A kind of ecology night on TV1

Press, 22 October 1976, Page 11

A kind of ecology night on TV1

It was definitely Ecology Doomwatch night on TVI on Wednesday, what with "The Survivors” followed by Dr Paul Ehrlich on "Tonight,” cheerfully predicting extinction by overpopulation, nuclear holocaust, nuclear terrorist or a combination of all three. Dr Ehrlich is always a pleasure to listen to because of his entertaining volubility; full of good throwaway lines — he ialked in mocklypothetical fashion for example, about “the atrocity of an aluminium smelter which consumes 10 per 'cent of the country’s power at very cheap rates” in a manner which suggested that even he could not really suggest that such a thing would ever come about.

What he rs saying is intimed to leave one feeling

that the only reason for not cutting ones throat immediately is that to do so would bring into effect the mortgage repayment policy, and there is no point in bringing this into effect because civilisation is not going to last long enough to enable one to pay off the mortgage anyway; nevertheless cheerfulness, or at any rate black humour, keeps on breaking in. It is a bit like being told you have some absolutely fatal illness by a doctor who breaks you up with a series of brilliant one-liners. 1 have not been following “The Survivors,” but nevertheless was caught up by and enjoyed Wednesday’s episode. Carolyn Seymour has one of those faces which has only one expression — well, no, perhaps two; frozen concern for herself and frozen concern for

somebody else — and you would think that this would be a handicap for an actress, but somehow it seems not to be in her case. The story should have been hard to get excited about — the young Lari trying to recapture the family seat and reimpose feudalism — but nevertheless one was carried along by it. On the evidence of the episode I saw the series appears to be solid and well-crafted. “Solid” and “wellcrafted” are two adjectives that can equally be applied to “Barney Miller,” along with a few others, such as “extremely funny,” “tightly written” and “well acted.” When it is good it is as good as “M.A.5.H.,” although when it is bad it is worse. “Barney Miller” is an admirable counterfoil to

“Kojak,” and those who complain that neither programme deals with the corruption for which the New York Police Depart-

ment is justly famous can always go and see "Serpico.” After all, there must always be a few good apples in every barrel. On “Sportsnight” we saw the New Zealand runner John Perambulator receive the New Zealand Playing games person of the Year Award for the second year running. Perambulator, who was in hospital being treated for an inflamed ego, made the following acceptance speech from his hospital bed; "Thanks. 1 think you were quite right to give me the award for the second year running, in view of all the selfless dedication and mental and physical agony 1 _ had to undergo in order to win a gold medal at Montreal in a very slow time. When I was out there on the track, with 75,000 people waiting to see mfe win my gold medal, I suddenly felt very humble, and a horrible experience it was.” — A. K. GRANT