Sublime to ridiculous

Press, 7 October 1988, Page 7

Sublime to ridiculous

Ken Strongman

on television

From two weeks of some of the more awesome aspects of human endeavour to the first programme of the new season — "Falcon Crest.” It is complete, unremitting, untrammelled crap. The general allure of life in a melodramatised Californian wine industry is portrayed through sex in its various forms and violence culminating in death in its various forms. In the first few minutes there was a sea death, an injured house-servant and a potential suicide. Every character is considerably smaller than life, their dealing with one another passing in an hysterical frenzy. Hands wring on breasts, clutch at hair, at brows or at mouths in shock-horror-despair. Raw emotion of a sort never seen off the screen grates its way from minute to minute, as people sob, shout, snarl and sneer.

The grotesque profligacy of wealth in “Falcon Crest” is matched only by the grossness of spirit of the protagonists. The cost of the clothes they wear would feed some nations for a month. They screech

at one another like a troop of monkeys some of whom have gained access to illicit drugs. This is the crassly rich at play in styleless surroundings.

In one episode it is impossible to gather who is related to whom, which of them have been married or have liaised. It is clear though that most of them harbour an envy, jealousy and dislike for one another which borders on loathing. This makes a certain sense, since most of them are indeed loathsome. An hour spent with “Falcon Crest” has a similar charm to that which might be experienced by peering into a potful of maggots.

The music is in perfect accord with the general tenor of this programme (not to say its bass aspects as well), as is the camerawork. Long sequences look up the front of RollsRoyces and down at highly polished chauffeurs’ boots, or, rather, at chauffeurs’ highly polished boots. Or a female head, held at its most advantageous angles, is viewed throught a besuited male armpit.

Long fingernails stretch out across pensive lips when they are not curled round telephones. Their owners sound as though they have learned to converse by studying the worst sort of romantic fiction. “Oh, they’ll put me in a straitjacket.” "Damn you for dying.” "I’ll hire my own damn navy if I have to.” "This is the first day of the rest of my life.”

“Falcon Crest” is one of the few programmes from which the advertisements provide a welcome break. It is a pleasure to think about clean windows, showers, teeth, hair and toilets, and new cars, oil changes, paving and food. The trouble is that the denizens of “Falcon Crest” are people who have all those things that the advertisements suggest are good for us. It is too big a price to pay. To stop pussyfooting around, “Falcon Crest” is the worst programme I have seen for a long time. It is almost worth watching merely to establish a viewing baseline to work up from. On second thoughts, don’t. It is demeaning and might just

cause cortical damage. Tailpiece. Monday’s "Eyewitness News” carried an item which stepped over the line separating journalism from sensationalism and advertising. It centred on the possibility, based on one bit of evidence, of dog-fighting in New Zealand, and featured the breeding of pit bull terriers, which are evidently good at this. Now, up and down the country, some people will want to buy these dogs and may want to set them at one another. Television is powerful and should be used more responsibly than this.