POINTS of VIEWING

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33447, 31 January 1974, Page 4

POINTS of VIEWING

Tuesday’s Games cover again first class

The Commonwealth Games again dominated viewing on Tuesday and we can only echo the sentiments expressed by other reviewers in congratulating the N.Z.B.C. for its fine coverage of the festival. However, you can never please everyone. There was a telephone call to "The Press” a few nights ago from a disgruntled viewer whose complaint was that there was too much sport on television at present. He acknowledged, with some reluctance, that the Games were a special case, but still he felt the coverage was excessive. Only politeness, phis a long hard day in the sun, prevented us from arguing to the contrary.

One of the great things about the Games, and any major sports festival for that matter, is studying the reactions of the competitors and in this respect television

viewers are often better off than those in the audience. Tuesday was a big day in Christchurch’s Games and apart from cycling, which had to be ruled out because of the prohibitive costs in installing the necessary lighting, all the highlights were filmed in a manner which reflects much credit on the camera crews and technical people involved. The front man, Bill McC’ thy, stumbled over a word here and there, but there can be no denying that he is doing a fine job. The thrills, the drama, and the touches of humour, from Queen Elizabeth II Park were all there to see, but, perhaps, the sport which gained most from Tuesday’s telecasts was weight-lifting. There must have been thousands grunting and groaning along with Tony Ebert as he made his gold-medal winning lift and Ebert’s comments later were most informative.

We have onl ytwo small criticisms and one great big regret. The first crltism is that the behind-the-scenes cameras at the weightlifting did seem something of an

invasion of the competitors' privacy and the second is that many, would, probably have liked to know now the New Zealand entrants fared in the road walk.

The regret is that we don't possess a colour television set Apart from "Comation Street”, which, no doubt, must be shown come Games or high water, the only regular feature on Tuesday night was "Ghost Story” and while nothing remarkable it was reasonablygood drama. The story was a Variation on the were wolf theme and although the ending would have surprised no-one the build-up to it was interesting enough. The acting at times was not all it might have been and Lauri Peters, the young wife who by night turned into a mountain lion, had some problems in showing off the catty side of her nature.

One would have thought that a girl with this sort of problem would have let her husband in on the secret before they got married, not afterwards. K.J.M.