Channel vision
A NEW name and a new game this week, so here's something you should know about me from the start: I love television. All types. Movies, soap, blow-out budget mini-series, Planet Fashion, Chicago Hope AND ER. It all serves a purpose, depending on what ails you after a hard day's slog on the Hong Kong chain-gang. TV is, after all, a therapy. So from now on it's flicks and beyond ...
Tonight, The Single Guy (Pearl, 8.30 pm) is certainly worth a look. OK, some would say it's a poor imitation of Friends, and they'd probably be right, but it's Sunday night - take-away and toasted sandwich night. Television should be the same; quick, easy and often cheesy. Neither Batman Returns (Pearl, 9.30 pm) nor Eddie Murphy in Boomerang (World, 9.30 pm) do that for me. For tennis junkies Wimbledon Highlights start late (Pearl, 12.20 am) but the tournament eventually makes it to primetime on Thursday (check listings for exact times each night on Pearl).
The Young Americans (Monday, Pearl, 9.30 pm) is worth checking out for Harvey Keitel's performance as a New York cop on secondment to London's Soho to investigate a chain of gangland killings.
Will Drs Lewis and Greene do the business in ER (Wednesday, Pearl, 8.30 pm)? The synopsis doesn't say but a fire rescue goes horribly wrong for the paramedics Shep and Raul. There's certainly more life to it than Chicago Hope (Thursday, World, 8.30 pm), which I thought started out the stronger of the two. With Dr Geiger and the lawyer gone, it appears the producers have given into competition from 'that other hospital' and moved those annoying young dudes, Kronk and Nyland, into the ER. It's boring, it's soulless, it needs resuscitation. Stat! Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway (Thursday, World, 9.30 pm) is a great little piece about a young playwright (John Cusack) attempting to get his script on stage. Dianne ('Dooooon't speak') Wiest is brilliant as are Chazz Palminteri, Jennifer Tilly and Tracy Ullman.
Saturday's strong movie line-up starts late so programme the video recorder. Brad Pitt is endearing in the hip little self-realization tale Johnny Suede (Pearl, 12.45 am). Hugh Grant and Peter Coyote are both utterly repugnant in Roman Polanski's trashy and thoroughly compelling sex-o-logue Bitter Moon (Pearl, 1.35 am). And Peter Boyle is inspired in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein (World, midnight) - his performance of Putting On The Ritz is a pant-wetter.
