1991: June 8-14

How Jo beat the office blues
Sale Of The Century’s new co-host Jo Bailey (pictured) is collecting a larger pay packet than most 21-year-olds, but the former accountant insists she isn’t in this business for the money and could earn as much in the long term by returning to her accounting-marketing career.  “Getting involved in television has definitely nothing to do with the money,” she told TV Week.  “I know people say this all the time, but job satisfaction is far more important to me.  I just didn’t like working with numbers.  I’ve never stayed at anything I haven’t liked and I don’t believe you should dwell on things.  It was a simple decision.  I wasn’t happy.”

Greg chalks up a score
Blind Date host Greg Evans (pictured) says he’s learnt some valuable lessons in his 20-year showbusiness career.  Evans, who celebrated the 20-year milestone recently, says he’ll never be motivated by money again.  Starting in radio at country station 3CS, Evans went on to become a ratings hit with Melbourne’s 3XY and then a national celebrity as host of Ten’s top-rating Perfect Match. He was wooed across to rival network Nine in a deal that he says was too good to knock back but resulted in a less than fruitful run as host of some fairly ordinary game shows, Say G’Day and Crossfire, before returning to Perfect Match.  “Perhaps I should never have left (Perfect Match),” he told TV Week. “But at the time, it seemed that no one in their right mind would have rejected Nine’s offer.  They were ‘the cheque book days’… but I don’t blame Nine for anything.  You live and learn and I’ll never be motivated by money again.  Luckily, I was saved by (returning to) Perfect Match.”  The show was axed late in 1989 but was reinstated this year as Blind Date.

Craig goes to war
Craig McLachlan (pictured) has talked to TV Week about filming for the upcoming Seven Network mini-series Heroes 2 – The Return.  “It’s been an amazing experience for me,” he said.  “Before we started filming, we all had military training to get used to the conditions.  But no-one was prepared for this!”  For McLachlan, “this” included several days shooting in a rain-sodden, leech-infested forest, being attacked by sandflies and surrounded by fruit bats.  “The locations turned into hellholes for us make-believe soldiers.  The worst part other than the leeches and the rain was the sandflies.”  The $6.5 million production, also starring John Bach, Christopher Morsley, Wayne Kermond, Brendon Lunney, Miranda Otto and Anne Louise Lambert, is expected to be shown in the UK around Christmas and in Australia early in the new year.

Briefly…
Comedienne and Fast Forward star Jane Turner (pictured) says it’s not always funny being a diplomat’s wife… especially when husband John Denton had been posted to the Australian Embassy in Baghdad, three months before the Gulf War.  When the Allied bombing of Baghdad seemed certain, Turner was “worried, but not terrified”.  “I know what a diplomatic life is like,” she told TV Week.  “John loves it – it’s his life.  He was calling and reassuring me everything was all right.  Maybe I had more cause to be worried!”.  Denton was one of the last three Australians to flee the war-torn city.

Former Sale Of The Century co-host Alyce Platt is loving her new role as wildlife ranger Christina Gurney in Seven’s new series Animal Park.  “The biggest thing that sold me on this role is that it is as far away from Alyce Platt on Sale Of The Century as possible.  That was important.  My wardrobe (now) is King Gee shorts, big green shirts, thick socks, big boots and no make-up,” she told TV Week.

After four years away from the series, Tom Oliver is set to return to Neighbours later this year.  It is expected that he will reprise his former character of used-car salesman Lou Carpenter, an old boyfriend of Madge Bishop (Anne Charleston), although this has not yet been confirmed.  His return stint is expected to be for four weeks.

The industry rumour mill is buzzing with speculation over a possible relationship between ABC host Andrew Denton and recently-separated 60 Minutes reporter Jennifer Byrne.     

Actor Peter Kowitz, recently featured in the Nine Network mini-series Ring Of Scorpio, is joining the cast of Chances.  He will play Steven Harland, a government minister who is something of a thorn in the side of his party.

John Laws says…
”The test of any TV current affairs program is how well it can react to major news stories, national or international.  This “big news” scenario confronted the TV networks after the recent assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.  The circumstances of his death – a hideous bomb attack – gave the story a striking impetus.  So who came out on tops in the follow-up coverage?  Jana Wendt’s A Current Affair gave the slaying a brief coverage, but it was really left to SBS’ Dateline and Kerry O’Brien’s Lateline on ABC to probe deeply and convincingly.  I thought SBS came out slightly ahead.  Dateline also had it over Lateline by screening at 8.00pm against Lateline’s 10.30pm.  I’ve said it before in this column that Dateline (and, as it was, Tonight) is a significant force in TV current affairs viewing.  I doubt it has a spectacular following but it certainly deserves a wider audience.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, June 8-14):
Saturday:  Andrew Daddo (pictured), Daryl Braithwaite, Jesus Jones and Tracie Spencer are among the guests this week on Hey Hey It’s Saturday (Nine).

Sunday:  Seven’s AFL coverage begins with the afternoon match between Brisbane Bears and West Coast Eagles, live from Carrara, Brisbane – then crossing to Adelaide for live coverage of the early evening match between Adelaide Crows and Fitzroy.  Sunday night movies are Willow (Seven), Funny Farm (Nine) and The Poseidon Adventure (Ten).

Tuesday:  In A Country Practice (Seven), Luke (Matt Day) is confronted with tragedy after being slipped an hallucinogenic drug.  In All Together Now (Nine), Wayne (Bruno Lucia) sells the rights to Bobby’s (Jon English) memoirs and persuades him to write an autobiography.

Wednesday:  Nine presents a late-night delayed telecast of the rugby league State Of Origin match between New South Wales and Queensland.  The coverage is hosted by Ken Sutcliffe with commentary by Darrell Eastlake, Peter Sterling and Ray Warren.

Thursday:  In E Street (Ten), Harley’s (Malcolm Kennard) drug dependency gets him in hot water.  In The Flying Doctors (Nine), the townsfolk are stunned when Dr Guy Reid’s (David Reyne) fiancee arrives unannounced to take him back to civilisation.

Friday:  Seven crosses to Perth for live coverage of the AFL match between West Coast Eagles and Footscray. 

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  8 June 1991.  Southdown Press

1991: January 26-February 1

Cover: Nicole Kidman

Here comes the bride…
Many soaps have given their ratings a boost by holding a wedding.  The Nine Network’s new series Chances is starting with one!  The adults-only drama kicks off with a wedding between David Young (Rodney Bell) and Rebecca Taylor (Natalie McCurry).  “Chances has great possibilities,” Bell told TV Week.  “It’s aimed at a more mature audience and packs a good punch!”  Bell is no newcomer to television, having started in showbiz at the age of four and later appearing in TV soaps The Restless Years and The Young Doctors.  McCurry, 24, began modelling at 14 and later appeared in TV and film roles before coming fifth in the Miss World contest, winning the Miss Oceania title.  Chances, which debuts this week on Nine, also stars John Sheerin, Brenda Addie, Jeremy Sims, Cathy Godbold, Rhys Muldoon, Simon Grey, Tim Robertson, Deborah Kennedy, Marcia Deane-Johns, Anne Grigg and Leverne McDonnell.

Andrew graduates to Wandin Valley
NIDA graduate Andrew Blackman has joined the cast of A Country Practice as Wandin Valley’s new doctor, Dr Harry Morrison.  “I am very excited and looking forward to working with one of the most experienced casts in TV today.  As yet I know little about the character, except that he comes from the Queensland bush.  However, being a country boy myself from Queensland, I don’t feel that Harry is too far away from myself,” Blackman told TV Week.  He will make his on screen debut in April.

Mighty minis
Voting continues for the 1991 TV Week Logie Awards.  Which mini-series or telemovies of 1990 will viewers vote for Most Popular Mini-Series?  ABC presented the popular Come In Spinner, starring Kerry Armstrong, Lisa Harrow and Rebecca Gibney, and The Paper Man, starring John Bach, Peta Toppano and Rebecca Gilling.  Network Ten’s Shadows Of The Heart, starring Marcus Graham, Jason Donovan, Colleen Hewett and Robyn Nevin, was a ratings winner.  Nine presented the action-filled Ring Of Scorpio and bawdy The Private War Of Lucinda Smith (starring Linda Cropper and Nigel Havers, pictured).  Seven produced the controversial Jackaroo, starring former Neighbours star Annie Jones, telling the story of a relationship between a part-Aboriginal man and a spoilt white girl from the city.  Seven also produced All The Rivers Run II, starring John Waters and Nikki Coghill.

Briefly…
Newlywed Aussie actor Peter O’Brien has had to leave his bride, actress Jo Riding, in the UK as he has returned home to discuss future work projects.  The pair met when they were starring in the stage production of The Wizard Of Oz.  O’Brien is set to appear in a new Australian-US film production, The Diamond Triad, while Riding is currently on stage in Around The World In Eighty Days.

Lawrie Masterson’s Sound Off
”For someone who used to have such a high profile, Don Lane’s comeback to television last year was low key to the point of being almost unheralded.  The man who once was undisputed king of prime-time variety (remember prime-time variety?) turned up without fanfare on the ABC, hosting replays of American football in a late-night slot which could hardly be called prime.”

Program Highlights (January 26-February 1):
Saturday:  Australia Day is commemorated with golf (The Vines Classic) on ABC, tennis (Ford Australian Open) on Seven, and cricket (Fourth Test) on Nine.  Although Nine had earlier crossed to Admiralty House for the presentation of Australia Day Honours and an address by Prime Minister Bob Hawke.  After ABC News, the national broadcaster presented the Governor-General’s Australia Day Message followed by The Very Best Of Aunty Jack, the mockumentary Barbakiueria and the 1940 Australian movie classic Dad Rudd MP.  Seven presents live coverage of the Australasian Country Music Awards.

Sunday:  The Women’s Doubles Final and Men’s Singles Final mark the final day of the Ford Australian Open on Seven.  Sunday night movies are Barracuda (Seven), Murphy’s Romance (Nine) and Attack Force Z (Ten).  ABC presents the Bolshoi Ballet as its Sunday Stereo Special, followed by highlights of the annual Montsalvat Jazz Festival held in Melbourne.

Monday:  Don Lane presents ABC’s live coverage of the 25th NFL Superbowl, played in Tampa, Florida. 

Tuesday:  The premiere of Nine’s new adults-only drama Chances (starring Natalie McCurry, pictured), telling the story of an ordinary suburban family whose lives are changed when they win a lottery.  ABC’s Lateline with Kerry O’Brien returns for 1991, followed by a repeat screening of the NFL Superbowl from the previous day.

Friday:  Seven crosses to Perth for live coverage of the Davis Cup, Australia versus Belgium.  Also in Perth is the cricket Fifth Test which begins today on Nine.  Nine’s late-night MTV, hosted by Richard Wilkins, returns for 1991.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide. 26 January 1991. Southdown Press.

1990: November 3-9

The year of living famously!
Former The Flying Doctors star Rebecca Gibney (pictured) reflects on a hectic year since leaving the popular Nine Network drama.  She starred earlier this year in the ABC mini-series Come In Spinner – a role which won her an AFI award recently – and has recently appeared in Nine’s mini-series Ring Of Scorpio.  Gibney has also completed a special for World Vision and is starring opposite Jon English in an upcoming series, with the working title Rhythm And Blues, which is set to debut in the new year.  “I have to keep reminding myself how fortunate I am,” Gibney tells TV Week.  “Some people tend to get caught up in the hype of the business and think they’re indispensible, but they’re not, nobody is.  I’ve been very lucky.”

Julie spins into new sitcom!
The Seven Network and Gary Reilly Productions are trying to keep it under wraps, but Hey Dad! actress Julie McGregor is set to star in a spin-off to the popular sitcom.  A pilot for a new sitcom, Hampton House, was taped at Seven’s Sydney studios recently.  The new series is set around a group of young people who have left home to move into a share house.  Former Home And Away star Adam Willits is believed to also be a contender for a role in the series should it get the green light.

E Street goes for the matron
Former A Country Practice star Joan Sydney (pictured), who recently declined an offer to return to the popular series, is believed to be joining the cast of E Street.  The popular actress is set to play the role of Mary Patchett, a British cousin of Aunty Vi (Bunney Brooke).  But producer Forrest Redlich, a former producer for A Country Practice, is stopping short of confirming Sydney for the role.  “I have enormous respect for Joan,” he told TV Week.  “If she appeared in this new role it would be for quite a long run.”  Sydney joining the show would also reunite her with former A Country Practice cast members Penny Cook and Kate Raison.

Briefly…
Network Ten racecaller Dan Mielicki, 21, is set to call this year’s Melbourne Cup for the network after making history last year as the youngest to have ever called the famous race.

Hey Dad! star Robert Hughes and former Family And Friends star Ross Newton are guest stars in this week’s episode of GP.  Hughes, currently on a four-month break from Hey Dad!, plays the husband of a woman stricken by multiple sclerosis (MS).  The episode is scheduled to coincide with national MS week.

Some of the great names in showbusiness – including Mike Walsh, Gwen Plumb, John Ewart, Ron Shand, Jeanne Little, Nancye Hayes and Elaine Lee – gathered in Sydney recently for the launch of showbiz veteran Toni Lamond’s autobiography, First Half.  Lamond (pictured, with former TV Week Gold Logie winner Hazel Phillips), a veteran of early variety shows including In Melbourne Tonight, is currently starring in the Sydney production of 42nd Street and recently starred in the ABC telemovie How Wonderful.

Seven Network host Derryn Hinch has predicted his exit from radio station 3AW.  The station’s former top-rating morning presenter currently presents a daily ten-minute commentary piece as well as a weekly interview program, Hinch The Other Side.  But Hinch says that the station is headed for a cost-cutting purge and that his $100,000 a year price tag (plus $25,000 for a landline to his home) will be too much for the station to afford.  “I’d like to be here,” he told station presenter Neil Mitchell.  “But I betcha I won’t be.  They can’t afford me.”

Lawrie Masterson’s Sound Off
”I remember vividly the first time I met the man who now has the toughest and most unenviable job in Australian television – chief executive of Network Ten.  It was, ahem, years ago and I was working for a once great Melbourne newspaper and Gary Rice was manager of BTV6 in Ballarat.  I was dispatched to Ballarat to compile a story on a locally-produced tonight show, which had been running for yonks.  Rice turned out to be not only a most obliging station manager, but was also the saxophonist in the tonight show’s resident band.  Between numbers he would down his sax, leap out of the band set and operate a boom mike!  Versatile and not afraid of hard work… he’s going to need an abundance of those qualities and more now as he wrestles with a network which doesn’t just have mind-boggling debts.  Ten also has a huge problem with public image, or lack of it.  Ten’s comedies are struggling and its old faithfuls – notably Neighbours – are showing signs of wear and tear.  Ten does have rights to some new product which has been successful in the US – such as Twin Peaks and The Simpsons – but experience with shows such as Roseanne and Thirtysomething is proof enough that what Americans love doesn’t necessarily grab Australians.”

Program Highlights (November 3-9):
Saturday:  ATV10’s coverage of the Melbourne Cup Carnival starts with Derby Day with coverage starting at 12pm and continuing through to 5.30pm.  Then the channel’s Saturday night movie is Archer, starring Brett Climo, Robert Coleby and Nicole Kidman, telling the story of the first ever Melbourne Cup winner when the race was first run in 1861.

Sunday:  GTV9 crosses to Adelaide for the Australian Formula One Grand Prix, starting at 11am, hosted by Ken Sutcliffe with commentators Alan Jones, Jackie Stewart, Murray Walker, James Hunt, Darrell Eastlake and Barry Sheene.  ABC’s Sunday Afternoon features a guest appearance by Helen Wellings.  Sunday night movies are Jekyll And Hyde (HSV7), Beetlejuice (GTV9) and Dominick And Eugene (ATV10).

Tuesday:  ATV10 crosses to Flemington for ‘the race that stops a nation’ – the Melbourne Cup.  The telecast, hosted by Tim Webster with racecaller Dan Mielicki, starts at 9.30am and continues through to 5.30pm.  Also featuring on Ten’s coverage are John Letts, Graeme Kelly, Peter Donegan, Gai Waterhouse and Bob Maumill, and morning ‘Til Ten host Joan McInnes presenting the fashion interviews.

Wednesday:  Former E Street star Marcus Graham is guest star in GTV9’s The Flying Doctors.

Thursday:  Another day of horse racing from Flemington with ATV10’s coverage of Oaks Day, starting at 12pm and continuing through to 5.30pm.

Friday:  The three commercial channels – HSV7, GTV9 and ATV10 – all participate in a simultaneous broadcast, Cartoon Allstars To The Rescue, which helps young children understand the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse.  The half-hour special, which attracted more than 33 million viewers when it aired in the US, features cartoon characters from rival companies.  The Australian screening of the program will be introduced by Prime Minister Bob Hawke.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide. 3 November 1990. Southdown Press.

1990: October 27-November 2

‘I cried and cried…’
The Flying Doctors’ Tammy McIntosh (pictured) fights back tears as she talks to TV Week about the episode of the Nine Network drama to go to air this week.  In this episode, Sister Annie Rogers (McIntosh) befriends abandoned 14-year-old Alex (Brendan Peel).  She helps him find his grandmother, who dies days later, leaving him alone.  Rogers fights to take responsibility for the teenager, but the Coopers Crossing doctors arrange for him to join a local family instead, leaving her shattered.  McIntosh spent her childhood in a series of foster homes, making it easy to relate to the boy’s situation.  “I didn’t consciously think about the story being too close to home, but I can see that now,” she told TV Week.  “The scene where we had to say goodbye, I cried and cried.  I just lost it.  It was real for me.”

E Street’s bad boy moves to Ramsay Street!
Richard Huggett, the E Street star whose character Sonny Bennett made a sudden exit from the series following the car bomb explosion, has signed up to Network Ten’s other soap, Neighbours.  Huggett (pictured) enters the long-running series as a mystery man who turns up claiming to be the long-lost son of Jim Robinson (Alan Dale). “I’ve been a bad boy for a long time,” Huggett told TV Week.  “So it will be an advantage to do something different.  I’m looking forward to playing a character who won’t be quite so dark as Sonny.”

BBC snaps up Aussie show
A new Australian children’s series which premieres on Nine this week has been bought by BBC for a record price.  The Girl From Tomorrow, a sci-fi series produced by Film Australia, stars Andrew Clarke, Katharine Cullen and Melissa Marshall, with guest appearances by Grant Dodwell, Miles Buchanan and John Howard.  Bruce Moir, managing director of Film Australia, declined to disclose the sum paid by BBC for the series, but confirms that it is a record.  “It was a major decision for Film Australia to branch into children’s drama and we are thrilled at having negotiated this highly-successful sale,” he told TV Week.  Moir says a sequel for the series is already in planning and that negotiations are taking place to sell the first series to countries other than the United Kingdom.

Briefly…
Singer-actress Kaarin Fairfax has taken on a surprise career move with the announcement that she has agreed to present a new science program, Catalyst, for ABC.  The six-part series is being shown in a daytime timeslot to capture the schools audience, and also features Fast Forward’s Mandy Salomon and Let The Blood Run Free’s Peter Rowsthorn.

ABC mini-series Come In Spinner has won a number of awards at the recent Australian Film Industry Awards presentation.  Actress Rebecca Gibney (pictured) won the award for best actress in a mini-series, while the series also won for Best Direction and Best Mini-series.  Frankie J Holden won the Best Actor award for his role in the ABC mini-series Police Crop.

Artists’ Services, the company which produces Fast Forward and Tonight Live With Steve Vizard, has signed a five-year development deal with the Seven Network.  The company, headed by Steve Vizard and Andrew Knight, is already planning a 13-part drama series and other projects include a sitcom.

John Laws says…
”Hosting an awards ceremony must be among the most difficult tasks any performer can be handed.  The fact is, it takes a special kind of showbiz skill to tread the line between keeping viewers interested and the TV professionals satisfied.  It’s to his credit, then, that Andrew Denton so ably managed the hosting of a major slice of the Australian Film Institute awards ceremony which screened on ABC.  Denton resisted any desire to score cheap points with “industry” jokes and, as a result, the awards night was able to flow along freely.”

Program Highlights (October 27-November 2):
Saturday:  GTV9 crosses to the Gabba, Brisbane, for the final of the FAI Insurance Cup cricket.  ABC’s Saturday afternoon sport includes English soccer and American NFL and NBA.  SBS presents a the first two hours of the repeat presentation of drama series Always Afternoon.

Sunday:  Alison Drower and Rob Duckworth host the two-hour National Rock Eisteddfod (GTV9), with judges Glenn A Baker and Angry Anderson.  ATV10 presents Remember When, featuring a look back at the pre-television years when Australians saw their news from movie newsreels.  Sunday night movies are Good Morning Vietnam (HSV7) and Mississippi Burning (ATV10).  GTV9 presents the premiere of mini-series Ring Of Scorpio, starring Catherine Oxenberg, Linda Cropper and Caroline Goodall (pictured).

Monday: In the comedy series Col’n Carpenter (ATV10), Colin (Kim Gyngell) wins a Queensland holiday for two.  Housemates Julie (Vikki Blanche) and Michael (Stig Wemyss) want to go with him.  GTV9 presents the conclusion to Ring Of Scorpio.

Tuesday:  In Beyond 2000 (HSV7), reporter Simon Reeve takes a ride in a flying boat, while Andrew Carroll meets a man who has predicted a major earthquake.

Wednesday:  In E Street (ATV10), the aftermath of the car bomb explosion that claimed the lives of Chris (Paul Kelman), Megan (Lisbeth Kennelly) and Abby (Chelsea Brown), has Dr Elly Fielding (Penny Cook) fighting for her life.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide. 27 October 1990. Southdown Press.

1990: June 16-22

Cover: Josephine Mitchell, Craig McLachlan (Home And Away)

Wog out of work!
The Seven Network’s hit comedy Acropolis Now is now entering production of its third series but it will be without one of its key cast members.  Simon Palomares, who plays Ricky, has decided not to appear in the third series and will focus on a behind the scenes role.  “I think it got to the point where there were a few reasons for leaving,” he told TV Week.  “The main reason is that I’ve been doing ethnic humour longer than any of the three of us.  I think I’ve said as much as I can say on the subject.  There are a lot of other issues I want to get into.”  Palomares is preparing a pilot for a new comedy-adventure series and is planning a one-man show to go on stage later in the year.

Rebecca careers on
Actress Rebecca Gibney hasn’t looked back since she left the Nine Network’s The Flying Doctors last year.  As soon as she left the show, Gibney took on the role of Guinea (pictured) in ABC’s Come In Spinner and has just completed a new mini-series, Ring Of Scorpio, for Nine.  She is now about to start in a new sitcom for Nine.  Rhythm And Blues will feature Gibney alongside Jon English, whose character is a ‘60s rock star who hasn’t come to terms with the ‘90s.  “I’ve never done comedy before,” she told TV Week.  “When I shot the pilot I was terrified because I’d never worked in front of a live audience before.  That was very daunting.”  The new series is set to debut later in the year.

New York, here I come!
Andrew Daddo (pictured), former co-host of ABC’s The Factory, has landed a job with the US cable network, MTV.  Daddo caught the eye of MTV producers when the network screened an episode of The Factory, as part of the channel’s regular screenings of music shows from around the world.  “They do it to borrow ideas, which is the norm, and apparently someone walked past and my fat head caught in their eye.  They rang MTV in Sydney to find my agent’s number and asked me to send over a showreel.  A week later I was on a plane to New York,” he told TV Week.  The plum job is a far cry from Daddo being overlooked as a host for ABC’s new Countdown Revolution when it was formed last year, instead he was offered only a minor role on the new show which he left after only six weeks on-air.  “I have no bad feelings for ABC.  It was just one of those things.  In fact, seeing what Countdown is now, maybe they did me a favour,” he says.

Briefly… 
Actress Katy Brinson (pictured) played a barrister in the Seven Network’s Rafferty’s Rules.  Now she is taking on a far different role in Seven’s new series Skirts, playing the role of an alcoholic writer who beats her daughter. 

Former Neighbours star Rachel Friend is to star in a comedy pilot being made for Network Ten.  The new series, Lipstick Dreams, is based on a theatre production that recently had a successful run in Sydney and features four women who work on a beauty parlour in a country town.

Neighbours star Linda Hartley, who is about to tape her final scenes for the Network Ten series, is shortly heading off to the UK to star in the touring stage production of Prisoner and has also scored a pantomime role in the UK.  She will appear in the production of Mother Goose, joining former Neighbours castmate Kristian Schmid.

John Laws says…
”If the legendary Monty Python team were still around today they could find plenty of material to ridicule in the ABC’s new series Let’s Do Lunch.  My own impression was that the whole idea for the program had been dreamed up at a long, boozy lunch.  Usually, in the sober light of the following morning, such alcohol-inspired ideas are seen for exactly what they are.  Not, apparently, in the case of Let’s Do Lunch.  Whatever its origins, its entire theme is predicated around two people gorging themselves with food and booze, at lunch.  Along the way, we are treated to the self-indulgence of ths host, Maurice Murphy (pictured), who roams around clutching a video camera taking pictures of himself.  At which, I suppose, we are all supposed to laugh uproariously.”

Program Highlights (June 16-22):
World Cup:  SBS continues its daily coverage of the FIFA World Cup from Italy, with live coverage of matches screened overnight and replays the following afternoon, followed by a 90-minute highlights package at 7.00pm.  ABC takes on SBS’ overnight match coverage for regional viewers who don’t have access to SBS and also presents a nightly one-hour highlights package on all ABC stations.

Saturday:  Legal drama Rafferty’s Rules returns with new episodes screening on HSV7.

Sunday:  In the lead up to the return of dance competition That’s Dancin’, ABC screens a replay of the 1989 series grand final, presented by Paul Newman and Maureen Delacy.  Sunday night movies are In The Line Of Duty: The FBI Murders (HSV7) and For Love Alone (ATV10).  GTV9 screens the first part of mini-series Passion And Paradise, with the second and final part screening the following night.

Tuesday:  In ABC’s medical drama GP, Cathy (Sarah Chadwick) finds out she is pregnant but her relationship with Jack (John O’Hare) hits rocky ground when his initial reaction to the news is less than enthusiastic.

Thursday: In The Flying Doctors (GTV9), a troubled young man finally his past to rest when a seven-year-old car wreck is found, and the mystery of his parents’ disappearance is solved. 

Friday:  In Neighbours (ATV10), Paul (Stefan Dennis) is shocked to discover the identity of Caroline’s (Gillian Blakeney) mystery date.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide. 
16 June 1990. Southdown Press.

1990: April 14-20

‘I didn’t think I would ever get married’
Home And Away star Nicolle Dickson (pictured, with co-star Craig McLachlan) is soon to walk down the aisle to marry her fiance James Bell, but confesses that she had never considered the thought of ever being married:  “It’s nothing I ever really thought about before now.  I’m very excited.  I didn’t think I would ever get married.”  The couple met at a party and they announced their engagement at Dickson’s recent 21st birthday celebration.  But despite her profile on Home And Away, which is enjoying success in Australia and the UK, the wedding is planned to be a simple affair. “I didn’t want it to become a circus like some other people’s weddings.  It’s important for us and it’s your private life, so you don’t want it to get out.  But it does, because you’re on TV.” 

Catherine doubles up Down Under
Former Dynasty star Catherine Oxenberg (pictured) has begun her second major project in Australia this year.  Having just completed production on the Seven Network telemovie Bony, Oxenberg has had a week at home in the US before returning to Australia to start on a new mini-series, Ring Of Scorpio, for the Nine Network.  The mini-series, also starring Rebecca Gibney, Caroline Goodall, Linda Cropper, Peter Kowitz and American actor Jack Scalia, is being filmed in Sydney, Spain and Morocco as it follows the story of three Australian women on holiday.  Ring Of Scorpio has already been sold to Paramount for international distribution and is expected to screen on Nine by the end of the year.

The fax about Graham!
Having announced that he would not be returning to host Coast To Coast this year, Graham Kennedy (pictured) stunned everyone when he subsequently announced he would be returning to TV to host a new weekly show, Graham Kennedy’s Funniest Home Video Show.  TV Week recently interviewed Kennedy, by fax of course, on his surprise return to TV.  “I stated that I would not return to nightly television in 1990,” he told TV Week.  “I didn’t say that I would not return to weekly television this year… I believe the life of this kind of program is very limited.  Even if it was a ratings success I doubt if it would go into a second series… I haven’t discovered yet the size of the emolument that the network has in mind.  I suppose it will be Terry Willesee’s old salary multiplied by 100, or some token fee like that.”

Clive Robertson courts death, goes to Nine
Former Newsworld presenter Clive Robertson had virtually retired when he left the show last year – but after a cancer scare for himself and two of his friends, he decided that life is too short to fritter away in retirement and has returned to TV in a new late-night show, The World Tonight, which replaces the recently-axed Coast To Coast on Nine. 

Briefly…
Actress Tracy Mann has been reluctant to commit to an ongoing TV series – her last such role was 16 years ago in the soapie The Box – but when she saw the scripts for Seven’s new police drama, Skirts, she changed her mind:  “I’ll do things I think are quality and this is a great role.  I liked the scripts – it ain’t no Cop Shop, that is for sure.”  The new series, set around the welfare-based Community Policing Squad, debuts this week in a two-hour episode on Seven before settling into its regular timeslot of 7.30pm Sundays.

Sale Of The Century hostess Alyce Platt (pictured) is about to return to television drama with a new role in the Nine Network series Family And Friends.  It will be her first dramatic role since leaving Sons And Daughters in 1985, and is hoped to give Family And Friends a much-needed ratings boost.  Her role as social worker Stephanie Collins is not expected to interfere with her weekly taping schedule for Sale Of The Century.

Terry Willesee, co-host of the ill-fated Live At 5 and Eye On Australia, is set to leave the Nine Network to take up a new role as co-host of Network Ten’s Good Morning Australia, alongside Kerri-Anne Kennerley.  Current GMA co-host Mike Gibson is stepping down from the show to concentrate on his Sydney-based current affairs program, Sydney With Mike Gibson.

Jill Ray, former host of children’s program Wombat, and her husband Michael are expecting her first child in late May.  The recent TV Week Logie award winner feels that after ten years in children’s television, she feels adequately prepared for the challenges of parenthood:  “I’m not scared of having a child of my own.  It’s the idea of being responsible for a little person’s future that weighs heavily on me.”

John Laws says…
”You could say a lot of things – glowing and critical – about the ABC’s recent two-part mini-series Come In Spinner.  At the very least you’d have to say it was a brave and mostly successful attempt at producing a quality piece of soap.  If nothing else, it confirmed that Rebecca Gibney (pictured) – when she is afforded the opportunity of a substantial role – is a fine actress.”

Program Highlights (April 14-20):
Saturday:  Actress Rowena Wallace presents a one-hour special, Some Of My Children, telling of her moving experiences in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Zambia and Cambodia.
Sunday:  Easter Sunday night movies are Lawrence Of Arabia (HSV7), The Last Wave (GTV9) and The Ten Commandments (ATV10) – the latter running from 7.30pm until almost midnight.
Monday:  Ray Warren, Stephen Phillips and Rob Gaylard host GTV9’s Wide World Of Sports coverage of the annual Stawell Gift foot race.
Tuesday:  In Beyond 2000 (HSV7), Andrew Carroll looks at Europe’s space shuttle escape capsule.  Simon Reeve discovers how a non-steroid muscle-building drug could be a major breakthrough in the treatment of MS.  Maxine Gray visits a musk deer farm to examine the latest efforts to save it from extinction.
Wednesday:  ABC presents Burrows, Ceberano And Morrison Plus Fireworks, a concert recorded on the bank of Adelaide’s Torrens River during the opening weekend of the Adelaide Festival.  HSV7 presents the two-hour series debut of its new police drama, Skirts, starring Tracy Mann (pictured), Nicholas Ball, Mary Coustas and Kate Gillick.
Thursday:  ATV10 screens the one-hour special Phar Lap: The Verdict, presented by Ian Leslie.  The special focuses on the trial, commissioned in late 1989, dealing with the question of who killed champion racehorse Phar Lap.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.    
14 April 1990. Southdown Press.