Transported back to the 60s
This week I was transported back to the 1960s. In those impressionable years, we would fill the Nicoberg in Stafford Arcade, listening to songs of freedom and protest. As teenagers we were part of the restless spirit, identified through the music of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary.
We would long for the old order to change without knowing what it was. If the answer was blowin’ in the wind, we didn’t understand the question. Those incrediblemoments returned in Prime Rocks: Peter, Paul and Mary (TV3, Wednesday).
I initially hoped for a biopic about their lives, but got something better. Instead, the programme was amontage of their songs from Newport, Rhode Island festivals. Their harmonies were superb and the blend had that appealing edge of advocacy. No keyboards, no studio, just three exposed voices and two strumming guitars.
They performed If I Had Ahammer, San Francisco Blues, Call My Name, Jesus Met A Woman By the Well and many others. Peter Yarrow sang Puff, the Magic Dragon, which we changed to Puff, the Magic Flagon.
The doco captured the pinnacle of folk revival that extended far beyond Newport and transformed a young 16-year-old.
I should be outraged by Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders (Sky 5, Sundays). The series has spawned an international response team that travels theworld saving Americans in distress, yet never leaves Hollywood.
To save money and allow leading actor Gary Sinise to go home for morning tea, the series uses stock footage from world capitals and then films the episode from a backlot at tinseltown.
This week the backlot was South Africa. An American student, Timothy Smit, is mutilated and Brandon, his brother, goes missing. That’s enough for Jack Garrett (Sinise) to jet into Johannesburg with his team.
Local knowledge tells them that Kurt Adams, the deranged half-brother of Constable Sarah Miller, is killing familymembers of white supremacists who roamed South Africa at the time Nelson Mandela was released. Miller was murdered by an outlaw group called Pretorius.
Once Garrett discovers Smit seniorwas a member of Pretorius, the pieces fall into place. Adams was not smitten with Smit so, wearing an animal facemask, he rampages around Ellis Park – probably made with paper mache and PVA glue – desecrating the offspring.
Garrett is quickly on the job. He captures Adams, rescues Brandon and arrests Smit senior for crimes committed 30 years earlier. He then goes home for a cup of Earl Grey.
Beyond Borders is certainly better than
Criminal Minds – anything is better than
Criminal Minds – and allows Sinise and his team to see the worldwithout leaving home.
I want him to come here and rescue us from level 1, but he’d have to be quarantined.
Honey Wars (Prime, Sundays) was a jumble. I could find no war unless it comes later. The series features Rob and Lon Murray and their family, who produce Tai Tokerau Honey from their property near Kaitaia.
We meet the extended family, receive a potted history, see them collecting manuka honey, fixing their vehicle fleet and buying the wrong building. The hodge and podge came together, but the structure was missing.
Rob Murray is the Oscar of apiarists and Lon his organiser.
We want to know about them, but instead the doco is too busy. It’s a hive of activity. Just slow down, tell us one story at a time.
Bees are fascinating, especially the Queen Bee’smating habits. When she makes love, her partners pop their clogs afterwards.
Tai Tokerau is competing against climate change and conglomerates, and needs a good season to survive. But Rob Murray is the ultimate ‘‘glass half full’’ boss.
He’s not afraid of debt. ‘‘I kept creating it wherever I went,’’ he recalls. He should be a politician.