Holy cow, what a TV year
By Eleanor Sprawson
January 01, 2004
FOR connoisseurs of things going horribly wrong on live television, there can be no doubt about the best TV moment of the year.
It was always going to be a brave move by Burke's Backyard to attempt a live show in front of a studio audience. Adding live cows to the mix was downright courageous.
But the October show isn't actually guaranteed to go completely haywire until Don Burke plucks a nervous youngster from the audience to come up and try his hand at milking and seeks to reassure him with the fateful words: "Get in close. They're very safe, cows, very safe".
Cue the cows going crazy, kicking the poor kid and running around wildly - the footage of which was all the more priceless for being shaky, as if from a war zone, after the cameraman lost his balance in the melee.
Amid the shemozzle, viewers could hear the immortal words from the show's cooking expert Geoff Jansz, as he fell under the flying hooves: "It's a stampede!"
Obviously, nothing else on the box could come close to the sheer glory of this moment. But here are our picks for the best of the rest of 2003 - as well, of course, as the worst.
The best and the blessed
* Molly Meldrum's appearance on a celebrity edition of Who Wants to be a Millionaire in April. He seems even more bumbling and nervous than during his infamous Countdown interview with Prince Charles. Pale and shaky, he even manages to spill water all over himself. He goes on to win $500,000 for charity.
* Chrissie's stand against Ben on Big Brother in May after weeks of his bullying had left other housemates in tears. En masse, Australia cheers and Ben is voted out at the very next opportunity.
* The oft-repeated, ever-sheepish refrain of Phil on The Block of "It's OK, it's all right, it's fine" as he reduces renovations to ruin by bashing at things with an enthusiasm matched only by his gormlessness. The night he gets a shelf up straight is celebrated throughout the land.
* Afro Harold mania sweeps Erinsborough on Neighbours mid-year. What starts off as a photo-shopped image of Harold au bouffant e-mailed around Ramsay Street inspires the great man to purchase a wig from an op shop and then to film a late-night TV ad for his coffee shop. The result is cult status, and Afro Harold T-shirts soon take over from milkshakes as the shop's best-selling item. Thrilled to bits, Afro Harold hits the lecture circuit to preach temperance and becomes a cult figure with the student crowd.
* The Lost Prince, a two-part British series shown by the ABC in July. Breath-taking, heart-breaking, the story of George V's epileptic son Prince John soars high above any words we stunned TV reviewers can muster to describe it. The best piece of television in years, it will be remembered for years to come, the Brideshead Revisited of the new century.
* Aucklander Andrew Lockett gets to the million-dollar question on Who Wants to be a Millionaire in September with two lifelines intact. The final question is "There have been how many Dalai Lamas?". He phones a friend, who isn't sure and then says "I'll take the $500,000, Eddie". Eddie protests "Don't you want to ask the audience?". Lockett takes one look at the audience and says "Nuh".
* The Freak making a comeback. In an inspired piece of casting, the makers of Home and Away get Maggie Fitzpatrick back behind bars for the first time since her days in Cell Block H, when Dani went to prison for running over her evil nemesis. Instead of being a warder, however, this time she's an inmate. Alas, there is no call for her to repeat her immortal line: "Bring in the hoses!"
* Guy sings Climb Every Mountain on Australian Idol. It is the moment we suddenly realised the 'fro had to win: after a startled few seconds of being horrified at the song choice, the studio audience and the rest of the country suddenly see that this was magic and by the end of the song we are all up on our feet roaring. Guy ends the song in tears and for once, Mark Holden's exhortatation "touchdown!" is spot on.
* In one swift move, Jon Dalton makes every other bit of deceit ever seen on Survivor look tame, when in November he makes fellow contestants and the show's producers to believe his grandmother has died. The sympathy of his fellow tribemates takes him almost to the end, even though, as Jon cackles: "My grandma is sitting at home right now watching Jerry Springer".
Roasted and ruined
The worst television moments of the year:
* Paul turns bully-boy on The Block, reacting with complete derision when Gav and Waz complain that his dodgy plumbing upstairs has sprung a leak (again) and flooded one of their light fittings. He says it is no big deal and that the boys are over-reacting. An electrician brought in to examine the light says: "Lucky no one was killed".
* Molly Meldrum Toasted and Roasted. Vicious and stupid in content, it is also amazingly misguided - picking so cruelly on a man millions of us have felt protective towards ever since, as children, we winced for him as he stumbled endearingly over his words on Countdown. A shocker that should never ever have gone to air.
* Liban, the Somalian refugee who sings so beautifully in an off-the-cuff performance of a song from his childhood during the first round of Australian Idol auditions, is brought back by the judges on the wildcard night. He falls in a heap, and leaves Marcia (and much of the country) in tears of embarrassment.
* Still on Australian Idol, Mark Holden goes mad and tears into Levi: "You didn't sing better than Selwyn, man!" Attempting to explain himself the next night on Rove Live, Holden says "I yanked the shank, man". We are still baffled, and a bit alarmed.
Now for the stinkers
The Harsh Reality with The Courier-Mail's Louise Crossen IT'S time for a walk down memory lane, otherwise known as . . . when reality goes bad.
No, it's not another crappy summer special, but our picks for the biggest misses of last year. We're talking about the kinds of shows that saw us turn off in droves – the kinds of shows that gave reality TV a bad name.
THE RESTAURANT: This show seemed like a sure thing – a ratings hit in the US, it was produced by the team behind Survivor and starred a hot young celeb chef, a la Jamie Oliver. And maybe that was the problem – after Jamie's Kitchen we'd been there, done that. Whatever the case, this show caused a few red faces at Ten.
After promoting it as the next big thing, the show bombed and execs decided to yank it after just one episode. Surprisingly, it didn't even make it back on to the schedule over summer – maybe Ten managed to return it and get a refund.
CELEBRITY BIG BROTHER: This was a blatant attempt to milk the franchise down to the last drop, and it was certainly a case of false advertising, unless you consider Red Symons, BB's Sara Marie and Imogen Bailey celebs.
A more apt title might have been "Nonebrity Big Brother" – it was hands down the biggest bunch of wannabes and has-beens ever assembled on Australian TV, and that's excluding the Logies. The fact that this series raised money for charity was its sole redeeming factor.
SURVIVOR: This show is now in its eighth season and, despite the myriad twists and turns we had last season, does anyone really care any more?
One of the contestants on the last series pretended his grandmother was dead to gain an unfair advantage – a stunt he'd rigged before he even got on the island. It was a demonstration of just how low people are willing to go for a million bucks – a depressing indictment on human nature and the TV industry.
REALITY DATING SHOWS: We're talking The Bachelor, Joe Millionaire, The Bachelorette – and that includes Trista and Ryan's Wedding. This kind of degradation was once a novelty, but these days it's just train-wreck TV.
We've seen it all before – teary-eyed, love-sick women and the sleazy, slobbering boneheads who pass for eligible men these days. The only thing that's changed is that the couples have become canny enough to maintain the facade for the suckers at home.
All we really want is a fairytale wedding – and networks pay through the nose for TV rights. Anyone taking bets on how long Trista and Ryan's marriage will last?
The Daily Telegraph
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