This newsroom drama is fifty shades of beige
Forget Neighbours. The high point of Australian television was Return to Eden, a mini-series screened in the UK in 1983 in which a frumpy heiress had her face chewed off by a crocodile after her golddigging tennis-pro husband pushed her into a swamp, only to be rescued by a hermit who nursed her back to health, at which point she had secret reconstructive surgery which transformed her into a supermodel, then returned to high society with a new identity to exact revenge on the husband and his new fancy woman. How’s that for a plot?
Sadly, no Australian show has hit these heights in the years since, and The Newsreader (BBC Two) is definitely not going to break that duck. It’s set in 1986, in the newsroom of a TV network and initially seems to go out of its way to be dreary, not helped by a colour palette in shades of beige and brown.
If you make it past the first episode, though, it improves. The two main characters are Helen Norville (Anna Torv, who sometimes bears an uncanny resemblance to Cate Blanchett), the spiky star newsreader, and Dale Jennings (Sam Reid), an inexperienced producer and reporter. The pair are asked to work together, much to Helen’s disgust, but soon develop a bond – Dale may be ambitious but he’s a good egg. Supporting characters include a keen, capable but overlooked female researcher, and a gruff editor who wears braces and yells a lot.
Real events from 1986 are used as a backdrop – the first episode features the Challenger disaster, complete with that awful, unforgettable footage of the astronauts’ families watching the shuttle explode. Later, the six episodes include the Lindy Chamberlain case and Chernobyl. But it’s otherwise a straightforward soap opera taking us behind-the-scenes in a TV newsroom, with its rivalries, office politics, pre-metoo attitudes and – inevitably – a romantic relationship between the two leads.
Stick with it and you may find yourself becoming quite invested in these characters – Robert Taylor is particularly good as the ageing newscaster Geoff Walters, who can see the writing on the wall but is doing everything he can to avoid being pushed into retirement.
Plus, the 1980s setting can’t help but make you wallow in nostalgia. There are VHS tapes on the shelves and Mr Mister on the radio. And the series begins with archive footage of Crocodile Dundee’s Paul Hogan in an ad for the national tourist board. Truly a great decade for Australia.
What one thing would improve your life? After watching Million Pound Motorhomes (Channel 5), my answer would be: a daily visit from a mobile cocktail cart. In the North Carolina resort of Mountain Falls, a jolly lady drives around in a glorified golf cart loaded with booze, and mixes the cocktail of your choice on your doorstep.
The resort is solely for people with a “Class A” motorhome, which is a vehicle the size of a bus. At Mountain Falls, you can rent or buy a luxury cottage, but everyone is happiest when inside their motorhome. Pat and Jan, a pair of American retirees, call theirs “The Rolling Ritz”. It cost £1.6million and is far better appointed than my house, all marble floors and a king-size bed with en suite bathroom. At the push of a button, the living room somehow gets wider.
An episode exploring this resort, the guests and their monster motorhomes would have been a good hour of television, but programmes like this never go in-depth. Instead, we flitted between various people. Affable TV presenter Matt Allwright drove around Oxfordshire in his trusty campervan, joking that “the best thing about owning a motorhome is the sense of smug superiority” – yes, the guy in the Ferrari may overtake you, but has his car got a fridge and a double hob?
Another couple had converted a minibus into a compact home on wheels, at a total cost of £13,500 (the “Million Pound” bit of the programme title is a bit of a misnomer), and we followed their DIY project. They gave up their 9-5 jobs for a life on the road with their cocker spaniel, and looked blissfully happy relaxing on their rooftop sun deck.
Sometimes these programmes cause me to wonder just how the researchers found the people to take part. Something about the Campbell family, who had taken a year out to travel the world, felt very slick; a Google search revealed that they have a professionallooking website and social media presence inviting donations, and had been hoping to convince Netflix or Amazon to invest in their story. I lost interest in their part of the programme.
The Newsreader ★★★
Million Pound Motorhomes ★★★