1990: September 1-7

Get me to the church on time…
The upcoming A Country Practice wedding between Lucy Gardiner (Georgie Parker) and Matt Tyler (John Tarrant) will continue Wandin Valley’s tradition of dramatic weddings.  “The problem is the parents,” Parker tells TV Week.  “And whether the ceremony is going to be held in an Anglican or Catholic church.  Matt’s father Gilbert (George Mallaby) is pompous and doesn’t think Matt is coping without good financial backing.  My parents are supposedly splitting up and my father Patrick (Jonathan Hardy) refuses to come because it’s not being held in a Catholic church.  My mother Lois (Jill Perryman) turns up without him.”  The lead-up to the wedding has also been marred by Lucy’s cancer scare and the couple’s house being burnt to the ground in recent episodes.  “Post-marriage is much calmer,” Parker hastily points out.

The Great Soap Shake-Up!
A number of key cast shake-ups are about to unsettle popular soaps Home And Away, A Country Practice and E Street, while cop drama Skirts is about to lose one cast member.  Julian McMahon and Sharyn Hodgson (pictured), who play Home And Away newlyweds Ben and Carly, are leaving the show over the coming months.  Their exit from Home And Away follows recent news that original cast member Adam Willits is about to leave the show – and Craig McLachlan is also planning to leave the show but will return for guest appearances during 1991.  James Davern, producer of Seven’s A Country Practice, has confirmed that the series is about to lose cast members Michael Muntz, Mary Regan and child actor Georgina Fisher.  Actors Muntz and Regan are leaving to pursue other opportunities, while the young Fisher is leaving after two years with the show.  “I spoke to her parents and two years are enough for a child actor,” Davern told TV Week.  Meanwhile, Network Ten’s E Street is about to lose cast members Paul Kelman and Lisbeth Kennelly, whose contracts have not been renewed.  Also tipped to be leaving E Street are Chelsea Brown and Rebecca Saunders.  And Skirts star Kate Gillick is leaving the police drama to return to the theatre.

Caught in the crossfire
Tragedy strikes Neighbours when Kerry Mangel (Linda Hartley, pictured, with Mark Little) is left fighting for her life after being accidentally shot while taking part in a duck-shooting protest.  “This storyline brings out the side of Kerry’s character that I’ve always liked the most,” Hartley tells TV Week.  “She has been in a very domestic situation lately, but no-one can forget their past.  I’m pleased the opportunity came up for her to be more forthright about things she cares about.”    

Briefly…
The Comedy Company producer Ian McFadyen (pictured) has admitted that the show’s return has been tougher than expected.  “We’ve obviously got a mandate to deliver a big audience pretty soon and that’s a lot of pressure to carry.  Our ratings are worse than I thought they would be.  60 Minutes has an enormous following – a very strong loyalty – and we’re working on that at the moment.”  Meanwhile, McFadyen’s other project, Mark Mitchell’s The Big Time, has been taken off air after a short time and is set to be re-worked.

Robbo’s World Tonight host Clive Robertson insists he couldn’t care less that his show is being beaten by Tonight Live With Steve Vizard in the ratings.  “If they don’t want my show after next March (when his contract runs out), that’s fine,” he told TV Week.  “I’ll do something else.  I wouldn’t mind going back to Seven or even the ABC.”  He also admits to not liking the name of his own show.  “”Robbo’ sounds a bit silly,” he says.  If he had his choice, he’d call it something like ‘The Final Word, With Mr Robertson’.

Denise Drysdale and Ernie Sigley have spoken to TV Week about their daytime show, In Melbourne Today.  “We really are like an old married couple,” Drysdale says.  “We can have a go at each other, and it’s all part of the fun.”  While Sigley says it is a battle to try and stay ahead of the gags that the studio crew have in store for them.  “They once blew up a chook on the set and scared the living daylights out of me,” he said.

John Laws says…
”SBS’ The Movie Show with David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz is certainly a reflection of two completely different personalities.  Pomeranz is bubbly, earnestly sincere and prone to gush the extremities of praise and criticism; Stratton is cool, laidback and possessed of both gentlemanly charm and viper-like attack.”

Program Highlights (September 1-7):
Saturday:  HSV7 starts its celebrity-led assault on the top-rating Hey Hey It’s Saturday with two new shows, Celebrity Family Feud and Celebrity Wheel Of Fortune.

Sunday:  With More Winners now finished up, ABC starts screening the original Winners series of children’s dramas that had originally screened on the Ten Network.  Tonight’s episode is The Other Facts Of Life starring Ken Talbot, Dennis Miller and Anne Grigg.  Sunday night movies are Stakeout (HSV7), Children Of A Lesser God (GTV9) and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (ATV10).

Monday:  Tonight Live With Steve Vizard (HSV7) starts a week of shows presented live from London.

Wednesday:  John Bach, Oliver Tobias, Rebecca Gilling and Peta Toppano star in ABC’s new mini-series The Paper Man, screening over three consecutive nights.  Australian Democrats politician Janine Haines is this week’s guest on Speaking For Myself (SBS).  HSV7 screens the long-awaited telemovie Bony, starring Cameron Daddo, Burnum Burnum, Catherine Oxenberg, David Reyne and Tom Richards.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  1 September 1990. Southdown Press.

1990: August 25-31

‘I could have given them a real pregnancy!’
Now back on the set of Home And Away after her brief honeymoon, Nicolle Dickson (pictured) has a tough workload ahead as Summer Bay’s Bobby Simpson faces death threats, a new romance and a baby on the way.  “I could have given them a real pregnancy,” the newlywed Dickson jokingly told TV Week, but is quick to point out that she and husband James aren’t planning a family.

The littlest star on the street
Ten’s E Street has welcomed a new cast member, and the show’s cast and crew and bending over backwards to make sure she is happy.  The new star is nine-week-old Madison Doyle who will play the part of Rachel Patchett, the new daughter of Megan and Chris (Lisbeth Kennelly and Paul Kelman).  The young Patchett arrives in less than ideal circumstances.  Megan’s cheering at the grand final between the Westside’s Kookas and The Royals turns into contractions and she gives birth in the Kookas’ change-rooms!

Saturday night fever!
The war is now on as the Seven Network takes a celebrity-laden attack against Nine’s popular Hey Hey It’s Saturday.  Celebrity Wheel Of Fortune and Celebrity Family Feud (with presenters Rob Brough, John Burgess and Adriana Xenides, pictured) are set to debut early in September.  But Hey Hey’s Daryl Somers isn’t too worried about the competition.  “The other networks have put shows up against us in the past but they couldn’t match us,” he told TV Week.  “In times of gloom and doom, people love to laugh – and that’s what Hey Hey does best.”  Somers also diffuses speculation that Jacki MacDonald is set to return to the show following some guest appearances when the show was recently taped in Brisbane.  “It is certainly wonderful to welcome back our beloved Jacki.  But it is just for these two shows.  We have all missed her, and the door is always welcome for her to come back.”

Effie’s hair-raising new role!
Acropolis Now’s Nick Giannopoulos and Mary Coustas have signed a deal to pilot a sitcom set in a hairdressing salon.  The pilot, likely to go into production after the current series of Acropolis Now is completed, has the working title Effie.  The project is being funded by Crawford Productions for the Seven Network.  “The idea is that Effie works in a salon called ‘Hairazors’,” Giannopoulos told TV Week.  “The series will take a look at her adventures in the salon and her problems with the other kooky characters who work there.”  At this stage Coustas, who also stars in Seven’s police drama Skirts, is the only definite cast member.

Deafness Awareness Week
A record 14.5 hours of television programs with Supertext subtitles will be broadcast by the Nine Network during Deafness Awareness Week.  The network will be offering Supertext subtitles on Our World, Sale Of The Century, The Flying Doctors, Burke’s Backyard and Graham Kennedy’s Funniest Home Video Show, US series The Cosby Show, Murphy Brown, Growing Pains and Night Court, and selected movies.  ABC’s late night news bulletin will also start carrying Supertext subtitles from this week.

Briefly…
Only a year into his three-year contract, TV Week Gold Logie winner Craig McLachlan (pictured) is looking to wind back his role in Seven’s Home And Away in 1991 as the actor is struggling to juggle both acting and singing careers.  McLachlan has been allowed breaks from the series to promote his recording career but Seven is said to be less than pleased with singing taking a higher priority.  The relationship between Seven and McLachlan has also been tested with the star withdrawing from his commitment to co-host Seven’s Sydney telethon for the Royal Alexandra Hospital For Children and the Children’s Medical Research Foundation.

Burke’s Backyard host Don Burke is keen to sell the top-rating Nine Network show overseas.  He has already had interest from Japan in buying the show but with the show’s demanding schedule as well as presenting his own gardening show on Sydney’s 2UE, he admits the time just isn’t there yet to discuss the options.

Former Uncanny X-Men lead singer Brian Mannix (pictured) was thrilled when he scored a guest role in the Seven Network’s Skirts – more so when he heard he was playing a drunk!  “I’ve been drunk for years,” he said.   After Skirts, Mannix is set to release his own solo album and will also be making a guest appearance in SBS’ English At Work series.

John Laws says…
”It’s disappointing to see that Mark Mitchell’s ambitious show, The Big Time, failed to attract significant ratings and be put on hold.  In The Big Time, Mitchell plays himself and it seems that as far as the viewers are concerned they don’t consider this much a humorous ploy.  Anyway, this is not the end of the world for Mark Mitchell, because he has a superb comedy talent.  What he must do is come to terms with the fact that he is always going to be more successful by creating characters such as Con The Fruiterer and his missus and that it’s no failure at all to remain in that form of comedy.”

Program Highlights (August 26-31):
Saturday:  ATV10 screens The Wall – Berlin 1990 Concert, a two-hour music spectacular featuring some of the world’s best known rock stars performing with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra in the shadow of the infamous Berlin Wall, now fallen.

Sunday:  HSV7 begins screening the children’s series Round The Twist, originally shown on ABC, starring Tamsin West, Sam Vanderberg, Richard Moir and Bunney Brooke.  ABC’s Sunday morning World Of Worship presents A Mass For The Deaf, from the Ephpheta Centre in Sydney, to commemorate Deafness Awareness Week.  Sunday night movies are The Witches Of Eastwick (GTV9) and Die Hard (ATV10).  HSV7 debuts the two-part US mini-series I Know My First Name Is Steven, based on the real-life story of Steven Staynor who was kidnapped as a seven-year-old in 1972 and was held captive for seven years.

Tuesday:  Beyond 2000 (HSV7) presents a 90-minute special edition, 20th Century Syndrome, looking at some aspects of our modern-day lifestyles and whether they are actually killing us.  This is followed by a 90-minute edition of Tonight Live With Steve Vizard.  Heather Mitchell and Vince Martin guest star in ABC’s GP.

Wednesday:  Kim Beazley is the special guest in this week’s Speaking For Myself on SBS.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  25 August 1990. Southdown Press.

1990: July 21-27

Hey Sister!
While 18-year-old Beth Buchanan prepares to move into TV’s most famous neighbourhood, her older sister, Simone, is looking forward to moving on from TV’s most famous Aussie family.  After more than five years in the role of Debbie Kelly, there are strong hints that Simone will not be renewing her contract with Hey Dad! beyond September.  And the younger Buchanan is now settling into her new role as Gemma Ramsay in Neighbours, although despite her youth she is already a veteran of the small screen – with stints in Hey Dad!, A Country Practice, Home And Away and the mini-series The Last Frontier.  And the two sisters (pictured) have inevitably copped comparisons to those other famous sisters, Kylie and Dannii Minogue.  “Please don’t compare us to them,” Simone tells TV Week.  “Everyone seems to be asking if we’re the next Kylie and Dannii – we’re not!”

New kids on the beach
Home And Away is about to welcome two new foster children.  Karen and Blake Dean, played by Belinda Jarrett and Les Hill, come into Summer Bay as foster children to Alf and Ailsa Stewart (Ray Meagher and Judy Nunn) after the death of their mother from cancer.  “It’s a dream come true,” Jarrett told TV Week.  “I’m a huge Home And Away fan.  I usually wolf my dinner down so I don’t miss an episode.  It’s amazing to think I’m now a part of the all the goings-on taking place in Summer Bay.”  While Jarrett has had no prior television experience, Hill has had some appearances in the ABC medical drama GP.  “The thing I’m finding most daunting about working on Home And Away is the pace of the production,” he says.  “It’s fast but I’m enjoying the challenge.”

‘In the morning we always wrap our arms around each other’
Val Jellay talks about life after thirty years of marriage to Maurie Fields – a partnership that began in the days of vaudeville and later followed into television when the pair were a hit on the variety show Sunnyside Up, and they’ve rarely been out of work since – with both currently appearing as husband and wife in The Flying Doctors.  Despite the busy and demanding schedules that the industry can demand, the pair have rarely spent more than two days apart.  “We’ve never tired of each other,” Jellay tells TV Week.  “Maurie is easy to live with and has a placid nature.  When we’re doing a scene together, I can stare him in the eyes and the tears just come.  In the morning we always wrap our arms around each other, like it’s our first day.” 

Briefly…
Actor Kim Gyngell, best known as Col’n Carpenter, is set to shatter the image of the “lovable dag” with his role in the new movie, Heaven Tonight, in which he co-stars with John Waters, Rebecca Gilling and Guy Pearce.  Gyngell plays Baz Shultz, a former rock star whose life has been affected by drugs. 

Neighbours’ producers aren’t saying much, but it seems that the show is set to have its most celebrated wedding since Scott and Charlene (Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue), with ‘Bouncer’ and ‘Rosie’ set to become television’s first canine couple.

Half A World Away is a lavish mini-series being produced for ABC for airing next year.  The series is based on the 1934 Great Air Race, in which millionaire “Mac” Robinson put up a fortune in prize money for the fastest plane from London to Melbourne.  The series has an impressive cast including Caroline Goodall, Gosia Dobrowska, Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell, Gary Day, Johnathan Hyde and American actors Barry Bostwick and Helen Slater.

John Laws says…
”Recent audience research figures suggest that comedy and games shows are continuing to win satisfying ratings for all networks.  I guess it’s a sign of our rather desperate financial times that viewers are more and more seeking light relief to escape the pain and problems of everyday life.  There are a number of highly successful shows around right now, and it’s pleasing that local comedies like Hey Dad! are attracting the sort of healthy ratings that make worth while all the effort that goes into them.”

Program Highlights (July 21-27):
Saturday:  ABC presents highlights of the first day’s competition from the 1990 Goodwill Games, being held in Seattle, USA.  ABC will present an hour of highlights in the early evening on each day of competition as well as a further hour later in the night.

Sunday:  Sunday night movies are Overboard (HSV7) and Bull Durham (ATV10).  GTV9 presents the first of a two-part mini-series, Dress Gray, and ABC debuts mini-series Mussolini And I, featuring Bob Hoskins, Anthony Hopkins and Susan Sarandon.

Monday:  Mark Mitchell launches his new comedy series, The Big Time (ATV10), featuring his family in real-life situations while he dreams he is a late-night TV show host.

Tuesday: In Beyond 2000 (HSV7), reporter Amanda Keller visits the US where there has been some success with a vaccine used to treat a similar disease as AIDS.  ATV10 presents a one-hour special edition of Candid Camera On Australia with Tony Murphy.  This week’s GP episode, The Very Long Goodbye, tells the story of a patient with a brain tumour, told he has six months to live, going on a last wild binge – then discovers that the diagnosis was wrong.  The episode guest stars George Spartels.

Wednesday:  Noni Hazlehurst (pictured), Deidre Rubenstein and Tony Barry star in the documentary-drama Breaking Through (ABC), focusing on the real-life case of Cathy Ann Matthews and her frightening and painful childhood.  The physical, emotional and sexual abuse perpetrated by her father was so distressing that she shut it out of her conscious mind for over 40 years.  Hazlehurst also appears in the mini-series The Shiralee, starring Bryan Brown, Rebecca Smart, which begins a re-run on HSV7.

Thursday:  In E Street (ATV10), the wedding between Abby (Chelsea Brown) and Ernie (Vic Rooney) does not go off without a hitch.  Bob (Tony Martin) has a plan to patch things up with Elly (Penny Cook) once and for all.

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

1990: July 7-13

Cover: Sharyn Hodgson, Julian McMahon (Home And Away)

Confrontation!
The Ten Network’s long-awaited return of The Comedy Company is about to hit screens as the ratings underdog up against Nine’s 60 Minutes.  “I don’t think it will be that hard to make up lost ground on 60 Minutes,” producer Ian McFadyen told TV Week.  The revamped comedy hour promises not to be “more of the same” according to McFadyen.  A number of new cast members have been added to the show – including Geoff Paine (Neighbours), Tracy Harvey (The Gillies Report), Melanie Salomon (E Street) and stage performers Alix Longman and Bernadette Robinson – alongside familiar names Maryanne Fahey, Peter Rowsthorn, Russell Gilbert and Mark Mitchell.  Meanwhile, Mitchell’s own comedy series, Larger Than Life, is to be replaced by a new series called The Big Time, featuring Mitchell and wife Di and sons Rhys and Lewis.

New doors open for ‘Ding Dong’
The Nine Network’s Hey Hey It’s Saturday celebrates its 20th anniversary next year but there is speculation that former co-host Jacki MacDonald, and not Denise Drysdale (pictured), will be there for the milestone.  “I heard a rumour that Jacki is coming back,” Drysdale told TV Week.  “If they asked me back, I’d be there, but that’s not up to me.  It’s in the laps of the gods.”  Meanwhile, Drysdale has hired Glenn Wheatley as her manager.  Wheatley has signed a two-year deal with Ronson Australia for Drysdale to promote its products in store appearances and television commercials.  She is also keen to pursue a dream role in a TV sitcom.  “I have a concept and I’m working with a scriptwriter now,” she says.  “We’ve written only bits and pieces so far but I’d like to see a pilot by the end of the year.”  Meanwhile, Drysdale has spoken out about the reported rift between her and Hey Hey It’s Saturday host Daryl Somers.  “Yes, it hurt and I think it’s detrimental to the show.  Even if it’s true, the viewing audience don’t want to know if there’s a problem.  I won’t speak out about it.  What can I say?  People make up their own minds.  I am loud.  Jacki wasn’t a loud person, so I think it was hard for everyone else.  I been lucky to be here a year.  I was lucky Jacki wanted to have a baby.  I would still have had In Melbourne Today (with Ernie Sigley) but I wouldn’t have had all these doors that have opened now.”

Jennifer Keyte’s a working girl!
The Seven Network’s Melbourne-based newsreader Jennifer Keyte (pictured) has admitted that reading the channel’s main 6.00pm news bulletin and appearing on the late-night show Tonight Live With Steve Vizard has taken its toll on her personal life.  “My only social time is on weekends,” she told TV Week.  “It’s the only opportunity I have to catch up with my friends.  By the time I get home after Tonight Live, take the make-up off and have a cup of Milo, I hit the sack very easily.”  But Keyte is not complaining about the long hours that both TV roles are demanding.  “I’m very happy with the way things are going.  When I started on Tonight Live, I made sure everyone was aware of my priority – the 6.00pm news.  With any news, credibility must be maintained and if that didn’t happen I’d have to reassess my involvement with the show.  But I think the two shows enhance each other.”

Briefly…
Actress Sarah Chadwick has made a sudden decision to leave the popular ABC drama GP.  “GP is my first big role since leaving NIDA,” she told TV Week.  “Consequently I’ve had little chance to do anything else.  I just feel that now, after a year, it’s time to move on.”  Chadwick’s character, Dr Catherine Mitchell, will be written out of the show but does leave the door open for her to return.  Meanwhile, Cameron Daddo has signed up for a brief ongoing role in the show.

Home And Away star Nana Coburn (the daughter of co-star Norman Coburn) has taped her last scenes for the show and is about to head off to Fiji to begin filming on a new international project, the sequel to the hit movie The Blue Lagoon.

Two of Australia’s best known actors, Neighbours’ Anne Charleston and The Flying Doctors’ Andrew McFarlane, are among the stars to appear on stage in the Victorian Arts Centre’s production of Love Letters.  Also starring in the production are Terry Norris and wife Julia Blake, Lewis Fiander and Peta Toppano.

John Laws says…
”Well, advertising has arrived on SBS, thanks to the World Cup.  And, no, the earth didn’t move.  The nation’s morals were not placed in peril.  Television standards were not lowered.  Of course not.  SBS’ initial foray into “corporate advertising” was very nicely done.  Nothing over the top and nothing that interfered with the station’s excellent coverage of the international soccerfest.”

Program Highlights (July 7-13):
Sunday:  The final stages of the World Cup starting at 3.30am with the playoff for third and fourth place, live on SBS and ABC regionals.  HSV7’s Sunday afternoon AFL features Sydney Swans versus Carlton, and ATV10 crosses to Sydney for rugby league with the State Bank Big Game.  Gary Sweet, Bruno Lawrence and Penne Hackforth-Jones star in Boy Soldiers, the second in the More Winners series of children’s dramas on ABC.  Sunday night movies are Under Siege (HSV7), Vibes (GTV9) and Back To The Future (ATV10).

Monday:  The final of the World Cup is telecast from 3.30am on SBS and ABC regionals, with SBS repeating the match at 7.00pm.  At 2.30pm, ATV10 starts a re-run of its popular 1980s drama Carson’s Law, set in Melbourne in the 1920s and starring Lorraine Bayly.  That night, ATV10 begins a re-run of the four-part mini-series, The Dirtwater Dynasty, starring Hugo Weaving.

Tuesday:  In A Country Practice (HSV7), Terence (Shane Porteous) operates on Lucy (Georgie Parker) and confirms her worst fears.  In GP (ABC), Dr Catherine Mitchell (Sarah Chadwick) faces the tragedy of losing her baby.

Thursday:  A bushfire breaks out in The Flying Doctors (GTV9), and Coopers Crossing is threatened.  Dr Ratcliffe (Brett Climo) and Dr Standish (Robert Grubb) find themselves battling the fire.

Friday:  Dennis Cometti, Sandy Roberts and Ross Glendinning head HSV7’s coverage of AFL, West Coast Eagles versus St Kilda, live from Subiaco.

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