The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 50

THE GUIDE LllMr jjw iiiiiih iiiii QiydJ Much cputthb Ten network's now Ecno Ponf is rominfecent of oldfnvourito Homo end Away end tho now sho SO ficjpcU by Jiayin against it, writes rosin buvm I I A T- TV iy.l it SttemmmmmmammmmmtmmmmmmmmmmBmmeimmaim Above, Home and Away's Shannon (Isla Fisher) and Eric (Daniel Goddard); far left, Zac Brennan (Martin Henderson) and Dean Coman (Diarmid HeWenerich) from Echo Point, i i Two cafes. The Shed and Grumpy Barnard's Bakery, are the favoured meeting places, while the return of Daniel Blake is the town's greatest unresolved mystery. Holly Winton (played by Kimberley Davenport), Carol O'Connor (Roxanne Wilson), Dave Campbell (Tom Long), Frannie Loman (Rebecca Murphy) and Maurie Barnard (John Clayton) seem the best-drawn characters, but this is soap and anything goes. The main fault with Echo Point and it is likely to prove unforgivable is that it has been slotted in at 7 pm Monday to Friday, bang up against Home and A way. Both shows will initially suffer from this act of crass stupidity, while Sale of the Century could benefit enormously as the audience divides.

Holmes, who worked at Ten before Echo Point came on to the drawing board, wishes no ill upon his new rival, but there is no doubt Home and Away has been considerably strengthened to meet the challenge. Bootleg copies of Echo Point have been flying round rival networks since the final cut Even then it was not known what time the show would go to air. Home and Away will be tough to beat, though that is not to say it cannot be done. Ten is already tweaking away at Echo Point At least into being witnesses to the row. In another episode, the story required 44 scenes, an unusually high number.

"Young bodies are one thing," says Holmes. "You can shoot through muslin, you can shoot through rose-coloured filters, but in the end you have to have stories. "If the stories fail, it sets off the bullshit meter." one cast change has been ordered, with the cafe the target area as a major character is written out In some areas, Echo Point moves too fast Other story editors, for instance, would have strung out the drama of the pearl earclip in this week's episode. Some scenes are quite long, though none as lengthy as Holmes recently allowed in Home and Away, when actors Dianne Craig and Justin Rosniak played out a confrontation that lasted an unprecedented six minutes, SO seconds, taking an entire segment between commercial breaks, but gaining strong dramatic impact by the fact that others were trapped CCORDING to the come-on that Ten has been pump ing across its screens in recent weeks, Echo Point is one address, a million secrets'. There is the positive SHOW: Echo Point TIME: Ten, 7 pm DURATION: Half hour jrfc tffc JF.

809-811 PACIFIC HWY. CHATSWOOD (enr Brown St) PARKING AVAILABLE PHONE: 411 7948 411 3160 the vile headmaster. You won't miss Echo Point's black hat, because he's dressed from neck to toe in, well, black. That's Daniel Blake (Philip Gordon), once a suspected axe murderer (has somebody remembered Ten's own Street!) and still assumed guilty by the gossips. Home and Away has always been strong on warmth, light and shade.

So far, Echo Point is steeped in shade, though there is humour aimed at Maurie towards the end of the first week. Echo Point can improve from poor beginnings. It is, with the exception of some clumsily designed sets, well-filmed. It has a bountiful supply of those the industry calls pretties, the young spunks and dollies, each one bulging from their denim seams. An 18-strong core cast, headed by Martin Henderson as the rebellious but likable Mark Brennan, allows Ten to push the show in almost any direction it chooses.

Henderson has been brought in from New Zealand, where in 1993 he won Best Male Dramatic Performance in the NZ Television and Film Awards for his role in the country's most popular serial, Shortland Street Echo Point mirrors an old-fashioned concept of life in a chummy, easygoing beach community, essentially closer to the city than Summer Bay. It appears that the producers, Southern Star Xanadu, are content to open a number of doors on a variety of relationships and minor intrigues to see which work best. D) IIWI promise that Australia latest soap opera is ready, as one particularly stupid prediction has it, to "annihilate the seven-year-old colony of Summer Bay, sweeping viewers a short bus ride down the coast and swapping one set of beaches for another. But, as even the most casual viewer will soon detect, Echo Point is only the same old address and its style of production holds few secrets. Home and Away supporters who are drawn to have a look at the new program it will be most unenterprising if they do not at some time do so will find a string of similarities.

Who is the tray-carrying giant in the baker's shop at Echo Point where everybody gathers when they're not downing veggie-burgers at the cafe? It could almost be Home And Away's Alf, the crusty shopkeeper with a heart of nuggets, played so wonderfully well by Ray Meagher. There is the same wisdom, same gruffness, same everything, but in fact it's grumpy old Maurie, played by another stalwart, John Clayton. Watch him. Hell hold fiie thing together. There is the villain, or what John Holmes, the original producer of Home and Away and now executive producer of Seven Network drama, describes as the standard black hat.

In Home and Away, it was Mr Fisher, mm 1 Chatswood Sony Centre's Triple Trinitron Winter Sale guarantees the lowest prices in Sydney on Sony's 3 most popular TV models. Choose the portable KV-1415, ideal for the bedroom and reduced from $519 to $449, or the perfect family size KV-2185 reduced $100 to just $749, or Sony's popular big screen AV Stereo TV the KV-2965 reduced from $1899 to only $1599. All models are remote controlled and cable-ready. TAKING A UniflER I1EAD-0 The colder winter weather usually means more nights at home in front of TV so why not trade your old set on a great value Sony Trinitron at the lowest prices in town. Of course, all prices ji $749-j are strictly cash and carry and apply only UliinU'll ftR while stocks last.

Now's the time to Family and Friends and Paradise Beach cm cause much hurt. Failure breeds caution The temptation to experiment, If it exists at ail, Is pushed aside as producers make minor changes to well-tried themes. The result is a pattern of drama production bogged in cliche. Whue Australian cinema has the Inventiveness of Strictly Ballroom, The Piano, Prlscllla and even Crocodile Dundee, commercial television drama seems haunted fay a desire to stay the same. Is it any surprise that two rival series, The Feds and Cody, as similar as chalk and chalk and both chasing identical audiences, arrive on the screen at the same time, determined to collide.

Both are reasonably competent no more than that but placed in a head-to-head situation, neither will achieve the success for which their producers hoped. Robin Oliver double your viewing pleasure and combine your new Sony Trinitron TV with Sony's exclusive Viewtopia VHS video recorder at $479, or the stereo hi-fi model at a low $849. Chatswood Sony Centre has all Sony TV and VCR models on display visit our store today for a full demonstration. IVf WILL MEET ALL ADVERTISED PRICES WHEN IT COMES TO SONY WE CAN! BE BEATEN. fk UDDENLY, the rule is that there Nvare no rules.

In the past, the unwritten understanding was that scheduling one Australian-made television drama directly against another was counter-productive and to be avoided. Restraint made sound commercial sense. Drama series are high-risk operations and networks have limited resources. They cannot afford the hit-or-miss luxury that mass-production Hollywood can indulge. The failure rate in the US Is legendary.

Of the 30 or so new shows slated each year, only six or seven survive to a second season. Others vanish within weeks, sold off in package deals. Medicine Baft and Robin's Hoods are two examples on our screens. Australian series are, not so liberally launched. Development is r.ct-.

ma'Iy a tong mostly process stretching over many months arid Involving scores of people, and flops such as (7 3s -The Guide, Monday, June 5, 1995-.