Cover: Shannen Doherty (Beverly Hills 90210)
Shattered lives
Loene Carmen, best known for her role as teenager Freya in the 1987 film The Year My Voice Broke, makes a dramatic entrance into A Country Practice this week — playing the part of car-crash victim Jules Goodfellow. “I play a nurse who becomes paraplegic and, as a result of various circumstances, has an affair with Dr Harry Morrison (Andrew Blackman). It’s a very dramatic storyline,” she told TV Week. The preparation for the five-week stint in the series included Carmen spending time at the Royal North Shore Hospital spinal unit. “I would be in a wheelchair for most of the day,” she said.
ET in alien territory
Rugby league star Andrew Ettinghausen (pictured) is learning all he can about television while starting out as a reporter for The Great Outdoors. The Cronulla Sharks player is currently undertaking a three-year training contract with the Seven Network. “I want to gain enough knowledge in the next five years of my football career — and hopefully I’ve got that much time left — that I can go out and put together a worthwhile TV project,” he said. “I have no ambition to be in the sport side of television. These days you have to be controversial. If I have a choice about being a commentator or being somebody who can present positive things about our country… well, it’s an easy choice.”
Full pockets!
Comedian and Full Frontal star Matthew Parkinson says his dream job is to host Sale Of The Century. “You only work one day a week and you can spend the rest of the week just being a celebrity,” he says. Parkinson instead had to settle with being a contestant on the quiz show — ultimately winning a prize package worth over $300,000, including two Nissan cars and holidays to Malaysia and Queensland. Full Frontal, which debuts this week, is a step up for Parkinson professionally from his previous appearances on ABC‘s The Big Gig. “Artists Services (producer of Full Frontal) has so many resources. At the ABC there was — well, nothing really,” he said. “Being on Full Frontal feels more like being involved in the industry in general, whereas the ABC is an industry unto itself. There’s a sense that I have jumped up in exposure level.”
Briefly…
- With E Street now out of production and due to finish on screen shortly, rumours around the industry suggest that Grundys are looking to rework classic soap Sons And Daughters or The Restless Years for a new series for the Ten Network. Another possibility being discussed is the production of an Australian version of Grundys’ popular New Zealand soap Shortland Street.
- Melbourne radio personality Jane Holmes is joining the line-up of Seven‘s Talk To The Animals. Her last TV work was on The Great TV Game Show for Network Ten in 1989.
- ABC‘s youth affairs program Attitude has been renewed for a second series of 12 episodes, due to commence production in August.
- Deborra-Lee Furness and American actor Jan-Michael Vincent are confirmed to star opposite John Waters in the Nine Network‘s upcoming $3 million telemovie Singapore Sling. Producers were hoping to reunite Waters with former All The Rivers Run co-star Sigrid Thornton for the project, but she was unavailable due to commitments to another Nine Network project, telemovie The Feds.
Production has commenced on the $6.5 million children’s series Ship To Shore. The series of 26 half-hour episodes is being produced by Barron Films in Perth for the Nine Network. Ship To Shore (starring Clinton Voss and Jodi Herbert, pictured) has already been sold for screening in Germany with sales to other European markets imminent.
Lawrie Masterson: The View From Here
“Words such as exhilarating and adrenalin-pumping usually don’t spring to mind when I am veged out in front of the television watching a documentary. But the independent Australian production Baseclimb isn’t just any documentary. In a nutshell, Baseclimb is about two Sydney men, Glenn Singleman and Nic Feteris. Singleman likes to climb mountains. Feteris likes to jump off them. Teamed up, they are a literally death-defying pair. Singleman, who produced and directed Baseclimb for his Icarus Films company, tells me the 52-minute documentary will be seen in about 80 countries as part of the National Geographic Voyager series.”
Program Highlights (Melbourne, May 9-15):
Sunday: Dr Norman Swan (pictured) presents the new four-part series Invisible Enemies (7.30pm, SBS), exploring the relationship between history, destiny and disease. In the True Stories documentary Maria (8.30pm, ABC), Barbara Chobocky documents her mother’s experience as a migrant in Australia during the 1950s. Sunday night movies are Children Of The Bride (Seven), The Godfather Part III (Nine) and Only The Lonely (Ten).
Monday: In A Country Practice (7.30pm, Seven), as Harry (Andrew Blackman) and Kate (Michelle Pettigrove) prepare to leave for China, Sister Jules Goodfellow (Loene Carmen) prepares to take over from Kate.
Tuesday: In Neighbours (6.30pm, Ten), Helen’s (Anne Haddy) attempts to find new meaning in her life are unwittingly thwarted by her own family. In GP (8.30pm, ABC), Tessa (Marilynne Paspaley) wants to treat Gabe (Paula Forrest), a friend of Steve’s (Michael O’Neill) who refuses to accept that she has a hormonal imbalance. In Law Of The Land (9.30pm, Nine), a drug investigation goes horribly wrong when Clive (Richard Moir) shoots Nico (Vince Colosimo) in self-defence.
Wednesday: In E Street (7.30pm, Ten), George (Les Dayman) is delighted when Alice (Marianne Howard) returns to Westside, and Sam (Simon Denny) becomes involved with some street kids and gets more than he bargained for.
Thursday: In Getaway (7.30pm, Nine), Jeff Watson visits Apollo Bay, Anna McMahon takes an unusual sporting tour of the SCG, and Rebecca Harris goes shopping at the Floating Markets in Thailand. Full Frontal — Presented By Fast Forward makes its long-awaited debut (8.30pm, Seven).
Friday: Friday night AFL features live coverage of the match between West Coast Eagles and Fitzroy, live from Perth (8.30pm, Seven). Kylie Minogue, Angela Punch McGregor and Bruno Lawrence star in the re-run of 1989 film The Delinquents (8.30pm, Ten).
Saturday: The FA Cup Final — Arsenal versus Sheffield Wednesday — is broadcast live from Wembley Stadium, London (10.20pm, SBS).
Source: TV Week (Melbourne edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide. 8 May 1993. Southdown Press.
