TV programs worth watching
Sun May 2 — Sat May 8

The two-part documentary series A Species Odyssey, 
screening on Lost Worlds (SBS 8.30pm Sundays), is a 
French/Belgian co-production that sets forth the latest 
scientific hypotheses on the origins and development of the human 
race.

Not being from the USA, it is mercifully free of the compromises 
and equivocations that most US documentaries on this subject are 
obliged to include in order to placate the religious lobby.

The first episode, From the Rift to the Discovery of Fire, 
begins about eight million years ago with the formation of the 
Rift Valley in Africa and the draining of East Africa, creating 
the conditions for the development of primates that walked 
upright.

From the seven species of the pre-human Australopithecus evolved, 
in time, the first species of the Homo genus, Homo habilis, 
author of a crucial invention: tools.

Tools helped to increase food supply, leading to a vital physical 
mutation: the development of the brain. These first conquerors 
left the cradle of Africa to discover the ancient world.

More than one and a half million years ago, they became Homo 
ergaster and Homo erectus, the first hominids to tame fire.

Next week's episode follows the evolutionary trail from these 
early hominids to the appearance of Homo Sapiens, who began a new 
period of expansion, into the Americas and even reaching 
Australia.

Budgeted at a remarkable three million Euros, making it one of 
the most expensive documentaries ever, A Species Odyssey 
uses the most sophisticated and advanced computer-graphic 
creation techniques to simulate the world of prehistory.

Those of you who watched last week's episode of Foyle's War 
(ABC 8.30pm Sundays) will know that the new series is well up 
to the standard set by the first.

But it is more than a period policier. Anthony Horowitz and his 
co-writers might present each episode as a detective story, but 
they are really studies of people and intricate interpersonal 
relationships in a time of national and social crisis.

This week's episode, Among The Few, is set in September 
1940 and deals with black-marketeering in stolen fuel,
as well as murder, sexual indiscretion, illegitimate
pregnancy and homosexuality.

Sam gets to do some undercover detective work and Foyle's son 
gets himself in hot water again, but although we can be confidant 
that, in the best detective story tradition, Foyle will have 
unravelled the mystery by the end of the epsiode, this does not 
always mean that he gets his man (or woman). Vide last week's 
episode.

SBS has a new drama series, Oz (SBS 10.00pm Mondays). The 
title does not refer to our fair homeland but to the land where 
Dorothy met the Scarecrow.

Actually, it's a prison drama — in fact, a post-modernist 
Prisoner. The prison is the Oswald Maximum Security Prison 
with a modern, experimental unit called "Emerald City". Here the 
emphasis is on rehabilitation over retribution.

However, survival remains top priority and fear is a constant 
companion.

With so many US citizens, especially black and Hispanic, being 
incarcerated under conditions Amnesty labelled "a form of 
torture", there must be considerable scope for a realist drama 
series on the place of prison in US life. This is not it.

Despite some contemporary trimmings (Eamonn Walker, for example, 
plays prisoner Kareem Said, a charismatic author and militant 
Muslim who considers himself a political prisoner) this is 
basically a rather gritty soap opera.

The new kids' series Noah & Saskia, at least on the 
strength of the opening double episode, is a bottler. I found it 
excellent in all departments: storyline, acting, use of animation 
and graphics, even the interesting way computers are integrated 
into the plot.

The first episode is a double (ABC 5.55pm Tuesday), but future 
episodes will be half hour and run at 5.25pm on Tuesdays.

The series is produced by the Australian Children's Television 
Foundation and I must say is a credit to them. The concept is not 
exactly original but it has been given a new spin.

Two teenagers who don't exactly fit in in their own environment, 
one in England and one in Australia, meet in a computer chat room 
where they adopt larger than life personalities. Each is smitten 
by the other's make believe alter ego.

They join forces to produce an on-line comic book set in a prison 
camp that reflects (at some remove) incidents in the life of the 
English boy.

If the standard of the opening is maintained this will be a very 
popular series. I don't know how kids will go for it, but I will 
certainly watch it! (Well, if I am home on a Tuesday afternoon, 
that is.)

Fifteen out of the 19 terrorists who flew hijacked airliners into 
New York's Twin Towers and the Pentagon were Saudi nationals. 
Workers in Saudi Arabia who join trade unions have their hands 
cut off and hung up at the factory gates as a warning to others.

Women are crushed to death under a truckload of rocks for the 
"crime" of adultery. Thieves are mutilated, consumers of alcohol 
flogged. Slaves are bought and sold.

The members of the ruling clique — sorry, the "royal family" — 
squander colossal oil revenues and the bulk of the populace live 
in poverty. Who runs this medieval blot on the 21st century?

The question is answered in The House of Saud, screening 
in the Cutting Edge timeslot (SBS 8.30pm Tuesday). It is 
made by Jihan El-Tahri, Beirut-born Arab filmmaker of dual French 
and Egyptian citizenship whose previous films include Israel and 
the Arabs and Islam and the Kalashnikov.

The program includes archival footage and photographs and 
interviews with members of the ruling family, as well as former 
US government officials and executives from the oil company, 
Aramco. Clearly Jihan El-Tahri knows who really runs the country.

Finally, two programs that should certainly be of interest to 
Guardian readers. The first is Dhakiyarr Vs The 
King, screening on Untold Stories (ABC 9.35pm 
Wednesday), the story of a racist murder trial followed pretty 
obviously by a racist murder.

In 1933, on Woodah Island in remote northeast Arnhem Land, the 
Yolngu leader Dhakiyarr Wirrpanda speared to death a policeman, 
Constable Albert McColl, who had chained up Dhakiyarr's wife. To 
Dhakiyarr, the action was lawful on his land. On the advice of 
missionaries, he went to Darwin to explain his actions and his 
people's ways to the Northern Territory Supreme Court.

He was found guilty of murder in a trial where conditions and 
justice were grossly stacked against him and was sentenced to 
hang. However, the sentence was overturned by the High Court and 
Dhakiyarr was freed. But he disappeared the day he was released 
and his family have never discovered what happened to him.

I am sure they can make a pretty shrewd guess.

The other program is Molly & Mobarak, screening in the 
Storyline Australia timeslot (SBS 8.30pm Thursday). It is 
the moving story of an Australian girl and an Afghan refugee 
working at the abattoir in the NSW town of Young.

It is made by talented, committed filmmaker Tom Zubrycki. "This 
is a timely and revealing documentary which clearly illustrates 
the human cost of the government's unjust and hostile policies on 
asylum seekers", says Zubrycki.

And Sacha Molitorisz, in The Sydney Morning Herald said: 
"Tom Zubrycki's doco is one of the best Aussie films of recent 
times. It's a revealing exploration of multiculturalism in 
Australia, but — above all, it's just a great film."