Programs - Saturday
The Age
Thursday June 25, 1998
Critic's View
John Laws - In One Lifetime, Channel 10, 5.30pm
THE latest chapter in the superficial historical series by Sydney radio loudmouth John Laws performs the now-predictable hopscotch through milestones of the 20th century.
It's a haphazard cobbling together of news and archival footage, overlaid with the Golden Tonsils' cliche-ridden narration and served up with minimal effort to provide context or meaningful analysis. Adopting a scattergun approach, the program offers a passing parade of events linked by the fact that they occurred during the great man's life. That seems to be a sufficiently significant thematic connection for no further relation between segments to be attempted. So we are offered a thumbnail profile of Dawn Fraser ("a rough and ready kid from Balmain"), a quick whiz through "the tears and the laughter" of World War II, and a roll call of disasters: the Sydney Harbor ferry tragedy, Wonthaggi mine explosion, the West Gate Bridge collapse, Granville train crash, Cyclone Tracy, Newcastle earthquake, and the Blackhawks tragedy. Laws's approach to history is to recite it, not to comment with any perception or even to evoke the spirit of the times particularly effectively. The whole mishmash of factoids is underpinned by a twee nostalgia, a yearning for "the good old days", a halcyon time when a bloke could perv happily at beauty contest entrants without fear of retaliation from the "thought police".
Something of a missed opportunity, this is a vanity project distinguished only by its laziness.
Footy Frenzy, Channel 9, 10am
THE boys from Bendigo Street continue their stealthy incursion into AFL terrain with the launch of this new footy show for kids.
Hosted by Hawthorn's Shane Crawford and Richmond's Wayne Campbell, it's more of a tame frolic than a wild frenzy. "Shano" and "Wayno" are joined by bubbly blonde Jess Gower and surfer dude "Pie Boy" Daniel Bowden for a range of segments in the studio and on location. The fellas hold court from a modest bachelor-pad set where Crawford plays the dumb blond and Campbell his smarter buddy. The team ventures out to a Moorabbin primary school with Robert Harvey for a spot of kick-to-kick, down the coast for a surf with Nick Holland, and over to a dentist to watch a mouthguard being made. There's also a bit of Net surfing and some giveaways. It might provide a pleasant Saturday morning diversion for young fans and it serves to confirm that, inside many footy players, there's a budding entertainer just busting to get out.
Deepwater Haven, Channel 10, 7.30am
ENJOYING a repeat run in time for the school holidays, this series follows the adventures of the Wilson family: widowed dad Jack (Vince Martin), daughter Georgie (Jay Saussey) and son Peter (Peter Malloch). Dad runs an ailing tugboat business, hauling garbage across the harbor, and spends a lot of time stubbornly refusing help that he plainly needs from those around him. With its eyes clearly trained on the international marketplace, the series makes two of Jack's potential allies French: cafe owner Marianne Dubois (Rosine Cadoret) and her capable daughter, Claire (Agnes Woodman). Darker-edged than some of the sunny kids' fare that comes out of Queensland, Deepwater Haven features an unusual mix of Gallic and Kiwi accents.
MOVIE: The Deep (1977) Channel 10, 8.30pm
ON a scuba-diving honeymoon in Bermuda, a couple of "beautiful people" (Jacqueline Bisset of the wet T-shirt and Nick Nolte) discover a cache of morphine and buried treasure. Author Peter Benchley, in demand after the spectacular commercial success of Jaws, failed to hit paydirt with this terminally boring thriller, listlessly directed by Peter Yates. Relying too much on picture postcard scenery and leering villains, it lost a small fortune for Columbia Pictures and hastened Benchley's relegation to his natural metier as a creator of made-for-television potboilers. An embarrassingly hammy Robert Shaw reprises his old salt routine from the aforementioned Jaws.
**
The Pick Of Pay TV
OPTUS: Fred Astaire: It Just Happened, Ovation, 8.30pm
IF you're a devoted Astaire fan, you may find some satisfaction in this documentary, though apart from some disjointed footage, there's little of Astaire here. Instead, there's a great deal of Hermes Pan talking about himself, and, intermittently, his professional and creative relationship with the elegant star. And while Pan is rich with Hollywood lore, this hardly amounts to an in-depth view of Fred Astaire's life and career. Disappointingly piecemeal and amateurish bumph.
FOXTEL: Africa: Garden Of Eden, National Geographic Channel, 9pm
NATIONAL Geographic is big on Africa tonight, offering more than four hours on the continent. Most of the documentaries examine current environmental issues and environmental policy along with a particular ecosystem, but Africa: Garden Of Eden is more in the realm of the "traditional" natural history story. It follows veteran film maker Tim Liversedge into Botswana's volatile Makgadikgadi Salt Pans to capture more than a month's worth of activity among lions, springboks, meerkats, ground squirrels, finches, flamingos, zebras, insects and myriad others, after seasonal rains bring the long-arid area to life. Which is mostly nothing short of spectacular - partly because Liversedge is devoted to exploring the broader wildlife population, avoiding the "big-game" focus that tends to dominate African wildlife documentaries.
-- Paul Kalina
RadioWaves
Saturday Morning With Peter Jeppesen, 3LO (774), 6am to 10am
PETER Jeppesen left ABC radio's Melbourne current affairs bureau at the start of the year to replace Clive Stark as host of 3LO's long-running Saturday morning radio magazine. Infotainment radio, if you like. There's a little bit of everything for middle-class Melburnians with a mortgage, a backyard, a pet schnauzer and a query about their aspidistra. He starts just after 6am with fishing and yachting segments and progresses through gardening, horse racing tips and home maintenance before AM takes over at 8am. Then Jeppesen's smooth voice is back, talking finance, more gardening and pet care until the 10 o'clock news.
-- Darrin Farrant
On The Web:
Forces Of Nature II, Channel 9, 9.30pm
http://www.geo.mtu.edu/volcanoes/
Swat up on volcanoes for the next school project, or for your trip to the world's hottest hotspots...or just in case your house is near one.
© 1998 The Age