# I Know My First Name Is Steven (1989)

> A kidnapped seven-year-old boy endures years of abuse under his captor before finding a way to escape and return home.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/66292

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 2
- Episode runtime: 90 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: drama, crime
- Network: NBC
- Cast: Corin Nemec, Cindy Pickett, John Ashton, Arliss Howard, Luke Edwards, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Jacob Gelman, Ray Walston
- TMDB rating: 7.7/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097553/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: extreme
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: harrowing, sober, restrained, tense, bleak

## Synopsis

I Know My First Name Is Steven (1989) is a American two-part television miniseries created for NBC, a grounded docudrama dramatizing the real case of Steven Stayner, a seven-year-old boy kidnapped in 1973 and held for seven years. Corin Nemec plays the adult Steven, with Luke Edwards as the younger boy, while Arliss Howard plays the predator Kenneth Parnell and Cindy Pickett plays Steven's mother Kay Stayner. The engine of the story is a child's struggle to survive a false custody claim and a captor who controls every aspect of his life, followed by the hard decision to act when another child is taken. Its two ninety-minute episodes move in measured steps through the years of captivity and the difficult return to a family that has been searching. The tone is sober, harrowing and restrained, emphasizing emotional aftermath over spectacle. Set in 1970s California with a 1980s frame, it sits in the tradition of television true crime dramas. Viewers who admire the tense realism of Adam and the sober survival focus of Stolen Innocence will find resonance here.

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