Under all the furor, spontaneous or manufactured, and the high urgency, real or prefabricated just for the premiere, is the film, a frail vessel indeed to bear the fate of mankind.

The Day After will upset people. It ought to.

It blends right in with the surrounding mediocrities on the TV schedule; and once you let it into your living room, it will turn off the lights, block the exits, and proceed to dismember your psychological defenses.

It is, in a contemporary sense, the most important theatrical program to be shown on commercial television.