1992: January 11-17

There’s nothing psycho about this shower scene
E Street star Kate Raison shares her thoughts on the steamy closed-set shower scene that marks a turning point in the relationship of her character Sheridan Sturgess to Wheels (Marcus Graham).  Although Raison describes the steamy scene as not so much raunchy but “more your first kiss”, it is apparent that the scene – which lasts for two minutes – is a lot more than that.  But she points out that in reality neither actor was nude for filming of the scene and that it was nowhere near as romantic as the end product appears.  “I don’t want to take the romance out of it for people, but it’s not romantic at all,” she told TV Week.  “It’s very technical and difficult to film.  We had two cameras and we were trying to pivot in a baby’s bath… it took about three or four hours to film.  It’s one of the worst things you could ever imagine.  They were very difficult scenes to create and it’s a very technical thing in the end.  Hopefully, it will look romantic to the audience.  We want to make it look, and be, as real for the audience as possible.”

Luck of the draw!
Although he has appeared in commercials and occasionally gets caught on camera on Hey Hey It’s Saturday, the show’s resident cartoonist Andrew Fyfe is about to take on a new challenge as he faces the cameras in the new children’s show, Guess What?  Despite the challenge of a prominent role in a new show, Fyfe – who also produced the former Ossie Ostrich cartoon strip in TV Week and had been a cartoonist for satirical magazine Mad – has a positive outlook.  “The first thing I like about this is that it’s great fun.  The second thing I like is that it’s great fun.  And thirdly, I like it because it’s great fun,” he said.  Guess What?, which also stars Alison Brahe (recently Mrs Cameron Daddo), is being taped in Adelaide and debuts on Nine in February.

Red-hot for Silver!
TV Week takes a look at who could be strong contenders for this year’s Silver Logies for most popular actor and actress at the TV Week Logie Awards.  Neighbours stars Mark Little, Richard Huggett, Gayle and Gillian Blakeney and Melissa Bell are listed as potential nominees – while E Street also boasts a strong field, including Tony Martin, Marcus Graham, Kate Raison, Bruce Samazan, Alyssa-Jane Cook, Toni Pearen and Melissa Tkautz.  Home And Away has popular cast members including Les Hill, Rebekah Elmaloglou, Mat Stevenson, Nicolle Dickson and Emily Symons.  A Country Practice’s Georgie Parker and Shane Porteous have both won Silver Logies in the past and may do so again this year, but TV Week reminds readers not to underestimate other favourites such as John Tarrant, Matt Day and Joyce Jacobs.  Former The Flying Doctors star Rebecca Gibney now has new fans with her role in All Together Now, and Col’n Carpenter stars Kim Gyngell and Anne Phelan and Hey Dad!’s Julie McGregor are also listed as potential contenders.  TV Week also reminds readers of cast members of other series Chances, GP, Embassy, Police Rescue and The Flying Doctors that could also be worthy of votes.

Briefly…
Home And Away star Rebekah Elmaloglou talks about her teenage character Sophie coping with falling pregnant – and with the baby’s father David (Guy Pearce) now dead, she fears that she will lose custody of the child to her parents.  “Sophie’s got no husband or boyfriend, no money and not a happy future,” she told TV Week.  “Sophie starts to think that the only way she is going to be able to keep David’s child is by running away.  Her hormones are clouding her better judgment.”

It was a lavish event on the grounds of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron in Kirribilli as former ‘Til Ten host Joan McInnes married Sir James Hardy just before Christmas.  The wedding was attended by many TV and showbiz identities, including Midday’s Ray Martin and Geoff Harvey and Wheel Of Fortune hostess Adriana Xenides. 

Home And Away star Dee Smart’s recent outburst in TV Week about how unhappy she is about being in the show has caused quite a stir at Seven.  The network is now believed to be trying to release her from her contract to appease her, but this is proving difficult with planned storylines for the show written well in advance – so she may be in Summer Bay still for some time yet.

Lawrie Masterson’s Sound Off
”It is inevitable that Australia – already overserviced by television networks, in my opinion – will now get a Pay TV system.  How it is implemented, the number of licences to be granted and who gets them, and some guidelines on content, are among the contentious issues still to be ironed out.”

John Laws says…
”What is it about A Current Affair that grabs the imagination of the nation?  In my view it’s because the program has become the evening newspaper that modern Australians don’t buy any more.  Combine 30 minutes of news and 30 minutes of A Current Affair and you have all the elements of what evening newspapers used to be about.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne/Regional Victoria, January 11-17):
Saturday: Summer sport continues with tennis (NSW Open and the Rio International Challenge) on Seven/Prime, golf (Sanctuary Cove Classic) on ABC and cricket (Benson And Hedges World Series Cricket) on Nine/VIC TV.

Sunday:  Sunday night movies are Inspector Morse: The Ghost In The Machine (Seven/Prime) and Buster (Ten/SCN), while Nine/VIC TV presents the first instalment in the re-run of mini-series Ellis Island.

Monday:  The Australian Open, the premier Australian tennis event of the year, begins its two-week competition today at Melbourne’s National Tennis Centre – with live coverage throughout the day and evening on Seven and Prime.  Nine/VIC TV begins a daytime re-run of the landmark 1970s US mini-series Roots.

Tuesday:  Australian Open on Seven/Prime and World Series Cricket on Nine/VIC TV are the only real highlights today, with both events taking up most of the afternoon and evening timeslots.

Wednesday:  E Street (Ten/SCN) returns for its fourth year.  Wheels (Marcus Graham) moves in with Sheridan (Kate Raison) to protect her from serial killer Steven “Mr Bad” Richardson (Vince Martin), but it doesn’t take long for their attraction for each other to become apparent.

Thursday:  ABC begins four days of coverage of golf with the Palm Meadows Cup, live from the Gold Coast.

Source: TV Week (Victoria Country edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  11 January 1992.  Southdown Press

1991: November 23-29

Melissa’s shock exit!
E Street star Melissa Tkautz has made a sudden exit from the Network Ten soap, halfway through a three-year contract, after an apparent rift developed between herself and the show’s producers.  It is not known exactly what problems have arisen although it is suspected that Tkautz’s pop star commitments – such as preparing to tour with C&C Music Factory next month – have conflicted with her filming commitments to the series.  Producer Forrest Redlich told TV Week that “the official line is, ‘She’s leaving to pursue musical interests’.”  He also said that Tkautz’s pop career almost came about by accident as the pop songs were intended to promote the show and Tkautz was chosen from the show’s cast as the best match for the proposed first single, Read My Lips (“I thought it was too raunchy for Toni Pearen and too teeny-bopper for Alyssa-Jane Cook.”)  The debut single hit the top of the charts as did the follow up single, Sexy (Is The Word), and suddenly Tkautz has become a big pop star.  “She was a successful marketing exercise for us,” Redlich said.  “I don’t know if this will hurt the show.  She had fans.”  Tkautz’s sudden departure will see her character Nikki sent off to New Zealand.

New series woos John
John Waters is tipped for the lead role in a new weekly drama series to be filmed in Brisbane next year.  The new series, Darling And Partners, is to be set in a law firm and according to producer Phillip Bowman is hoped to demystify the process of law.  “It is not an expose of the Australian legal system,” Bowman told TV Week.  “Lawyers I have spoken to see this series as having positive potential.”  The pilot for Darling And Partners will begin filming early in 1992.

‘The worst year of my life…’
For Wheel Of Fortune’s Adriana Xenides it has been a traumatic year, with an increase in work commitments, being plagued by illness for months, and the breakdown of her two-year marriage.  She also became the target of a hate-mail campaign where an anonymous writer had contacted many media outlets, including TV Week, with some very personal details and her personal telephone number.  “Initially it hurt, but that didn’t last very long,” she told TV Week.  “When I thought about it, I felt very sorry for whoever took the time to write a note like that to the press.  I feel whoever did that must be a lonely person or terribly bored.”  Apart from the marriage breakdown, she was hit by a “mystery” illness which turned out to be a combination of glandular fever and viral pneumonia.  “I’ve had the worst year of my life with sickness,” she said.  “I usually have the odd cold or whatever, but I’ve never been this sick.”  The year has ended on a highlight, however, with her visit to Disney World as part of the international 20th anniversary celebration of Wheel Of Fortune. 

Briefly…
Live And Sweaty host Andrew Denton is to start work soon on a pilot for a proposed interview series for ABC.  With the working title One On One, it will feature Denton interviewing a single guest.  “(One On One) will either be one of the greatest moments in modern television or a complete failure,” he told TV Week.  Production is due to start next month.

Home And Away is set to end the year where the sudden return of Frank (Alex Papps) after the collapse of his marriage to Roo (Justine Clarke) sees him make a beeline for former wife Bobby (Nicolle Dickson), claiming that he is sorry that he divorced her and is still in love with her.

Fast Forward stars Glenn Robbins and Michael Veitch have been criticised for glamorising alcohol use with their “yuppie drunk” characters that appear in the sketch comedy show.  ABC’s Media Watch and the spokesman for the Drug Offensive campaign have slammed the sketches as trivialising alcohol abuse.  But Robbins has defended the sketches.  ”The drink gives them the confidence to say the things they want to say.  They are ‘blokes’ and they find it hard to do this otherwise.  It’s tragic that they need alcohol to be able to say these things,” he said.  “So we don’t believe it’s glamorising alcohol use at all… it’s showing the reality of a bad situation.”  Veitch also notes that it is significant that their characters fail in their romantic pursuits as a result of drinking.  “It’s obvious they are not attractive people,” he said.  “They talk to girls but they never get any.  They lead pretty sad lives.”

Alison Brahe, the host of Nine’s upcoming children’s quiz show Guess What?, has no intention of using her married name after she marries actor Cameron Daddo next month.  “We will have Seven, Nine and Ten covered by the Daddos so I’m just going to stick to Brahe,” she told TV Week.  “I don’t think television is ready for another Daddo just yet.”  Production on Guess What?, which will also feature Hey Hey It’s Saturday cartoonist Andrew Fyfe, will commence at the studios of NWS9 in Adelaide in January.

John Laws says…
”After the coarse humour of Married… With Children, the bitchery of The Golden Girls and the cloying cuteness of The Cosby Show, the consistent freshness and vitality of Australia’s Hey Dad! comes as a welcome relief.  So it’s nice to know that as the TV year grinds to a conclusion – leaving behind the usual clutch of falling stars and ratings bombs – Hey Dad! is comfortably maintaining its bright and appealing honest approach.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, November 23-29):
Saturday:  That’s Dancin’ (ABC) presents its series semi-final.  This week’s contestants on Celebrity Wheel Of Fortune (Seven) are Stuart Wagstaff, Rachael Beck and Maynard F. Sharp Crabbes.  The main event of the night is the first annual presentation of the Australian Music Awards (Ten), from Melbourne’s World Congress Centre, a three-hour celebration of Australian music with awards in 20 categories. The AMAs feature guests including John Farnham, Jimmy Barnes, Kate Ceberano, Grace Knight, Craig McLachlan, Jo Beth Taylor, Jack Jones, James Blundell, Melissa Tkautz, Johnny Diesel, Boom Crash Opera, Ratcat, David Reyne, Juno, Roxus, Indecent Obsession and Glenn Shorrock.

Sunday:  The beginning of the final week of official ratings surveys for the year sees the final editions of Wide World Of Sports (Nine), Sports Sunday (Nine) and 60 Minutes (Nine) for 1991.  Sunday night movies are The Presidio (Seven), National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (Nine) and Out Of Africa (Ten) – while ABC presents the Australian Opera production of Puccini’s last opera, Turandot.

Monday:  Ten debuts a new children’s series, The Miraculous Mellops.  ABC presents a one-hour special, Sex, taking a comic approach to a serious topic in discussing questions and attitudes about sexual activity, safe sex and sexually-transmitted diseases amongst young adults.

Tuesday:  In the season final of A Country Practice (Seven), romance is in the air after Darcy (Kym Wilson) and Luke (Matt Day) get their HSC results.  And in the series final of All Together Now (Nine), while planning a traditional Christmas celebration the Rivers household is visited by a very pregnant woman and her husband (played by Maryanne Fahey and husband Ian McFadyen) on Christmas Eve who are stranded with no accommodation – a coincidence not lost on Bobby (Jon English).  The episode also features a guest appearance by Robert Grubb (The Flying Doctors).

Wednesday:  In the lead up to World AIDS Day, Ita Buttrose introduces the US special Common Threads – Stories From The Quilt (ABC), the story of five people who have died from AIDS.  Their names have been commemorated in five panels of an ever-growing quilt that now covers 14 acres.

Thursday:  Seven begins four days of coverage of the Australian Open golf, with commentators Sandy Roberts, Jack Newton and Pat Welsh.  Nine’s Midday With Ray Martin presents its final episode for 1991 with a two-hour special.  In The Flying Doctors (Nine), a bus load of Japanese tourists arrive in Coopers Crossing and the locals’ reaction varies from enthusiastic to racist.

Friday:  Nine’s daytime is dominated by the first day of the cricket First Test between Australia and India, live from the Gabba in Brisbane.  In the evening, Burke’s Backyard (Nine) presents its final edition for 1991.  Ten debuts US youth drama Beverly Hills 90210.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  23 November 1991.  Southdown Press

1991: October 19-25

Wandin Valley party
The Seven Network’s A Country Practice turns ten years old next month.  The planned celebration for cast, crew and media is to be held later this month in Sydney – but for three cast members it will also be a farewell party.  Gordon Piper, Syd Heylen and Matt Day are leaving the series, to be followed in the new year by Georgie Parker and John Tarrant.  But one cast member who has been there since day one is Shane Porteous (pictured, with Parker), who recalls a discussion early in the show’s run about its chances of lasting ten years.  “We talked about it, but quickly woke up to ourselves!” he says.  “The most amazing thing about celebrating 10 years is there are kids now in high school who cannot remember A Country Practice not being on TV!  It’s a feather in the cap of the formula.” 

Skipping back!
TV Week has visited the set of The New Adventures Of Skippy, the Nineties remake of the 1960s classic.  The series, being made at the Habitat Wildlife Park on the Gold Coast, stars Andrew Clarke (pictured), Fiona Shannon, Moya O’Sullivan, Kate McNeil, Simon James… and a new Skippy, although unlike the original this one does all her own stunts – no close-ups of fake stick-like paws that do anything from starting lawnmowers to cracking bank safes.  The New Adventures Of Skippy has already been pre-sold to the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, France and Italy.

Mummy dearest!
Production is underway on the fifth season of the ABC’s Mother And Son – and Ruth Cracknell is having a great time playing geriatric Maggie Beare.  “Never will I think twice about playing Maggie,” she told TV Week.  “Maggie is a character you slip back into pretty quickly.  The thing that makes the show a success is that you get a crowd around you while you’re filming – people who are just as rapt in the show.  They all come – it’s most extraordinary.  That level of interest will always be there as long as the scripts are kept to the standard they are now.”  One of the guest stars to feature in the latest series is former A Country Practice and E Street star Joan Sydney, who joins Maggie for a spot of gambling at the races.  “They have a wonderful day together and get stuck into the champagne,” says Cracknell.

Briefly…
Production is due to start in the new year on a third series of ABC’s Embassy, although this time around there will be a number of cast members missing.  Bryan Marshall, Nina Landis and Janet Andrewartha will not be appearing in the new episodes as producers give the show “a new direction”.

Former Home And Away and Hampton Court star Adam Willits has spoken of being “bashed” by British police when it was suspected he was breaking into the hotel he was staying at while on tour for the Home And Away musical.  “I couldn’t understand why they wanted to arrest me when I had the key in my hand.  They tried to cuff me and I resisted.  The police thought that the only way to get me in cuffs was to give me a few thwacks around the head,” he said.  “I never touched them.  I only tried to resist them putting the handcuffs on me.”  He was later released without being charged.   

Actor Cameron Daddo and fiancee Alison Brahe (pictured) have set a date for their wedding.  Engaged earlier this year, the pair are set to marry before Christmas.  They are currently living in Melbourne, where Daddo is working on the spin-off series from the Bony telemovie.  Model Brahe is set to start work soon on a new children’s show, Guess What?, to be produced for the Nine Network.

John Laws says…
”Did you notice that the sky hasn’t fallen in at SBS?  Did you notice the network hasn’t lost its credibility?  Did you notice that the SBS range of programs remains as diversified as ever?  I say this because it’s some months now since SBS began screening advertisements and we can all recall the prophets of doom who were predicting that SBS as we know it would be besmirched and changed forever – for the worst – if it accepted advertising.  The predictions, of course, were nonsense.  Advertising has been accepted into the SBS format with absolutely no problems.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, October 19-25):
Saturday:  ABC presents live coverage of the First Quarter-Final and Second Quarter-Final of the Rugby World Cup. 

Sunday:  Ten crosses to the Gold Coast for the Uncle Toby’s Ironman Super Series, while Nine crosses to Suzuka for the Japanese Grand Prix.  Sunday night movies are A View To A Kill (Seven), Ghostbusters II (Nine) and Dragnet (Ten).

Monday:  In A Country Practice (Seven), the strange behaviour of Matron Prior’s (Maureen Edwards) son conceals a mystery, and plumbers apprentice Grant Frazer (Rob Carlton) hides a personal problem – until it’s almost too late.  In Col’n Carpenter (Ten), Colin (Kim Gyngell) starts to doubt his own sanity and agrees to see a psychiatrist.

Tuesday:  In Chances (Nine), Alex’s (Jeremy Sims) loyalty and love for Paris (Annie Jones) is tested when her father makes an offer that Alex may not be able to refuse.  In Beyond 2000 (Seven), Maxine Gray reports on a drug which, when administered to addicts, triggers massive, rapid withdrawal that leaves their bodies opiate free.

Wednesday: In Hey Dad! (Seven), it’s council clean up day and Martin (Robert Hughes) rouses the troops to do their bit.

Thursday:  Test cricketer Merv Hughes makes a guest appearance in The Flying Doctors (Nine) as the Coopers Crossing Crusaders take on the Broken Hill Brumbies.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  19 October 1991.  Southdown Press