The Ottawa Citizen from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • 37

li if i THE OTTAWA CITIZEN SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1989 C5 ArtsEntertainment tiale of Calami kevmv ttlhie '20s Degrassi High edited by PBS TORONTO (CP) The PBS television network in the United States has decided to edit out the ending of the season-opening episode of Degrassi High, the critically acclaimed CBC-TV series. episode, titled A New Start, deals with the explosive topic of abortion as one of the show's freckle-faced twins discovers she is pregnant. Hood, director and co-creator of the series with producer Linda Schuyler, says he is infuriated by the PBS decision and has demanded his credit be removed if the show's ending is changed when it is broadcast in the U.S. in January. "The episode will be shown in Canada on Monday.

The story involves Erica, who is pregnant, and her twin Heather, opposes abortion but supports her sister. When they arrive, still debating, at an abortion clinic they are confronted by a angry crowd of pro-life demonstrators. Kate Taylor of PBS says she wants to end the film just as the girls approach the crowd. "It's an esthetic decision and we think it's more powerful, more poignant, to end there," she says. TV UPDATE characters in situations that are uniquely Canadian.

Torquil Campbell is Cameron Alexander, a shy student who finds a place in the mainstream of high school life when he's chosen to be one of four student to represent his school in the CBC school quiz show Reach For The Top. It's not much of an honor at first. The four are chosen as an afterthought by a harried football coach who is saddled with the task of fielding a team at the last moment. The school has never done well in the competition, and a mercifully quick defeat is the best the school administration hopes for. Against the odds, the team starts winning its matches, and the four misfits gain new respect at school.

Meanwhile, they're trying to sort out their own relationships. Cameron has a crush on post-'60s hippie Cynthia (played by Samatha Follows, who looks so much like sister Megan, it's uncanny), but thinks she's going steady with school iconoclast Mike Stanoulis (Yannick Bisson coming back nicely from a miserable year in CTV's Learning The Ropes.) Richard Chevolleau is Russell Johns, the black student who is tired of explaining to people that the only island in his personal history is Cape Breton. "But originally, I mean, where did your people come from?" asks one socio-sensitive discussion leader. "Halifax," says Russell. The drama is played out cleverly against the backdrop of the 1972 Canada-Russia hockey series, and includes some fantasy sequences with Cameron and Paul Henderson overcoming the odds together.

Complex convict Anthony Hopkins gives a gritty, idiosyncratic performance as the complex convict Magwitch in the Disney adaptation of Charles Dickens's Great Expectations shown in three-parts beginning Sunday at 7 p.m. on the Family Channel (Cable 23 and 31). The mini-series, produced for Disney by Britain's PrimeTime TV, is a lushly filmed and moody recreation of the sprawling novel about a young orphan, Pip, who grows up to become a young man with "great expectations" of an inherited fortune. The mini-series has some marvelous characterizations. In addition to Hopkins, there's Jean Simmons as the bitter old maid Miss Havisham, and Ray MacAnally as Jaggers, the barrister who represents the adult Pip's TONY ATHERTON TELEVISION Common knowledge about the history of the Ku Klux Klan is sketchy; its members tend to be viewed as pathetic band of rednecks, remnants of a group of disenfranchised southerners who terrorized blacks after the U.S.

Civil War. In fact, the Klan reached its peak during the social turmoil following the First World War, when the U.S. experienced its first real wave of protectionism and moral uncertainty. A slumping economy, am open-door immigration policy and a wave of crime resulting from the Prohibition Act paved the way for the Klan to become a significant force in U.S. politics.

By 1925, there were more than five million registered Klan members 10 per cent of the voting public up from only a few 100 scattered about the country a few years before. The Klan called for a return to the American roots, which it defined as protestant Christianity, blue-nosed morality and jingoistic patriotism. Cross of Fire (Channel 6 and Rochester's Channel 10 at 9 p.m.) evokes that period of history with chilling authenticity, setting the stage for the retelling of a sensational murder trial that rocked the nation. C. David Stephenson me, was a key contributor to the Klan's resurgence, credited with moving the Klan out of the South and into the Midwest.

In the first half of this two-part mini-series we watch his meteoric rise from a Klan organizer in Indiana to Grand Wizard. By then, he has half the politicians in the state in his pocket and commands fanatic loyalty from lower and middle-class whites. John Heard (Max McArdle on Kate and Allie) is impressive as the charming, ingenuous Stephenson. His public persona is so effective, even TV viewers are confused about his real nature. But soon we become privy to the secrets being ferreted out by crusading Indian newspaper editor Boyd Gurley (George Dzunda), who later won a Pulitzer Prize for his digging.

We learn that Stephenson is an opportunist who first tried to find power as a Canadian Musi um Mmi i ANAnitN oi niavmnoN Engulfed by ancient Chinese culture I John Heard Stars as Grand Dragon socialist in Oklahoma, then as a Democrat, before turning to the Klan. We learn that his war record was fabricated. Later, we find that far from being the tee-totaller he professes to be, he is an alcoholic given to violent rages when he drinks. Idealistic educator Madge Oberholtzer (Mel Harris who plays Hope on thirty-something) has no idea of these things when she is wooed by Stephenson. Even her natural liberal resistance to the ideals of the Klan are lost in Stephenson's clever rhetoric.

Whatever reservations linger are overwhelmed by the respect Stephenson has from all those around her, including the family's minister. When she does begin to suspect the truth about the man it is too late. Tired of polite courting, and drunk on his growing power, Stephenson kidnaps and assaults her, a vicious rape that leads to her death. The story continues in part two (Monday on Rochester's Channel 10 or Tuesday on Channel 6) with a meek, inexperienced prosecutor Clell Henry (David Morse of St. Elsewhere) trying against almost insurmountable odds to convict the contemptuous Stephenson.

lADVERTISEDl VlYl Oil 11 I 1 ADVERTISED Mel Harris Victim of violent rape The film, firmly helmed by veteran director Paul Wendkos, lapses into melodrama at times, but mostly manages to keep audience hanging on with a taut and believable story. It's a story that has parallels with the rise in televangelism in the alienation that followed Watergate, and the producers are not afraid to highlight them. "You take religious fundamentalism," says Gurley to his reporters, "and mix it with politics, and you have a formidable force." Warm, witty dramedy The only disappointment one feels with the warm, witty Pray For Me, Paul Henderson (Sunday at 7 p.m. on Channels 4, 5, 11 and Montreal's Channel 6) is in the fact that it wasn't developed as a new CBC sitcom series in place of both Mosquito Lake and In Opposition. Yes, such a series would have been mildly derivative (sort of Wonder Years on Ice), and more in the vein of the so-called dramedy than a conventional sitcom.

But at least it would be peopled with interesting, well-conceived SOFA LOVESEAT CHAIR FREE LAYAWAY ONE GROUP ALL 4 ALL 3 PIECES 5.30 a.m. Arnold et Willie Un riche veuf, ayant organise sa vie avec methode et vivant en toute quietude avec sa fille, decide de bnser la monotonie de sort existence en adoptant deux garcons de Harlem, Arnold et Willie. 11.30 a.m. QS Videostar Presentation des meilleurs video-clips canadiens et internalionaux. 1.00 p.m.

(2 Auto Racing IMSA Grand Prix of Southern California. From Del Mar, Calif. (Taped) 2.30 p.m. CD GD College Football Nebraska at Colorado. (CC) 3.00 p.m.

CIAU Football Conference Final. UBC Thunderbirds vs. jjriiversity of Saskatchewan Huskies. 430 p.m. (B) Double defi (R) 6.00 p.m.

(H) World of Horse Racing 9.00 p.m. Kojak p.m. QD (D Best of Saturday Night Live 1988-89 Features skits with guest hosts including 6teve Martin, Leslie Nielsen and Dolly Parton; musical performances by Fine "IXoung Cannibals and Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians. 3 1.45 p.m. H) Movie "The China Syndrome" (1979) Jack Lemmon, Jane Fonda.

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