The show was named Resurgence. It was an episode of Love at First Sight, an obscure French/British TV show that IMDb refers to as Coup de Foudre, which is the equivalent French expression for “Love at First Sight.” (Literally: lightning bolt). According to the credits, the series was produced by Erich Segal, the classics professor who loved to slum in pop culture, and became most famous as the author of Love Story.

It’s a jaw-droppingly bad 24 minutes of TV melodrama. The only reason to remember it is that it features a topless scene from a very young Catherine Zeta Jones. (The show aired on August 28, 1992, about a month before her 23rd birthday.)

Oh, what am I talking about? The series is long forgotten, even with that historically important topless scene. And with good reason!

Here’s a summary of the episode:

A wealthy widower welcomes his university-age daughter and three of her friends to his French country estate during her semester break. Dad and daughter obviously have a great relationship, and dad also establishes a good rapport with his daughter’s friend (Zeta) and the boyfriends of the two girls. They all socialize for a while, then the two young couples head for the Mediterranean in their two separate cars, and dad heads up to sleep.

Dad awakens to the sound of sobbing in his bedroom. It is Zeta-Jones, reporting that the man’s daughter has died in an automobile accident. Since the daughter and her boyfriend have been fried to a crisp, there is nothing dad can do. Since Zeta’s boyfriend is still at the site of the accident, taking care of the details with the police, the dad does what I think any of us would have done on this somber occasion – he fucks the living daylights out of Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Now THAT’S the way to mourn.

The lesson I’ve taken away from this is that there is no bad occasion nor inappropriate time for fucking Catherine Zeta-Jones. Put yourself in the dad’s shoes – there’s nothing you can do to bring your child back, but this would be your one and only chance to fuck Catherine Zeta-Jones, so it’s time to stop mopin’ and start gropin’. When it comes to this ethical dilemma, I don’t think Aristotle could think it through any better.

The next morning he seeks some additional consolation, but Zeta refuses, saying “not this way,” and that from now on she will love him in a different way. That sounded promising for anal, but in this case, she declared “now it’s me who’s your daughter”!

Don’t be shocked. It’s all OK, because their sex scenes were accompanied by sad piano music, not a steamy sax riff, which is the way I would have done it. (Where is Zalman King when you really need him?)

Zeta’s boyfriend returns, and the film ends with a group hug between dad, Zeta, and the boyfriend, who looks mighty uncomfortable about the entire thing.

Here is a clip of the nude scene.

I’ll bet you think I was kidding about the plot, but that is really what happened. Here is the full episode, if you don’t believe me, or if you’re just a connoisseur of bad entertainment.