Trying to be positive.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I last wrote. I’ve been away visiting my parents and friends in Perth. I was hoping to come back with a new found optimism, especially in the light of my last few blogs that were all a little negative. I was also hoping that I could avoid talking about TV as that too has become a bit of a focus for my rants.

And so I return home and get ready to write again when I am confronted with all the TV programs that I missed while I was away. I’d like to ignore them, I really would, but they are so terrible that they must be commented on.

Channel 7 had been going so well this year. The continued success of Lost and Desperate Housewives and surprise hits Deal or No Deal and Dancing With The Stars helped 7 to topple the Nine Network’s long held reign. One could almost have been fooled into thinking that Channel 7 had finally worked it out. After years in the wilderness their programmers had finally got a handle on what viewers wanted and how to get them to watch. Then they pull out The Master, a cynical Millionaire rip off with nothing new to offer and certainly no interest to viewers. It was axed after one episode, proof positive that the programmers have learnt nothing and are still clutching at straws. Their other successes have been nothing more than dumb luck. Even the executives at 7 admitted that they were surprised at the popularity of Lost and Housewives. This proves that any hope that we might get anything worth watching on our screens in the future looks very unlikely.

Channel Ten have launched a couple of new shows in the last few weeks. The most hyped one being Tench Tonight. Tench had potential. It wins points for being an Australian innovation and an attempt at something different. The show has a ‘virtual’ host that interacts with its guests. Great idea! Except that they blew it. So much potential blown so quickly. Once again the powers that be have made fundamental errors in judgement.

The history of sassy and humorous talk show hosts is rich and deep. Real hosts Jay Leno and David Letterman to fictional interviewers like Norman Gunston, Dame Edna, Pixie Ann Wheatley and Ali G were all huge successes. Drawing from such great precedents the makers of Tench could have created a new TV icon, a character full of wit, audacity and wickedness.
Instead, they came up with a very boring and quite annoying creature. In an attempt to make Tench an amalgam of talk show hosts they ended up with a very bland looking pastiche that actually just looks like Tim Fergusson from The Doug Anthony All Stars. His wit is about as sharp as the class clown in a suburban primary school and his overall demeanour is that of a smart arse schmuck rather than a likeable or humorous interviewer. He fails to cleverly embarrass his guests or reveal anything new about them. Why hide behind a character if you aren't going to let loose and hit hard?

Above all else why on Earth would you, if faced with inventing a new computer generated character, create a generic looking male host? They could have made any living thing. Anything else would have been more interesting. An alien, a crocodile, a kangaroo, a robot… a woman???? If we really needed a new character to interview celebrities did we really need another slick haired male? Once again a lack of imagination and a complete lack of a decent sense of humour destroys an otherwise great idea.

What’s really sad is that Andrew Denton’s production team were responsible for this disappointment. I would have thought he’d have a better sense of what to do with this new technology. All that said the show will probably do OK. After all it’s only competition at the moment is Celebrity Survivor on 7. Faced with a choice I hope Australian viewers will turn to the ABC. But they probably won’t and we’ll have to put up with more promos, more non-celebrities facing 'challenges' and more pissweak comedies from the commercial networks.

Let’s hope the next week will bring me something more positive to write about.