The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 84

Static USTwtwaiioa thought was 7 30pm la tho aMdto of tho Mat, thorn's 8 MV Infotainmont program In the) pn production taft. IMS tint Iff Statu Med IFs Mtottwr trawl show. The) good mws, thought b) thai at toast Wt a Mdboumt the search for the tiniest pegs on which to hang all our paranoia about extra-terrestrials. Currently, the prize for spooking us in the most entertaining way goes to the sci-fi series The tiles, back this week ith new episodes and more information on the good guys, bad guys and things that go bump in the night. In Little Green Men, those two FBI mopers, Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully ((iillian Anderson), are reunited to chase the aliens.

It's difficult to work out what Washington's game is in all this. Why do the heavies want everything kept hush-hush? Why do they allow their two most po-faced agents so much leeway if they do want to keep an alien contact secret? As to our heroes: why has the once fun-loving Mulder now become a pudding of rectitude like his partner? Where is the romance? The couple now looks less like getting off together than Dr Joel Fleischmann and Maggie O'Connell. This week, however, we do learn why Mulder is so obsessed with his files and, in more ways than one, see the light. Male Bonding (Tm if.vMr, THE strong IK)1N I'S of Fortune Hunter, a spoofy TV variation of the James Bond films, are some flashy high-tech effects, a lot of amusingly silly action and exotic locations. The weak points are a far-too-pretty-looking lead actor in Mark Frankel, corny humor, and a format that looks about 25 years out of date.

Frankel plays Dial Carlton Dial, a former British agent ho works for the Intercept agency. F.quippcd with a stun gun and contact lenses that serve as video cameras and keep him in touch with a controller at base, Dial appears ready to become a cross between MacGyver and The Saint. But there's nothing really new here. This show's both shaky and well-stirred. Paying The BM BILL COSBY, the brilliant comic actor for whom fame and fortune has never seemed quite enough, returns to TV drama this week and proves that even the best of them are mortal.

Cosby, who first trod this territory in Spy with Robert Culp in the mid-'60s, survives a killer's bullet in the opening moments of The Lottery Murders, the first in his new series. The Cosby Mysteries. In doing so, he condemns those who stick with his plodding, self-indulgent non-thriller to the excruciating TV death of a thousand quips. Cosby plays Guy Hanks, a retired forensic expert who finds himself back among the bodies after winning a lottery. When his fellow prizewinners arc sent mad and murdered.

Hanks discovers he is next on the murderer's agenda. It doesn't improve his humor any or the quality of the teleplay. Cosby, overweight and more houndlike than ever, doesn't look at all at case with this one. The script is flabby and unconvincing, looking like the work of an unhappy committee. Not even Dr Huxtable could revive this stodgy nonsense.

More CKwe Encounters by tlw Victorian Tourism IT MM looks Hn Sma could onisrgo as the) notwork to tafcs IN I MF. MIDDLE AGES, idle thinkers used to spend hours entertaining themselves by debating how many angels could dance upon the head of a pin. A modern-day equivalent of this is perhaps Tin Mutt 9K Jmt Wat Hie Paticntt Ordered (Thlismy, SJOrti, Nmn). music sarloush (after aK, oft thus that lomaons dM). Tha hot foas around tho traps has boon that oar vary favortts Potar Paa of tha umsic ntdetstry was bomg mriously wooed to Jump camps and to auporviso a now program onrmarfcad tor a wookand Ihniilnl Tain a muis wuald win mada mm tho aacond Wrd In Inst a taw months to floo a cortahi THE PACE is war-zone frenzied, and the heroes, vulnerable, bloodied, and shell-shocked, constantly rush by, making more life-and-death decisions than any TV medical first seems an unlikely prescription for any prime-time malaise.

The story-lines, like the cameras, wander all over the place; dozens of new characters drift miracle workers before them. They are the top docs of television, stars of the one big new American show that everyone here will soon be talking about -John Wells and Michael Crichton's gripping hospital drama series E.R. Wells was the writer-producer of China Bead, while through the crowded, claustrophobic Chicago hospital rooms each episode as if they were in a railway station; and the dialogue often appears to be simply unintelligible jargon (as in, "Get respiratory in here. Carter, start a second line. D50, one amp and two milligrammes But watching people trying I corrWfl of 3WS 0 Crichton, the hottest film IkaMipnpMhkrn't morning footy show.

Tha program mado popular ay tho kautar af Ctarfc wanna, Emto Sajhy and gnoses, apparouay son yoc ha coajflrmod for this ooooon It wonm ha a graat ihtms to loss Ro Amity. and TV writer in the world today, has Jurassic Pari, Rising Sun and Disclosure among his credits. Together with a cast of fresh faces and a talented team of writers and directors, they have created a sort of medical version of S.Y.PD. Blue or perhaps an adrenalin-charged, steroids-pumped St Elsewhere. E.R.

it stands for Emergency Room at to save people works. And when they're as compassionate as Mark Greene (played by Anthony Edwards, the man-in-a-bubble in Northern Exposure), as cluey as cocky black surgical genius Dr Peter Benton (Eriq La Salle), or as marvelling as anxious intern Dr John Carter (Noah Wyle), you soon feel both the soap-opera and the trauma are in good hands. A healthy new arrival. 10 VlCW 12 FFRRI ARV 19 FF.ML All 1995.