1991: July 6-12

Cover: Kevin Costner

‘Butterfly’ takes off again
The Seven Network has announced production for a further sixteen episodes of Butterfly Island.  The series, starring Grigor Taylor and Penne Hackforth-Jones, first appeared on ABC in 1984 with a follow up series produced by Seven in 1986, although the later series did not appear on Seven until last year.  Taylor plays the part of Charlie Wilson, a widower who runs a struggling tourist resort.

Look who’s back in town!
Some former favourites from Nine’s The Flying Doctors have been reunited for a special episode.  Former cast members Andrew McFarlane, Liz Burch, Rebecca Gibney and George Kapiniaris are returning in an upcoming episode.  The town of Coopers Crossing has been hit hard by the recession and to help boosts its spirits hosts a street party, with some of the town’s former residents attending.  The episode went into production this week and will go to air in September.

‘Girls want me for my money!’
At the mere age of eight, Matthew Krok is trying to come to grips with his rise to fame.  Having featured in 16 television commercials since last year, Krok went on to a guest appearance in A Country Practice before taking on the role of Arthur McArthur in Hey Dad! and has just finished his first feature film role in Eight Ball.  But the young star doesn’t quite understand the fuss that tends to surround him.  “I don’t think I’m any different to anyone else,” he told TV Week.  And while his Hey Dad! character is having a crush on Sam (Rachael Beck), the young actor has no romantic aspirations just yet.  “I’m not interested in girls,” he insists.  “They’re interested in me.  A girl at my school wants to marry me because of my money, but I said, ‘No way!’.”

Briefly…
Former The Young Doctors and Cop Shop star Lynda Stoner is returning to television with a guest role in Nine’s Chances, playing the part of nurse Dee Dee Nelson, hired to care for Jack Taylor (Tim Robertson) and help him recover from a stroke, including sex therapy!

Felicity Soper, best known as policewoman Susan Miller in the former Network Ten series Richmond Hill, has scored a role in a new Seven Network mini-series, Good Vibrations.  Also appearing in the series will be Genevieve Picot, Stephen Whittaker, Jeffrey Walker, David Hoflin and former Neighbours star Sasha Close.

Fast Forward star Geoff Brooks says that his character of Bruce Rump isn’t directly based on real-life RSL stalwart Bruce Ruxton, but that they are on the same wavelength.  “At about the same time I said, ‘The Reds aren’t under the bed, they’re in the bed’, Bruce was quoted by a paper saying the same thing,” Brooks told TV Week.  “Rump is actually a composite of a lot of people.  People like Sir Henry Bolte, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Bruce and my dad – people who see things in black and white.”

John Laws says…
”Bangkok Hilton set out to be dramatic, exciting and emotion-packed, and it achieved it all.  Not much subtlety, of course, just straightforward, honest to goodness shock-horror stuff – lots of anguish howls, impassioned pleas from our heroine and lots of nasty bad guys.  Bangkok Hilton, as we know, was a ratings knockout the first time around and, as expected, did very well the second time, too.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, July 6-12):
Saturday: SBS presents a special edition of current affairs program Dateline, where reporter Mike Carey has just returned with a film crew after two weeks in disaster-torn Bangladesh, where more than 150,000 people died in recent cyclones.

Sunday:  Sunday night movies are Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Seven), She-Devil (Nine) and My Stepmother Is An Alien (Ten).  Nine then crosses to Wimbledon for live coverage of the Men’s Singles Final.

Monday:  In A Country Practice (Seven), Luke (Matt Day) helps Steve (Sophie Heathcote) plan for an overseas trip, while a hospital health check reveals one of the nurses proves HIV positive.

Tuesday:  In Neighbours (Ten), Jim (Alan Dale) is afraid that something is still going on between half-siblings Glen (Richard Huggett, pictured) and Lucy (Melissa Bell).  Robert Mammone guest stars in GP’s 100th episode.

Wednesday:  Bruce Spence, Hugo Weaving and American actress Rosanna Arquette star in the Australian-made telemovie Wendy Cracked A Walnut (ABC), telling the story of a housewife who yearns for the romance and passion she finds in pulp novels.

Thursday:  John Polson guest stars in The Flying Doctors (Nine).  In Hampton Court (Seven), an astronomical electricity bill means desperate measures are called for.

Friday:  In Neighbours (Ten), Helen (Anne Haddy) gives Michael (Brian Blain) her answer to his marriage proposal.  In ABC’s documentary series A Big Country, a restaurant owner’s Chinese family in Bendigo recount their experiences in a country town since the war.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  6 July 1991.  Southdown Press