High dramas
A Boeing 747 is unable to land because no one is left in the cockpit to turn off the auto-pilot and bring it down after a mid-air collision.
Another 747 is stranded in the air, refused permission to land because of a deadly virus. Disaster awaits all those on board both planes. Fans of air disaster movies have two to choose from tonight. Airport 1975 (HBO, 9pm), made in the heyday of this genre and the sequel to Airport, is the movie entertainment on Cable.
Those with their lives on the line include a girl waiting for a kidney transplant (Linda Blair), a nun who sings to her, played by Helen Reddy, and Gloria Swanson travelling first class and playing herself in her last movie.
Charlton Heston is the pilot who must climb on board the stricken plane in mid-air and take over the controls from his lover, chief stewardess Karen Block.
With so many air disaster movies made in the 1970s, writers had to delve further for plots in the 1990s. Pandora's Clock (Pearl, 10.35pm), based on John Nance's bestseller, builds on traditional airborne suspense of being stranded in the air, running out of fuel and doomed to crash, but adds four hours of complex story beyond the world of aviation.
The cause of the trouble on board the Quantum Airlines flight from Frankfurt to New York is a deadly virus that could wipe out the world's population. As a result, it is not allowed to land at one airport after another and a plot is hatched to shoot it down. This mini-series is a late programme change taking the place of La Femme Nikita, which was due to return for a new season but has been postponed until April.
After Titanic, Kate Winslet has been choosy about her roles. She turned down the chance to be Shakespeare's muse in Shakespeare In Love, for which Gwyneth Paltrow won the Oscar that eluded Winslet in Titanic. She also declined to join Chow Yun-fat in Anna And The King, leaving the role open for Jodie Foster. One role the talented actress would have been better off eschewing was that which followed her strong performance in Peter Jackson's chilling Heavenly Creatures - the forgettable Disney movie, A Kid In King Arthur's Court (Movie 2, 8.30pm).
She plays one of King Arthur's princesses, among those at Camelot to be rescued by an all-American kid, a Little League player (Thomas Ian Nicholas) from the 20th century. He enlightens the mythical English court about popular American culture, such as the wonders of the hamburger, and tries to save it from the evil Lord Belasco with the help of his Walkman, rollerblades and cocky ingenuity.
This rehashing of Camelot fare is based loosely on Mark Twain's novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
It may amuse children but hardly qualifies as evening entertainment for adults. At its release, adults preferred the seven-minute Mickey Mouse short Runaway Brain that was screened before.
