Up until last week there was one thing about Hong Kong television that was good. Sadly, it was a case of what was not rather than what was. What was not was Sir David Frost. For nearly two years this man has not entered my mind, I have not seen his face nor heard his voice. What a rude awakening to see him re-enter my life last Friday. Frost, for those who do not know him, is one of Britain's 'veteran' interviewers and broadcasters. He started out as a satirist before moving into political interviews, and, dare I say it, if Frost has not interviewed you, you are not worth interviewing: Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon, Mr and Mrs Bush, to name a few of the eminent Americans. His appearances on television are more frequent than those of even the greatest of British broadcasting institutions, Terry Wogan. And, like Wogan, he has not been overly fussy about what he has hosted, which alongside numerous interview shows has included Through the Keyhole, a television quiz where a celebrity panel has to guess who lives in the home that is being filmed. Frost undoubtedly has a brilliant mind but I have this fundamental problem with his manner. Instead of being the droll presenter, I have always thought of him as the drooling presenter, expecting any moment a trickle of glob, rather than anything glib, to come from his mouth. He seems to have a slack mouth, a looseness around the lips that I mistrust. His intense sincerity is so palpably false that I can only assume it is genuine. But how can you take seriously someone who is the butt of every impersonator's joke and who sounds like Dame Edna Everidge? What confuses me most about seeing him in Hong Kong is why ATV has decided to put his programme Frost's Century (World, 8.30pm) in one of the prime slots of the week. This is the perfect late-night, midweek television programme that should be aired on a Monday or Tuesday. He was either exceptionally cheap or exceptionally expensive. If it was the former, why is he on in a peak slot? If it was the latter, why did not ATV spend its money on a good British drama series, the likes of which we all pine for? Anyway, here Frost is and, I suppose, here he is to stay as there are 28 episodes in this series covering changes and developments in the past century, from Love and Romance, to Americanism, to Cars, to Nuclear Age. Tonight, at least, the topic may interest Hong Kongers; he looks at the changes and upheavals in the way trade is conducted and money earned this century. I am definitely more pleased to see the delightful and beautiful Candice Bergen on our screens in Murphy Brown (Pearl, 6.50pm). John F Kennedy Jr makes an appearance as himself. He is on assignment for his new political magazine, George, and wants to give Murphy her wedding present. When he tells her he heard the wedding was off, she denies it so that she gets the gifts, suspecting it is something expensive. Every cliche about the Japanese is reproduced in Rising Sun (World, 9.30pm), a thrill-less thriller. Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes are two cops, one an expert in Japanese culture, who investigate the murder of a prostitute in the boardroom of a Japanese corporation's Los Angeles headquarters. Citizen Cohn (World, 1.25am) has a strong cast including Joe Don Baker and Joseph Bologna. James Woods stars as the infamous lawyer Roy Cohn, who became famous as chief committee counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy during the 1950s communist witch-hunt and who died of AIDS.
