Yasmine Bleeth heads the huge cast as Jackie Ivers, a professional nurse who returns to her small California home town to care for her dying father. Upon her arrival, Jackie quickly ascertains that something is not quite right about the community and the people with whom she grew up. Put bluntly, every person in town is behaving in the exact opposite manner of what might normally be expected--and this bizarre mass character conversion has spread to Jackie's own family. Ultimately, the solution to the mystery manifested a polluted lake and an alternate earth, though the conclusion of the story provides a twist calculated to confound those who think they have everything figured out by the film's midway point. The best moments go to Marion Ross in what amounts to a dual role, and to Haley Joel Osment of Sixth Sense fame. The Lake made its NBC network bow on February 1, 1998.