The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 29

Monday, September 3, to September 9 macho Grown aying CHIPS, ATN 7, Tuesday, 7.30 pm, previewed by CARRY SHELLEY. give a superb view of I-os Angeles, with its intertwining freeways, towering skyline and enormous expanse which stretches further than the eye can see. The photography is undoubtedly the show's redeeming point. It when Wilcox and Estrada engage in banal, high-camp verbal exchange that the program takes a turn for the worse. These two grown men, who are trying their utmost to be macho, would have been more at home riding din-kies.

CIIP stands for California Highway Patrol, but we're not told what the represents. Perhaps it is infantile or inarticulate. The two heroes are on the trail of a ring of car thieves in expensive sports cars such as Porsches, Stingrays and Jensens. In an effort to nab the culprits (and do a bit of work), they career all over Los Angeles in high-powered pursuit. And here we see some of the most spectacular motor-cycle action ever filmed for television.

Camera mounts were designed for the enforcement motor-cycles used in the series to give viewers a first-hand feeling of what it is like to patrol the highways at top speed. The effect i's both thrilling and hair-raising. Shots from a helicopter Forget Hie actors the star of this cops and robbers adventure is Los Angeles. Never has California's largest city looked more alluring. There is not one whisp of smog to be seen in the city which forms the home-base for the California Highway Patrol (hence CHIPS), the shenanigans of which, at times inane, are glorified to a point of fanaticism.

The complicated freeway system in Los Angeles is the playground of the two principal characters, Jonathan Baker and Francis "Ponch" Poncherello. They are motor-cycle officer and members of what is regarded as America's glamour police force. "Hit da concrete," he snaps to some wayward motorist, in a nasal voice which mixes Spanish with Brooklynese. He has obviously modelled himself on Fonzie Fonzerello froth Happy Days. If so, then Henry Winkler should issue a writ for defamation.

Estrada has become one of America's sex symbols since the screening of CHIPS there. The reason why, however, escapes me. Their superior, Sergeant Joe Getraer, is played by Robert Pine with a perpetually bemused CHIPS deals with that 95 per cent non-violent area of law enforcement and concerns the adventuresome and sometimes humorous aspects of policing. Larry Wilcox, as Baker, does his best he appears. Apart from some high-speed riding, his role could have been played by any other actor in Hollywood, even Gloria Swan-son.

side-kick, Poncherello, played by Erik Estrada, an actor with excruciating diction which not only lacks intelligence, but intelligibility as well. Erik Estrada (left) and Larry Wilcox as patrolmen jn.ru. toKm K)i3axxOY7 Liu yilLAJ IP BRAVE NEW WORLD, TEN 10, Wednesday and Thursday, 8.30 pm, previewed by CHRISTINE HOCAN. rno Aldous Huxley-gave the world a chilling picture of genetic controls and behaviour conditioning in his novel Brave New World. His concept, of the way life might be, horrified and amused his readers.

Much the same sentiments will be stirred in those who watch the MCA Television mini-series, which is loosely based on the novel. Huxley purists will probably loathe the 1979 interpretation of their seer. In it, modern terminology and ideas are fused to the Huxley original. But it adheres to Huxley's caste system. There are the Alphas, then the Betas; the Gammas come in pairs and look alike; so do the Deltas look the same; and the lowest on the genetic scale are the mindless drugged Epsilons.

Henry Ford is the god of this society, his Model Ford the holy symbol. The popular exclamation is Holy Ford; and there is a Fordian Tabernacle Choir. A silver Model Ford is the Holy Grail of a society in which ordinary birth has not been known for 600 years. Children take death appreciation and nature-nausea courses. The technicians in the central hatchery tend to the increasing of population.

The populace always seem to look about 35 years old, and pass into everlasting life at about 90 or 100, from sheer metabolic exhaustion. It is here that Thomas -f I 1.1 1 i to- a Three of the mindless Delta children Grahmbell, played by Keir Dullea (who looks right at home in sci-fi films) is assistant director of the central hatchery. He is pompous and tedius just the right qualities his superiors decide for upper management responsibility. In this society, which adores the assembly line, uniformity is seen as giving "stability" to society a quality admired above all. Thomas goes for a holiday to the savage reservation with one of his favourites, Linfla, played by Julie Cobb.

In the morality of the Brave New World, couples are forbidden, families abhorred, and what is considered right and meet in most societies is anathema. The words "mother," "father," "son" and "love" are considered vulgar and indelicate. But Linda is not very smart with the belt which prevents conception. Thomas abandons her for dead in the wilderness near the savage camp, where she is cared for until her child is born. Linda's morality is at odds with that of her new society.

Her child, John (Kristoffer Taboori), is excluded from the activities of his peers, because he is tall, blond, handsome and an outsider. The child finds solace in an old Shakespeare volume he comes across, learning a quote for every occasion. This tendency is very boring later on in self like some crazed monk and habitually wearing a hair shirt. There is a very Romeo-and-Juliet ending to this mini-scries, in which all the radical thinkers, those tainted with ideas, are removed. But the ideas never die and his Fordship, one of the few entrusted with the antique library, starts to have a few disturbing thoughts of his own.

This is not completely Aldous Huxley's vision; rather; it is a sort of interpretation of it by the John's life, when he counters every situation with a quotation from the Bard. Meanwhile, back at the baby farm, life goes on. Thomas is promoted, but one day makes a mistake in the ingredients fed to the Alpha embryo labelled Marx. Marx receives too much alcohol. His Fordship, the ultimate controller, passes little Bernard (Bud Cort) as fit, regarding him as a sort of experiment in genetic variations.

Bernard grows to manhood with all sorts of strange quirks. He does not like erotic training as a child. He favours a relationship with one woman. Bernard, who is shaping up as a genetic failure, is about to be consigned to Iceland (where there are no Paradise-inducing drugs), when he goes on holiday to the savage There he meets John and Linda, and brings them back to society. John, although he has been taught to regard the civilisation his mother lost as a paradise, is looked upon as a savage.

Bernard and John become friends, but the ideas that John brings with him are outside the understanding of people in the secure world where everyone has what he wants and everyone wants what he has. Bernard gains more respect in the community, conforming more and more, while John decides that he likes the system less and less. He falls in love with a girl who cannot understand the emotion and becomes confused by it. Still shouting Shakespeare, he chooses to be alone, like a hermit, occasionally whipping him script-writers, Spelling and Goldberg. And although the writers may sometimes use Huxley too much while rendering him a little bland, they dress up his story with witty quips, jingles and one-liners.

Much of the allegory remains, along with much of the pathos and much of the drama. What has been added is a very slick style of American humour. Although the original story may perhaps be swamped the result is still diverting. ALL SUBURBS TV SERVIcr SALES, RENTALS D0NT HALF MAINTAIN YOUR COLOUR TV when you can get Ml cover from $39 with not cent more to pay COMMODORE TV. 699 7722 Eat over 22 veers 1 SUBURBAN BONO) nd EASTERN SUBURBS SALES, SERVICE.

RENTALS. COMBINED TV SERVICES PTY. LTD. Phone 344 6111 Full Maintenance Available Julie Cobb as Linda The SMH 7-Day Guide. Monday, September 3.

1979.