The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 33

I I I Thursday 6 May. Green Guide 3 of a successful writer Alan Weaver (played rumbustiously by John Stride) who has been exploiting his Welsh heritage while living in London. His self-hype and fake enthusiasm is only matched in scale by his libido. He returns to a bunch of old friends (played by well-known actors such as James Grout and Bernard Hepton) who are in various states of marital and physical disrepair, but all possessed of very wily personalities with which to deal with the charlatan and his beautiful wife. Their wives are equally their own women, with entree to their coffee mornings being gained with a suitably intoxicating bottle or a full pack of cigarettes.

In his return to rediscover and take further advantage of his Weaver creates tensions and anticipations among his old friends leading to conflict, anger and amusement. The folly of trying to find your past, reliving old romantic trysts, coping with the rush of time and seeing through fame and phony nationalism, are all aspects of these feisty but funny characters' lives in this wry and at times quite sad story. TUESDAY Comedy on the couch The Wolvis Family, SBS, 8 pm RAYMOND GILL OW THAT Noeline, Laurie et al have gone offshore to become a Trans-Sylvania Waters of sorts, the English are exacting their revenge. This six-part BBC half-hour comedy about a family who allow their therapy sessions to be televised is not quite as funny as the way the Donaher-Bakers resolved their problems, but, then, this is fiction. The Wolvis family are a "dysfunctional" lower-middle-class family consisting of the wooden dad, Herbert, his pathetic wife Sylvia, their Award-winning medical broadcaster Dr Norman Swan presents a fascinating four-part documentary on the relationship between history, destiny and disease in 'invisible Enemies', (SBS, 7.30 pm, Sunday).

teenage daughter Wendy (whose selfconscious nihilism is right out of Beetlejuice) and their son Stuart. Stuart is the family's problem, or as their TV therapist, Dr Graham Wilcockson, puts it, he is the "problem Like many teenagers, Stuart has simply stopped talking to his family and his only communication with them is through his best friend Spencer, who has moved into their house, much to Herbert's horror. The program begins with Dr Wilcockson inviting his TV audience to follow his therapy techinques as he, the Wolvis's, and Spencer attempt to work through the family's communication problems, while sitting in a The High Technology 6th Birthday Sale A TP 486DX-33 4Mb RAM 120Mb LOW RADIATION MONITOR ONLY $2,490 TP 386DX-40 4Mb RAM 120Mb HID $600 Software Bundle ONLY $1,950 TP 486SX-25 NOTEBOOK 4Mb RAM 120Mb ONLY $3,350 LASER PRINTERS CANON From $1,390 H.P. From $1,449 UMAX SCANNERS PERIPHERALS TECHNOLOGY 388 CENTRE RD. BENTLEIGH 3204 Ph (03) Fax (03) 563-9222 this orgy of self-congratulation.

A "behind the scenes" look at how the top-rating US sitcom is made, this one-hour special is more of an extended Entertainment This Week profile than a documentary. As the credits open, a saccharinevoiced narrator tells us we will see how this "ground breaking" sitcom is However, in order to explain Murphy Brown's importance in the pantheon of US sitcoms, it provides a brief history of shows including The Dick Van Dyke Show, Mary Tyler Moore, Maude, All.in the Family, Cheers and Using clips from these shows and interviews with creators and stars, including Norman Lear, Ed Asner, Bea Arthur and Ted Danson, the program explains how the evolution of the sitcom parallels changes in US society and how, in a few cases, it might have actually initiated changes. The program then focuses on Murphy Brown by presenting the standard interviews with wacky writers, the show's creator Diane English, and stars Candice Bergen and the rest of the 'FYI' regulars. we see script meetings, rehearsals and taping, where everyone is consistently funny and good humored. The interviewees try and get profound about Murphy Brown but, as well crafted and funny as the show is, how profound can you get about a sitcom? This program never establishes why Murphy Brown is "ground In taking it more seriously than a sitcom is worth, the creators of this program fall for the same trap Dan Quayle did.

WEDNESDAY Murphy taken too seriously Funny Business: A History of American Sitcom Murphy Brown, Channel 2, 8.30 pm FOU would have to be a very big Murphy Brown fan to stomach RATINGS REPORT HANNEL 9 narrowly won the A. C. Nielsen prime-time ratings for the week ending Saturday 3 May. Nine scored 30.4 per cent, followed by Seven, 29.4; Ten, 23.2; Two, 15.2; and SBS 2.3. Nine's win was again due to its ever-reliable performers A Current Affair (32), the news (29), and Minutes (27).

Nine must be heartened by Law of the Land (21), and Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman (25), which both won their time slots, the latter ousting Seven's The Extraordinary (21). In the same Thursday 8.30 pm slot Ten's Northern Exposure (14) and Two's Phoenix tied for third. The 7 pm weekday slot is one of the most keenly contested between the three commercial networks with Seven's Home and Away, Nine's Sale of the Century and Ten's Hinch all hovering around 20 in the first half of the week. Home and Away has the edge and managed to just win its slot every night last week with a peak of 23. Other Seven programs to do well were Talk to the Animals (23) Australia's Most Wanted (19) Hey Dad (22) Home Improvement (23), and last Friday night's AFL match (29).

Ten's top program was its Donahue 25th anniversary special (26), which won its slot. Other good performances came from Beverly Hills 90210 (24), its Sunday movie K-9 (23) Hinch (20), and LA Law (19). The Simpsons continues to go underappreciated, (18). The ABC's local product did extremely well this week: Quantum won its time-slot (23), as did The Investigators (22). Andrew Denton's special The Topic of Cancer attracted 15.

drab TV studio. For the next half hour, the caring, gently probing, but forceful when-he-has-to-be Dr Wicockson attempts to bring two great institutions together the late 20thCentury predeliction for therapy and the tradition of stitched up English reserve. It is not an easy task there are long silences, body language reveals more than words, and the laughs in. this comedy aren't of the laugh-outloud sitcom variety. While this episode is, perhaps, too subtle for its own good, by its conclusion, various family members are sobbing and holding hands and the indications are that the next five weeks of therapy could be very empowering for all of us.

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