WORK OF ‘TONIGHT’ WILL BE MISSED

Press, 18 December 1976, Page 13

WORK OF ‘TONIGHT’ WILL BE MISSED

By

A. K. GRANT

I shall be sorry to see "Tonight at 9.30” disappear. It seemed to me to have achieved a perfectly satisfactory- synthesis between news and current affairs, and it came on at the right time of the evening.

.'ome of its treatment of some issues was superficial, but that is saying no more than that this is not a perfect world and that television journalism shares its imperfections. There were few completely dull editions and occasionally some very good ones, like Thursday night’s, in which we got two excellent reports — one about the problems for New Zealand of the persistence in the Pacific of certain strains of tuberculosis (how many people would have known before they saw this report that there are still 600 cases of tuberculosis in New Zealand every year?): and the other on an Auckland alcoholics hostel.

The “Tonight” team sometimes gave the impression that they were bad losers over the election result, and their approach to the Prime Minister and other Cabinet Ministers was sometimes not so much probing as purely hostile.

Nevertheless “Tonight” has, since the introduction of the two-channel set-up, made an honourable contribution to the expansion of the frontiers of television journalism in this country, and one can only express the pious hope that neither as a result of the Broadcasting Amendment Act nor the disappearance of “Tonight” will those frontiers contract. « * *

The second semi-final of “Mastermind” was a closerun affair, with Patrick Bowles the gastronomer

(he looks at food through telescopes) just edging out Derek Bolt. Peter Sinclair generally quizzes ably, though on a couple of occasions he was unfair to one or other of the contestants by using part of their precious two minutes to explain why they had got an answer wrong. The whole formula of as many questions as possible in two minutes seems to me to be unsatisfactory, since unless both the questions and answers are identical in length for each contestant, someone is going to get more questions than someone else. Why could not each contestant simply be asked, say, 30 questions on his speciality, with a limited time to* answer each question? ..

The repeat of the episode in “M*A“S"H” in which Henry is sent home but doesn’t get there made one realise how much Henry was the centre of the programme, around whom the other characters centrifugally spun, and how flat the programme is without him.

Trapper was also a much more effective foil for Hawkeye than the new fellow ’whose name I can’t remember. I think perhaps “M’A'S’H” has lasted a series too long.

It has fallen victim to Grant’s Law of Television Series which...states that most television series last, one series too long, including some series which last onlv one series.