Television and Radio Sipping and sussing 'Out'

Press, 1 October 1979, Page 17

Television and Radio Sipping and sussing 'Out'

B.

JOHN COLLINS

POINTS OF VIEWING

So it was McGrath who grassed on old Frankie Ross I should have- sussed that out in the first episode: you can never trust a man who combs his moustache in public. Frank Ross himself took an awfully long time to suss it out for that matter, perhaps because McGrath had such a strong Scottish accent it was virtually impossible to suss out what he was on about most of the time. i "Out (Television One) really did take some sussing out. It was superbly produced. written, and acted, but the staccato jumping fawn character to character that gave it its air of realism was also its main drawback. The second and third episodes at times had so many characters jammed into them, all using an intriguing but puzzling slang that (apart from “sussing j out”) has changed considerably since my days as a transvestite police informer! in Soho, that the viewer could have done with a gios-' sary of terms and a com-1 puter that could spit out a; quick 150 words on each character who was being kneed, shot, or threatened as the plot thickened. ’ 1 think the ast two parts of "Out” failed to live up to

•the promise of the first episode; but, since these things are not assessed under laboratory conditions, the difference may well lie with the reviewer, on occasion, rather than with the programme. For the first episode of “Out” 1 scrubbed up and

changed into sterilised viewing robes to observe the programme in the soundproof, stainless-steel capsule provided by “The Press” for this purpose. Under these conditions, and with a maximum of concentration, it .was possible to get a line on the characters being injected into the plot at the rate of eight or nine a minute. In accordance with our complex product-testing philosophy of assessing programmes under conditions as near average as is possible, the second and third episodes were watched after dining, er. well, the occasion on Saturday being a dinner of leading media analysts convened by the Government to produce a coherent theory as to exactly what has happened to the Air New Zealand advertisement starring

Alan Whicker which all the fuss is being made about but which seems extremely reluctant to creep on to the i screen. Under these rigorous conditions, “Out” did not live up to earlier expectations. Long and determined debate failed with appalling regu-

- larity to determine who ? most of the people in “Out” - were, and no-one. in fact, > sussed out McGrath. r : This is not to suggest that - "Out” was not worth im- - porting — quite the con--1 trary; it is merely to point ’ i out that, like so many overI seas products, it did not f stand up particularly .well to • the arduous conditions under r which so much television ini I'New Zealand is watched. j It may be the strain of all I

i this sussing out, or it may |be old age; but it’s disturbing to find myself being irritated less and less by Keith Quinn’s rugby commentaries. 1 watched the superb Ranfurly Shield game on Saturday afternoon without once stabbing my hatpin into the small model of Quinn I keep Iby my viewing chair. On Sunday (“The Big March”) Quinn interviewed Jackie . Gleason, the All Black coach who had to retire because of advanced cancer. In a difficult but dignified interview about Gleason’s years with the All Blacks, about what it's like at the top in New Zealand rugby, and about Gleason's illness, Quinn got it just right.