Too much detection, too little interest

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33869, 14 June 1975, Page 5

Too much detection, too little interest

A whole evening of t American detective work * is too much; Thursday ' was an evening like that, r And it wasn’t enough to t have humorous detectives in •‘M.A.S.H.” f The other detectives were 1 in'The Streets of San Fran- ' cisco” and in “Cutter,” the ' latter being a biack cannon type of presentation. Apart from the alleged [ C.1.A., police department, I and private investigator! t variations, that was the t whole evening other than t news and “Tonight at Nine.” 1 And, of course, “Corona-it tion Street.” It cannot be I i often that viewers must wel-T come the English evergreen!! to break the monotony, but|< it was that or nothing onl< Thursday. The generally beloved'f “M.A.S.H." looked ready for; the break it was about toh have. The rest should do j everyone a lot of good. f

The American “Streets” could hardlv have been more

; trivial. This is illustrated by,: the senior cop’s guilty ad-' mission that he knew a word as obscure as numis- < matic, and then only because he had done crosswords “once in a while.” Of course, this was presented as humour; but the distressing thing is that it had to serve as one of the highlights of the programme. * * I It is right and proper that Dougal Stevenson should have exercised his right as ; the moral banner-bearer of' the network. After a view of' •the international cricket! 1 knockout competition (so ac-| curately named) in England; I in which batsmen were! being regularly slaughtered? • by a missile known as the;; cricket ball, Mr Stevenson? (observed with pursed lips:! j “Cricket — a long, long way from the villag< green.” j This was bracinglyl i news “with” Mr Stevenson! just when TVI has stopped! pushing the idea. ■ The “Tonight at Nine”! (interview with Mr Anthony! Benn in London did not! • come over at all well for Mr! j Benn (Lord Stansgate to the plebs). I Whether Mr Benn, in • speaking for a New Zealand? (audience, thought he had toi • explain such subjects as polI itics and international affairs? [(as though at this distance! they must be in-1 I comprehensible), or whether he could not help being pat-1 ■ ronising, is hard to say. [ Whatever it was he was? j much too smooth and much! • too patient, and it was easy! ;to see why a lot of people! [in England consider him! I such a lousy politician. ; He even had to dress as I • though he just come in from jogging. His strenuous condescension was in remark-1 • able contrast to the style he' • showed in the film clip of! his address to the Labour 'conference. ! Now that TVI has abandoned many of its strange: , presentation quirks (its own • idea and not as a result of I expressed viewers’ prefer- j I ences) it might be possible'

I soon to encourage the network to return to name cap-! tioning for reporters and even the lesser newsreaders. • There was apparently an> original assumption that viewers would be so taken with the network’s personalities that they would learn the names of the frontmen •as a i latter of course, merely by hearing them spoken. In fact, the frontmen have not been able to stir viewers much, their names are missed: and they are becoming not faceless but labeljess. The idea should be to convenience viewers, or even to .[feed their curiosity, rather [than set them to work. — ,'D.M.