TV programs worth watching
Sun February 8 — Sat February 14

There are new episodes of two familiar British cop shows on 
the ABC this week, perhaps to compensate for the ludicrous soap 
opera that is now The Bill. The first is from the BBC, another 
two-part adaptation of one of PD James' best-selling novels, in 
this case Death in Holy Orders (ABC 8.30pm Sundays).



Martin Shaw stars as James' hero Commander Adam Dalgliesh of New 
Scotland Yard. Also in the cast are Robert Hardy (All 
Creatures Great and Small), Jeff Rawle (Drop the Dead 
Donkey) and Jesse Spencer (Swimming Up Stream).

PD James' tightly plotted and relentlessly middle class stories 
about Adam Dalgliesh are more popular in England than here. When 
Death in Holy Orders ran in Britain, more than six million 
people watched it.

Still, if you enjoy whodunnits, you'll probably like this. 

The second is a new four-part series of actor Robson Green's own 
production Wire In The Blood (ABC 8.30pm Fridays). Made by 
Green's company for Britain's commercial network ITV, the series 
is nothing if not modern: serial killers, black masses, kinky 
sexual murders, and an uptight, flawed hero.

Set in the north of England city of Bradfield, the series stars 
Robson (a curiously wooden actor with very little charm but he 
kind of grows on you) as that very modern thing, a clinical 
psychologist turned police profiler.

His insights are a trifle pat, but the series is shot and edited 
with verve (lots of cutting on sound to link scenes) and while it 
may not be much as detection it is quite good as a thriller.

There have been numerous programs of recent times that seek to 
ally science and Christianity, to convince people that believing 
in some supreme, omnipotent deity is not incompatible with a 
scientific outlook.

In terms of philosophy, this is very subtle anti-materialist (and 
hence anti-Marxist) propaganda.

Now we have one that seems to be trying to do the same thing with 
Buddhism.

The two-part series The Life of Buddha, screening on Lost 
Worlds (SBS 8.30pm Sundays), supposedly "draws on the ancient 
art of storytelling, as well as historical and scientific facts 
to retrace the life and doctrine of Buddha".

For modern tastes, Buddha emerges as an anarchist visionary out 
to destroy the caste system in India. We are told that "he 
invented the law of cause and effect, whose relevance scientists 
have recently rediscovered".

Interesting, but take it with a large pinch of salt.

The best program of the week is undoubtedly Kerry Brewster's 
accutely observed little fly-on-the-wall documentary series 
Our Boys, screening on Reality Bites (ABC 8.00pm 
Tuesdays).

This is genuine reality TV, humane, real, involved and committed. 
The series looks at the lives of five teenage students and their 
teachers at a typical, cash-strapped government high school in 
south-west Sydney.

The irony that the school, Canterbury Boys High, was Prime 
Minister John Howard's old school, cannot be lost on staff or 
students (or viewers).

Filmed over a school year, the short series tells the personal 
stories of today's public education system. Ninety percent of the 
pupils at Canterbury Boys come from non-English speaking 
backgrounds.

The school is starved of funds, the boys know that many of them 
will go from school to unemployment. It is a story of teachers 
who go far beyond their traditional classroom roles.

I have not seen the BBC/History Channel co-production Horror In 
The East (ABC 9.30pm Tuesdays) because the preview tape was 
faulty and would not play, which was a pity.

But the synopsis already points to a serious flaw in the 
program's approach. The program is described as "an investigation 
into the Japanese psyche during the Second World War which 
confronts one of the most dramatic and important historical 
questions of the 20th century — why did Japanese soldiers behave 
as they did?"

The series "probes the Japanese belief in their own racial 
superiority" and "tells horrific stories of Japanese atrocities". 
But deliberate starvation, sadism, bestiality and mass murder 
were not peculiar to Japan in WW2.

The same policies were persued, the same bestial traits 
exhibited, by the German Nazis and their Hungarian, Croatian, 
Latvian, Estonian, Ukrainian, Slovakian, Finnish allies.

Their races were different, as were their "ancient traditions", 
but their ideology was the same: the ideology of fascism. 
Whatever local customs or traditions can be used to bolster a 
fascist mentality would be utilised, but the root cause was the 
need by big capital of an army that would terrorise and destroy 
without question and without thinking.

Which is why the US army has so often indulged in atrocities. But 
I am sure the History Channel won't be going into that!

Watch out for Seduced By Sai Baba (SBS 8.30pm Thursday), 
about how gullibility, credulous celebrities like Goldie Hawn and 
the Duchess of York, phony miracles and the search for something 
to believe in have given the Indian guru Baba personal assets of 
$3 billion and made him the leader of a 30-million strong cult.

Following widespread allegations of misconduct, sexual abuse and 
paedophilia, Sai Baba and his organisation are currently being 
scrutinised by UNESCO, the British Parliament, the FBI, CBI and 
even the US Department of State — which has issued an official 
warning to present and would-be devotees.

Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion (ABC 10.30pm Saturday) 
epitomises the inability of the film artist to create freely 
under the commercial constraints of capitalism (see Paul Rotha's 
comments in this week's Culture & Life).

Hitchcock shot the film so that Joan Fontaine's suspicion that 
her new husband, Cary Grant, was trying to kill her would be 
proven to be correct. Grant played the male lead in that vein, 
delivering every line in a manner to make it suspect.

But Grant was a big star, and RKO thought it would harm his image 
and future box-office appeal to have him play a heartless wife 
murderer, so they imposed a totally illogical happy ending on 
Hitch, in which it is all Fontine's mis-understanding, and Cary's 
really a good guy.

Up to that point, the film was one of Hitch's best, but the 
imposed ending makes it all silly.