TV programs worth watching
Sun March 14 — Sat March 20

At the beginning of the 1970s, the US ruling class was trying 
to cope with a growing rebellion against the war in Vietnam and 
rampant political corruption. The country was heading into 
recession, while suffering an energy crisis.

Hollywood's money men found that the formulae that had worked in 
the previous two decades were now out of step with large segments 
of the audience. There was great concern over how best to retain 
their profit levels.

As veteran low-budget action producer Roger Corman says in A 
Decade Under The Influence (ABC 2.00pm Sunday), Hollywood's 
bosses adopted a variant of the dictum "If you can't beat 'em, 
join 'em": they "bought in" the rising generation of new, young 
filmmakers who, it was assumed, would be able to reach the sex-
drugs-&-rock'n'roll audience.

While this window of opportunity was open, Hollywood turned out a 
succession of original, varied and in many ways ground-breaking 
films. They made films that starred actors who looked like people 
in your street, some at least of the films dealt with serious 
issues, others turned genre conventions on their heads.

I found English actress Julie Christie the most interesting of 
the large array of talking heads in the program. But there are so 
many short snippets it's rather like listening to an extended 
array of cocktail party chatter. A lot is said but it does not 
gel into a coherent whole of much depth, although there are some 
illuminating moments now and then.

The brilliant thriller State Of Play continues (ABC 8.30pm 
Sunday). With three people murdered already, the journalists and 
the police are vying with each other to find out the exact nature 
of the connection between the murders.

In this week's episode, there is another killing, but this one is 
unexpected and in many ways inexplicable. Then things become 
oily, and the fact that rising politician Stephen Collins (David 
Morrissey) chairs the Energy Select Committee becomes very 
significant.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Emperors of Japan were rulers 
in name only. The real ruler was the Shogun or military leader.

The first Shogun, Tokugawa, brought the various warlords under 
his single control, fusing them into one unified feudal empire, 
but in so doing laid the groundwork for the country's eventual 
transition to capitalism in the 19th century. In 1868, after a 
brief period of civil war, the Shogunate was overthrown with the 
Meiji Restoration.

Japan, which the Shoguns had kept isolated from the outside 
world, now embraced Western life (crinolines even became 
fashionable!) and set about conquering its neighbours.

Japan: Memoirs Of A Secret Empire, screening on Lost 
Worlds (SBS 8.30pm Sunday), examines the history of the 
Tokugawa Shogunate.

You have to feel sorry for the US Public Broadcasting System's 
current affairs programs these days. They labour under the 
decided disadvantage of taking whatever the Bush administration 
says at face value.

This lends a strangely surreal quality to Beyond Baghdad, 
this week's Cutting Edge documentary (SBS 8.30pm Tuesday).

Martin Smith, correspondent for the PBS Frontline program, 
"travels the length and breadth of Iraq for five weeks, 
interviewing everyone from tribal sheiks and ayatollahs to 
politicians and Iraqi soldiers", as the program notes so 
succinctly put it.

Poor Martin is trying to find what it will take to "stabilise" 
this "volatile" nation and "accelerate the transfer of power to 
the Iraqi people".

"As impressed as I was with the American military and the efforts 
they are making, Iraqi expectations are extraordinarily high", 
says Smith. "Even if the Americans do everything right, the 
problem is it may not be enough. The whole experiment can still 
fail."

Well, duh!

In 1944, 200 Allied airforce officers tried a mass breakout from 
Stalag Luft III POW camp in Sagan on the borders of Poland and 
Germany. Seventy-six escaped before an alert guard saw the 
entrance to their tunnel, which had been dug short and came up 
too close to the camp's fence.

German camps for British and American POWs were run by the 
Luftwaffe for captured aircrew and the Wermacht for captured 
soldiers. In the main, the camps were run in accordance with the 
Geneva Convention and the "rules of war".

While prisoners could be, and were, shot while actually in the 
act of trying to escape, if they were recaptured, they were 
either returned to the camp or sent to a more secure one. 
Colditz, for example, was filled with officers who had escaped 
more than once from other camps.

However, the fate of the 76 who escaped from Stalag Luft III 
would be starkly different. Only three of them made it home, but 
this was not unexpected.

Indeed, one of the aims of the large breakout, rather than 
getting to Britain, had been to create chaos on the German 
homefront. In this it was certainly successful.

What distinguished this "great escape" however, was the cold-
blooded murder of 50 of the recaptured prisoners by the Gestapo. 
As an atrocity it barely rates compared to the death marches 
inflicted on POWs by the Japanese or the automatic murder of 
captured Soviet officers, and numerous other atrocities against 
Soviet POWs.

But it was an atrocity, for all that, and after the War the 
British hunted down 18 of the perpetrators and either hanged or 
jailed them.

The Great Escape: The Untold Story, screening on The 
Big Picture (ABC 8.30pm Wednesday), uses reminiscences by a 
few survivors or their relatives, old photos and some very 
atmospheric recreations, to tell the tale again.

But this time, the emphasis is on the murder of the 50 and the 
interrogation and hanging of one of the German Gestapo men.

There are curious omissions: we learn nothing, for example, of 
the three who made it home. Their take on the escape (or that of 
their relatives) would have been quite different from that of 
those who were unsuccessful but did at least get returned to 
prison.

One of the escapees recounts how, after his recapture, he was 
taken to a new prison. He was greeted by another British officer, 
who, in response to the question "is this Colditz", informed him 
grimly that they were in fact now in the Sachsenhausen 
Concentration Camp.

Concentration camps, of course, were run by the SS, and assuredly 
not according to the Geneva Convention! "The only way out is up 
the chimney", said his British colleague.

The Germans routinely imprisoned Soviet POWs in concentration 
camps, but this is the first time I have ever heard of British or 
US POWs being so treated. Regrettably, this matter is not 
explored further.

Most disturbing about the program, however, is its revisionist 
approach to the doctrine that "I was only following orders" is 
not sufficient excuse. The program's makers clearly mean us to 
feel for the young Gestapo officer who is hanged: "he was not to 
blame", we are meant to say to ourselves; "he was only following 
Hitler's orders".