Respite, Sweet Respite

At last, something is on other than Neighbours.

To all our American friends, Neighbours is a tv soapie originally conceived by Satan himself in 1982. It first went to air in 1985, originally on the TV station "Seven". The fact that there are seven deadly sins is a complete and unconnected coincidence. In fact with the addition of neighbours perhaps there is now eight deadly sins.

Anyway, after a year of underperforming in the ratings, Neighbours moved to rival station "Ten". In that same year, a daughter of one of the most influential men in UK television, Michael Grade (From BBC One) decided that she liked it - so of course, BBC one started showing it. Before too long, Satan had infiltrated the ranks of the young, with 10 million regular viewers over in England - more than over here in Australia.

Now let me just explain my gripe with Neighbours. This 22 minute show is screened five times a week, come rain, hail or shine. Females seem to be especially taken in by its charm, however males tend to be immune to its brand of televised tripe. The only unfortunate thing is that when lovers of the show say "Well if you don't like it, change the channel!", one can only find such high-class info-tainment shows such as Today Tonight or a Current Affair. Let us overlook the fact that most of their segments are sensationalist pieces targeted at left-wing lower-middle class white Australia and look at the more alarming - these two programs tend to be identical. Where Today Tonight will have the headline story of the wonderful new bra which naturally increases breast sizes, A Current Affair will have the groundbreaking news that a scientist has developed a way to increase breast sizes - not with surgery, but naturally - with a bra.

Often I have switched over to SBS and ABC in hope that they would provide better fare, only to be greeted by a show on ABC about collecting things like horse shoes, or to SBS's scary asian news-reader who my friends say looks like my mum. (Note to readers - my mum looks nothing like the lady in question. My friends, God bless 'em, only say this because to them all asians look alike.)

However, to bring all this meandering about to a giant, plane-crashing end in the fashion of so many innocent tourists before us, I found a place of solstice - a gem among the black, black coals of mediocrity. 6:30 on Friday nights, on ABC is a program called "Can We Help?". It's hosted by one of the guys out of Cath & Kim, and is a sometimes funny, sometimes insightful look into the everyday world. Last Friday night I was so overjoyed to find a program that was worth watching it felt like a life-buoy to a drowning man.

Last Friday they tracked down the origins of an unobtrusive little park in suburban Melbourne - one of the viewers wrote in asking, why is this park called "Three Boys Park"? It turned out that while a guy had been surfing, he had lost his way and been pulled nearly a kilometre out to sea by a rip. Out of the crowd which had gathered to watch the unfolding drama, two boys swam out to help the distressed surfer. Although they made it to him and nearly all the way back to the rock outcropping where the crowd was, a large wave hit them at the last minute and swept one of the exhausted rescuers out to sea where he soon drowned. The park was built as a commemoration of the three boys' friendship and the sacrifice made by one of them.

Although still not the greatest of shows, "Can We Help?" is still definitely worth a watch or two. If nothing else, it's the light at the end of the tunnel in that darkest of all television timeslots, the 6:30 - 7.

-Fin-