‘Champions’ not the greatest

Press, 4 November 1978, Page 13

‘Champions’ not the greatest

By

DERRICK MANSBRIDGE

As I sat before the “instant entertainer” on Thursday evening, watching something called “The Champions’’ that ought to be renamed “The Duds,” eyes three-quarters closed, and senses numbed, two thoughts consoled me.

The - first was the enormous fee I would be paid for writing this review and the extra amount I would be able to contribute to making New Zealand the way Mr Muldoon wants it. The second was that all I was missing on the other station was ' “Coronation Street.”

“The Champions,” two men and a woman, appear to be members of Nemesis — an international security organisation, we are solemnly told — sup-

ported by all countries but answerable to none. The latter probably explains why in conception and acting and story content it ranks among the dregs,of television entertainment. Who would want to own it?

Apparently, Craig Stir

ling, Richard Barrett, and Sharon Macready were involved in some mysterious accident in which their lives were saved and their bodies mended by an “unknown civilisation” which gave to them super powers with which they have been able to combat all the nastiness the nasties of this world can inflict on them.

On Thursday evening they were involved with the Mafia — and which goodies at some time or other are not? But there was also a deadly concoction which, once it touched a victim's skin, put him or her in a suicidal frame of mind —

hence, one driving over a cliff, another throwing himself out of a train, a third walking into the path of a car. a fourth tossing herself into foaming water, and finally, in the great denouement, the Mafia chief himself leaping out of a building like some high tiddly Iti. Naturally, one of our heroes was also on the

verge of diving into a Roman street hundreds of feet below, but a combination of his own supernatural willpower and the super-extraordinary intelligence of his fellow Champs saved the day. Which was a pity.

I believe this was the gist of the story, for at one part my mind, thankfully, slipped away and took me into one of those elegant suites so beloved of television moguls. Half-a-dozen of them sat around a table, staring into space, each desperately searching for an idea that would make him the envy of the others and the darling of the Head Mogul.

Then the door to the room burst open and in rushed young Lochinvar,