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Neighbours, 6.30pm, 10: Everybody loves a wedding - especially the people
who publish those awful pulp magazines about television celebrities. A good
nuptial event can improve ratings, lift sales and blur the lines between reality
and suds for millions of hapless geese who steadfastly believe that Neighbours
is "real". Can Sarah Beaumont make it to the altar on time to tie the knot
(around her neck preferably), with Dr Peter Hannay? All the leftover mishaps
from the stage play, Secret Bridesmaid's Business, are slathered over the screen
as Karl sulks darkly somewhere and Lou carries on like a counter lunch. Not for
the fainthearted.
Charmed, 9.30pm, 10: "Gimme witches!", said Aaron Spelling, noting the spunk
factor in The Craft which screened on Sunday night. Hey presto, Zing! here they
are. With Shannen Doherty astride a broomstick as his new series kicks off ...
and dies in the bum.
Better Homes and Gardens, 7.30pm, Seven. Pour yourself another spritzer,
settle back on the hammock and suspend the imagination for an hour as a bunch of
very ordinary looking Australians do extraordinary things with common household
objects. Marvel as Bert this week combines the wheel hub from an FJ Holden,
half a cup of sugar, and a bent hairpin into a rocket launcher suitable for the
subcontinental export market. Look out Kashmir! What's that? Bert's not on this
show? Well where is he? And who's that whipping up those delicious rocket
launchers? Ooooooh, it's Bel-inda. Of course. And what's this? Guest presenter
Martin Lynes performs a perfunctory triple bypass on John Jarratt while Noni
sweeps out the spare room and Fiona transforms an ordinary mantle piece into a
Darth Maul mask for the kiddies. Splendid job. Carry on troops.
Cleopatra Part 2, Nine 8.30pm. Now that Timothy Dalton, who played Julius
Caesar in the style of an absurdly correct English gent has been reduced to
chopped liver on the steps of the Forum by Brutus and his bloodthirsty boyos,
Leonor Verela must hook into some other Roman guy if she is to maintain the
required image of Cleopatra as the sexpot of the Egyptian empire. Varela, who
has considerably less acting talent than the asp, is struggling with this
problem here until Bill Zane blows into Egypt, playing a loony tune version of
Mark Anthony. While Caesar was all dignity, taking a full minute to leap into
the cot with Cleo, Mark Anthony arrives a drunken lecher, all hands and no
finesse, as he spies the little beauty. "Prepare the royal barge for war - a
different kind of war," orders Cleo and it is upon this travelling waterbed that
much lust is generated. The Battle of Actium is staged as some sort of excuse
for producer Robert Halmi squandering squillions on the biggest - and flimsiest
TV set ever built. Four and half football fields is the proud boast, but the
action is plastic and the dialogue kicks few goals.
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