Parks & Recreation – NBC – 8:30/7:30pm Thursday – USA / Channel 7 – 11:00pm Tuesday – AUS

Parks & Recreation starts next Tuesday in Australia on Channel 7 and if you’ve read my somewhat damning review and my even more damning follow up this may come as a bit of a shock to you but: you should 100% totally watch Parks & Recreation.

Sure I went on and on about how Parks & Recreation was nothing more than a poor man’s The Office. Nothing but an un-funny clone of a loveable classic. Well, it turns out P&R has more in common with The Office (US) than we first suspected: turns out both shows have awful first seasons followed up by fantastic second seasons. Ten episodes of the second season of P&R have aired in the U.S. and each is funnier than the last (except for that one with Fred Armisen, but that rests solely on his hacky shoulders.)

Channel 7 is of course kicking off P&R with the first season (which is usually how these things go. You know, in order.) but there are only six episodes of that and I know you guys can stick with it. There isn’t a lot to like, but you do get your first taste of Ron fucking Swanson, who pretty much delivers all of the laughs in the first season. After testing out some characters and throwing some really dud jokes around during the first year the creators of P&R spent their time in between seasons really figuring out how to bring the funny.

Amy Poehler who was so grating in the first is at the top of her game in the second. Aziz Ansari who was an unlovable prick for the first six episodes… well, he’s still an unlovable prick but he becomes a touch more tragic. Sure Rashida Jones still has nothing to do but that doesn’t really matter when she’s usually surrounded by Chris Pratt making an hilarious ass of himself. Even April comes into her own in the second season and stops being such a half joke character. Also, did I mention the show has Ron fucking Swanson?

In my follow up I wrote “I went into Parks & Recreation wanting it to be my new favourite Thursday night sitcom…” before yet again dropping the words “like” “an” “unfunny” “Office” and “The” in no particular order. I know this is a big call but I’m just going to put this out there and see how it looks in the real world: Parks & Recreation IS my new favourite Thursday night sitcom.

Sure The Office is a trooper and is still a solid half hour even after six seasons. Yeah, Community has covered over some real duds with a few great episodes, culminating in the fantastic An American Tail homage in episode 10. 30 Rock on the other hand, well, there are still laughs to be found but my fanboy love is all but gone.

The biggest criticism I levelled at Parks & Recreation was that it was just like The Office, so we can also thank the comedy gods that in the second season P&R has gone to great lengths to create a show that is very much its own. Even the “Jim looks” to the camera bits from Rashida Jones have been cut down to only once every three episodes or so…

It’s a testament to how strong the second season is that it’s wiped away all thoughts that the first season could even possibly have been bad. Surely I was wrong. Surely it was all my fault. Surely I didn’t see the greatness because I was too busy imagining Dwight bursting into the Parks Department. I apologize to Parks & Recreation, it’s a really funny show and I’m so glad the second season has stepped up and delivered episodes jam packed with laugh out loud moments. Also, I’m not sure if I mentioned this but Parks & Recreation is the only show on television where you can see Ron fucking Swanson. Ron alone is reason enough to tune in. Enjoy… the second season.

After 25 years of dominating daytime TV & talk shows, the Queen of ALL Media- Ms. Oprah Winfrey- will be shutting it down on Sept. 8, 2011. Personally I’m too choked up to give a statement right now. However, this is what Ms. Winfrey had to say on the matter:

“After much prayer and months of careful thought, I have decided that next season, Season 25, will be the last season of The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Over the next couple of days, you may hear a lot of speculation in the press about why I am making this decision now…and that will mostly be conjecture.

So I wanted you to hear this directly from me.
Twenty-four years ago, on September 8, 1986, I went live from Chicago to launch the first national Oprah Winfrey Show. I was beyond excited…and as you all might expect, a little nervous. I knew then what a miraculous opportunity I had been given, but I certainly never could have imagined the “yellow brick road” of blessings that have led me to this moment with you.

These years with you, our viewers, have enriched my life beyond all measure. And you all have graciously invited me into your living rooms, into your kitchens and into your lives. And for some of you longtime Oprah viewers, you have literally “grown up” with me—we’ve grown together. You had your families, and you raised your children and you left a spot for me in your morning or your afternoon, depending on when The Oprah Show airs in your town.

So I just wanted to say that whether you’ve been here with me from the beginning or you came on board last week, I want you all to know that my relationship with you is one that I hold very dear. And your trust in me, the sharing of your precious time every day with me has brought me the greatest joy I have ever known.

So here we are, halfway through the season, 24, and it still means as much to me to spend an hour every day with you as it did back in 1986. So why walk away and make next season the last?

Here is the real reason: I love this show. This show has been my life. And I love it enough to know when it’s time to say good-bye.

Twenty-five years feels right in my bones and it feels right in my spirit. It’s the perfect number—the exact right time. So I hope that you will take this 18-month ride with me right through to the final show.

Over this holiday break, my team and I will be brainstorming new ways that we can entertain you and inform you and uplift you when we return here in January. And then Season 25—we are going to knock your socks off.

So, the countdown to the end of The Oprah Winfrey Show starts now and until that day in 2011 when it ends, I intend to soak up every meaningful, joy-filled moment with you.”

18 Months! I’ve got 18 MONTHS to get on my grind, make shit happen & appear on this legend’s show before it goes off the air. Mr. Hollywood, are you with me? Excuse us, we have work to do.

-”The BklynBandette.” Mr. Hollywood’s Co-Defendant.

First Tuesday in November and here in the Lucky Country it’s Melbourne Cup Day. This is the day the country stops everything and downs tools for a very long, liquid lunch and a horse race on the TV.

On Melbourne Cup Day the only thing that matters is what horse you have drawn in the office sweepstakes and if your glass is full.

So it should come as no surprise that, on the day of the nation’s biggest horse race, the Australian Commercial Television Networks have quietly announced they have managed to gamble away AuD$3 Billion in a punt on the MobCon.

The SMH reports that the Seven Media Group has cut more than AuD$1.5 billion from the value of its television network, pushing the company to a AuD$1.9 billion loss . While PBL Media, the owner of the Nine Network, has also reported a loss of nearly AuD$1 Billion. Only the 10 Network came through relative unscathed after posting a loss of just AuD$89m.

Up until recently Television thought is was immune from the creative destruction that is ailing the Newspaper industry. 

Viewer numbers are still strong and Australians still spend a significant part of the day “Glued to the box”.  

After today’s announcements, the shareholders of Australia’s TV networks are very much aware of the financial impact of the MobCon and how it’s not just destroying shareholder value in the newspaper game but across the whole media industry.

Business Insider’s Henry Blodget pretty much said it all earlier this year in his post Sorry, there’s no way to save the TV Business.

Today television is struggling to discover a future for itself.

Ironically the challenge isn’t distribution, there are more channels than ever before and the arrival of digital has improved the AV quality. The challenge is in content. A future of professional sport, 24 hr news cycles, reality TV and endless repeats isn’t going to cut in the long-term.

The challenge TV also shares with Newspapers and Magazines is to make their  linear and cyclical programming formats relevant in an increasingly asynchronous world. Their audiences simply don’t have the time to sit around and wait for TV to deliver linear content. They want it all and they want it now and they want it free.

Oh and if you’re wondering who won the horse race? Well one look at that AuD$3 Billion loss and picking the winner today was very easy: 

It was Shocking.

I don’t know whether everyone in Australia is in agreement with me but I believe GO! to be a godsend. If you’re under 30 and you don’t care about watching repeats of Seinfeld, GO! is the channel for you.

With Channel 9 signing an approx $500 million deal with Warner Bros we can finally see all those cable shows in America that usually go straight to Foxtel.  For example The Vampire Diaries started 4 weeks after its premiere in America on GO!.

I’ve lived in the household with the parents that couldn’t justify paying for Foxtel when we had free television which I never understood, but now I don’t think free-to-air TV is that bad. Every time I go to my friends house we watch Fox8 and it is basically re-runs of old shows until you hit primetime where you see the news shows. GO! seems to be following this pattern.

The programmers at GO! have their heads screwed on right shaping each night to a different demographic. Wednesday nights slated for young males into sci-fi with Fringe and Eleventh Hour headlining the primetime slot while on Thursday you have a female slated line-up with Gossip Girl and The Hills.  These types of nights are a golden opportunity for advertisers to get on board and take advantage of the demographic groups that are likely to be watching with appropriate product advertising.

This move by Channel 9 to set up this new channel aimed at the younger audience takes pressure off Channel 9 to appeal to younger audiences on the main channel. With Channel 9 struggling in the ratings this year pushing it back in to third one week this year due to the success of Master Chef on Channel 10, GO! is the answer to draw the younger audiences and Channel 9 can focus on regaining the audience it has lost over this year.

I am probably bias in the aspect that the reasons I support GO! so much is that so many of my favourite shows I wasn’t able to see on TV are now available on GO!. Beside that point the presentation of GO! and the slick programming are all contributing to what I see is shaping up to be a great addition to Australian television.

The Amazing Race – CBS – 8:00/7:00pm Sunday – USA  / Channel 7 – 9:30pm Thursday – AUS

After the disappointing season fourteen, which was ultimately won by the least repulsive of the final three teams, I’ve got high hopes for this latest season of The Amazing Race. Here’s hoping the ‘Mel & Mike’ team don’t fall by the way side while some ‘not as noble as they think they are’ Mother & Deaf Son prance around being all bitchy.

Season fourteen opened with the racers being brought in via helicopter, season fifteen only has a bus so it’s not off to as flash a start so far. As our contestants are brought to the Los Angeles river (made famous by Terminator 2 and… Grease) we get to meet this new batch of separated couples, black friends, and siblings with similar sounding names.

Brian & Ericka are an interracial couple. Ericka was voted Miss America, and Brian is… white. I guess.

Lance & Keri are an engaged couple with broad Boston accents. I usually root for any team who pronounces ‘smart’ ‘smaat’ but these guys are way too douchey for my liking… and for the record I love Boston Rob so I have a high tolerance for ‘doucheyness’.

Marie & Tiffany are a pair of professional poker players and like every professional poker player who has ever appeared on any reality television show ever they turn out to be not good at anything else other than playing poker.

Zev & Justin are goofy best friends. Zev has Asperger’s so he says what’s on his mind and he’s going to have to cope with being out of his comfort zone. Their back and forth “you want to make out with me don’t you?” goofy best friend banter put these guys second on my list of ‘Teams I’m Going For’.

Mika & Canaan are newly dating singer/songwriter Christians who were my pick for first to be eliminated. I was disappointed but somewhat vindicated when they still came in second last. So close.

Flight Time & Big Easy are Harlem Globetrotters for crying out loud and if they aren’t your favourite team to have ever step foot on the race then I bet you’re the type of person who found Luke from last season an ‘inspiration’ and not a ‘bitch’.

Sam & Dan are brothers who are also gay and had no other discernable personality traits outside of those two facts.

Gary & Matt are father and son. Gary is an old school farmer, and Matt has dyed hair because he’s crazy, or wicked, or a tool, or something.

Eric & Lisa are married and douchebags and after a their introduction I spent a long time tossing up between Eric & Lisa and Mika & Canaan as being first eliminated. I went with Mika & Canaan and more on that bad decision later.

Garrett & Jessica are on and off dating and I kind of forgot they were even in the show until I wrote their names just then.

Marcy & Ron are an older dating couple. Ron seems like a nice enough guy but he’s stuck with a demented older version of Tina Fey.

Meghan & Cheyne are the hot dating couple whose names should really be spelt Megan & Shane.

This season of The Amazing Race has a TWIST though. Before the teams get their first clue they have to complete a challenge. The last team to complete the challenge is eliminated before even leaving the country. I can’t tell you how much of a stupid bullshit twist I found this to be. The best thing about The Amazing Race over the years is that they’ve managed to keep it pretty much the same as it’s always been, leaving the annoying twists to “drop your buffs” Survivor.

Of course the challenge they have to complete is one of those random searching challenges where dumb luck has about as much of a chance as license plate finding skills. Luckily the boring Eric & Lisa  got eliminated first thus continuing the trend of ‘find the least interesting pair and you have your first eliminated couple’. I should have remembered the second rule ‘if there are more than one boring forgettable couple then pick the one which has a guy with long hair.’ Nobody is going to miss Eric & Lisa but imagine if Flight Time & Big Easy were to go home before the second commercial break just because they couldn’t find a license plate stuck to the wall.

After the annoying twist that hopefully dies with this season the teams take off to Japan where they take part in a fake Japanese game show involving the eating of wasabi before then leading twenty Japanese tourists across Tokyo to the pit stop.

I love The Amazing Race but even I know that this was a weak opening episode. Outside of introducing a couple of teams to love, a couple of teams to hate and a couple of teams to completely forget about all this episode did was highlight the worst parts of The Amazing Race. Mainly the ‘catch up’ and the ‘luck challenges’.

First up – ‘the catch up’: The teams arrived on different planes and had to race to the television studio, but when they got there they had to wait around for all the other teams to arrive before the challenge started. The catch up usually pops up when a team arrives at 3am in the morning and the challenge doesn’t open until 7am giving all other teams a chance to ‘catch up’, but to see a ‘catch up’ in the first challenge of the race was a bit of a disappointment.

Then there was the ‘luck challenge’. The supposed challenge this week was to stand around a giant roulette wheel as the Japanese game show host spun it. If you landed on a wasabi bomb you had to eat it within two minutes, but landing on the wasabi bomb was pure luck. Teams got ahead and teams fell behind based on nothing but the spin of a wheel. These challenges usually pop up where a team has to ‘guess the drawer a clue is hidden in’ or ‘search through a mountain of cakes to find the one with a clue inside’. I think we all remember the All-Stars season where the awesome Boston Rob & Amber got eliminated because they couldn’t find an envelope address to them from a pile of letters.

Luckily the order people finished the wasabi challenge didn’t really affect the outcome of the first leg because as we all remember poker players can’t do anything else but play poker. This wasn’t a great start to the fifteenth season but this is The Amazing Race so even a slow start can lead to a sprint to the finish. Let’s hope we’re there as Flight Time & Big Easy race Zev & Justin for the million dollars as Lance & Keri argue with each other because “they always get the slow taxi driver!”

Beauty & The Geek Australia – Channel 7 – 8:30pm Thursday – AUS

After Channel 9 resurrected the past it’s used by date The Apprentice for an Australian version it seems only fitting that Channel 7 make a local version of an American show that got cancelled last year sometime. I’ve always had a soft spot for Beauty & The Geek what with it being a sometimes funny, often sweet, entry into the overcrowded genre of reality television.

Beauty & The Geek Australia follows the American formula right down to the constant sweeping shots of the mansion. It looks and acts just like the U.S. series and even forces the voiceover guy to do his best yank impersonation. Bernard Curry is the host of the proceedings and it would seem between the Curry brothers and the Daddo’s these power families have TV in Australia locked up.

We first meet our Geeks as they roll up to the mansion on segways. There are your usually array of actual social misfits like Xenogene, there’s a guy with comically large glasses named Corin, a strange Asian man named Paul who looks like Jemaine from Flight Of The Conchords, and amongst the rest a so-called geek named Nathan chosen just for the upcoming ‘makeover round.’

Next we meet the Beauties as they pull up in fancy cars. For once on this series I’d like to see the Beauties on segways and the Geeks in the limos. The girls are harder to peg down after the first episode as their defining characteristics all seem to be that they are hot and ditzy. There’s Lisa the aspiring actress, Jenna the air hostess who tries way too hard, Emma the girl who’s about as dumb as Nathan is geeky ie: not at all. Just like in the U.S. series the girls here seem to be ‘nice dumb’ rather than ‘bitchy dumb’. The only slightly bitchy contestant is Kimberly and even she seems nice enough.

The episode goes through the motions that we’ve seen on the American series. There’s a challenge for the Geeks, and a challenge for the Beauties. The Geeks have to rap, and the Beauties have to teach a bunch of fifth graders. The winners of the challenges get to pick who’s headed to the elimination room. By lifting challenges directly from the American series B&TheG Australia makes not a single attempt to separate itself from its Yankee counterpart. In fact you start to wonder why Channel 7 didn’t just buy the rights to the U.S. show and save themselves the bother of making a carbon copy.

The first episode contained a less than thrilling twist: there will be no elimination. Everybody who had access to a clock during the episode could easily have told you the same thing as with no time for an extra ad break left in the episode there was hardly going to be time for a thrilling elimination.

I’m not really sure how I feel about Beauty & The Geek Australia. Beauty & The Geek works because of the interplay between the couples as they start to get to know each other more. The back and forth between the Beauties and their Geeks is what makes an otherwise silly reality show work. There’s never a lot of that in the first episode which usually has to rely on the Geeks being weird, and the Beauties mispronouncing words to score cheap laughs. However the laughs were pretty scant in this first episode and if I had never seen Beauty & The Geek before I think I’d be less than impressed.

I’ve got to rate this opening episode ‘bad’ despite the fact I’m going to keep watching it. I’m watching knowing that the American series often got better the longer it went on. I have no idea whether the Australian version will follow the same path but here’s hoping things pick up from here because at the moment this is nothing more than an okay cover of a great song, okay maybe not a great song, but you know, My Sherona.

Good, Alright, Bad Or Ugly?
Bad

FlashForward – ABC – 8:00/7:00pm Thursday – USA / Channel 7 – 8:30pm Monday – AUS

Ever since Lost exploded onto the scene back in 2004 every network and his dog has been trying to replicate ABC’s success. Everybody wanted their very own ensemble mystery with a sci-fi bent. 2005 brought the world many pretenders to the thrown including the less than intriguing alien invasion series Invasion. 2006 brought about a show many assumed would take the crown and wear it forever until its producers were forced to create a second series with Heroes. Even Jericho tried it’s damndest but eventually disappeared thanks to low ratings.

It’s now 2009 and with Lost soon to enter its sixth season ABC has thrown as much money as they can into another ensemble mystery with a sci-fi bent. The show is called FlashForward and while Heroes gave us super powers, Invasion had its aliens, and Lost had a tropical island, FlashForward has … visions of the future. Okay, so it’s not sexy but it will have to do.

FlashForward opens with Shakespeare In Love himself Joseph Fiennes waking up in a car crash and climbing out to find the world has been thrown into chaos; there’s even a man on fire for crying out loud! The title is then flashed at us followed by the words ‘Four hours earlier.’ Again we meet Shakespeare as he gets up in the morning. We learn that he’s an FBI agent; that he has a wife, a daughter, he goes to AA and this day is just like any other… only that it’s not! Dun dun dunn!

As this “normal day” plays out we get to meet our cast of cops, doctors and babysitters. John Cho from Harold & Kumar appears as Shakespeare’s partner and comic relief while Zachary Knighton pops up as a suicidal doctor. Zachary Knighton was in the underrated and little seen Life On A Stick which makes his extra solemn performance here more than a touch funny for any Stick fan out there… of which I seriously think there are only three of us.

The day wears on as per usual and John Cho and Shakespeare find themselves in a car chase that ends in them blacking out for two minutes and seventeen seconds. Only it wasn’t just them. It was everybody in L.A… but as a black man watching the news quickly tells us “It’s more than just L.A., man!” And as somebody else intones “My god! It’s the whole world!” In case you haven’t yet figured it out FlashForward is more than a little bit silly. Not that there’s anything wrong with that but the cast tend to walk around having conversations like they’re in something deeper than just a bad Roland Emmerich movie.

When the whole world blacks out chaos reigns as we hear reports that Air Force 2 went down and “the veep was on board.” Apparently somebody forgot to put the auto-pilot on. All around the globe a worldwide blackout has resulted in spot fires. Even Big Ben has caught alight; I’m guessing a man carrying a big barrel of flames up to the clock tower must have blacked out and knocked it over otherwise I’m not really sure how Big Ben can catch fire.

While the world was unconscious everybody experienced a… wait for it… flash forward. Of course our cast seem to come a little too quickly to the conclusion that everybody’s consciousness jumped forward (or “flashed” “forward”) six months into the future. While normal people would probably keep calling these visions ‘visions’ the entire population of planet Earth apparently got the memo they were in a television series called FlashForward as they continually call them ‘flash forwards’ without feeling like too much of a douche.

FlashForward is a very silly show that isn’t helped by how serious everybody acts in it. Yeah, there’s one character whose flash forward just finds him reading the paper on the toilet but everybody else spends the entire pilot standing around in darkened rooms being moody. We’re also treated to a clichéd little blonde girl who wanders ghost like into rooms while saying things like “I dreamt there are no more good days.”

The expression ‘suspension of disbelief’ was invented for a show like this. Part of you will want to laugh FlashForward out the door, but there’s a tiny little part of you that’s going to be intrigued by this daffy premise. Just like in Heroes before it the best moment of the episode comes in the very last scene. The pilot ends with the sort of cliff hanger that makes you say “just one more episode” and you kind of have to give FlashForward the benefit of the doubt at this point and see how the show plays out over a couple episodes before making a final judgement.

Don’t get me wrong, FlashForward has many flaws but it also has a capable cast and high production values. Of course no matter how capable your cast, and how high your production values are, ridiculous writing is also going to spell the downfall for a show, just ask Heroes season two.

I’ve yet to black out and have my own flash forward but hopefully if I do I’ll see that six months from now that FlashForward has turned into a Lost-killer, but then again I have this feeling that I’m just going to flash forward only to find that FlashForward has been cancelled.

Good, Alright, Bad Or Ugly?
Alright

Mercy – NBC – 8:00/7:00pm Wednesday – USA  / Channel 7 – 9:30pm Monday – AUS

Mercy is the brand spanking new medical series about the sexy but serious lives of nurses that debuted on NBC last week and on Channel 7 in Australia tomorrow. To give you an idea of just what you’re in here’s a blow by blow of the first couple of scenes.

It’s morning in New Jersey. Veronica is in her kitchen making breakfast. She’s having Fruit Flakes, I’m sure they’ll be delicious. She hears a helicopter outside and walks to her window… then she gets blown away by gunfire! But it was all a dream! Veronica then wakes up in her old bedroom and her stereotypical New Jersey mother is standing over her. Her mum gives Veronica new underpants. They then argue about Veronica’s ex-husband.

A happy song appears on the soundtrack as we cut to the next scene where Veronica is having coffee in her favourite coffee shop. Of course a car spins out of control in the background and has an accident. Veronica rushes to help. Has to cut a hole in a man’s chest and shove a straw in to help him breathe. Somebody says “Where did you learn to do that?” She simply replies “Iraq.” As if we’re all supposed to step back and go ‘woah’.

When the wife of the dying man finds out that Veronica is “just a nurse” she goes off on one of those “You’re not a doctor! After all that you’re just some stupid nurse!” rants that we’ve heard a thousand times before on a thousand better shows than this one.

I thought I’d just replay those few scenes for you just so you know what you’re in for with Mercy. Mercy is a show that doesn’t know what it wants to be. Is it a Grey’s Anatomy sort of medical soap where these sexy nurses discuss their love lives and pull equally sexy doctors into hospital supply cupboards (I’d say more people have made out in hospital supply cupboards on television than in any other location ever.)

Or does it want to be a super serious look at the real lives of nurses? Where we have to put up with boring tirades from supposedly irrational patients and egotistical doctors where they rant at our main characters for ‘just being a nurse’ and for ‘treating the patient and not the disease’. We’ve heard that all before, it’s not very interesting. They did it on Scrubs. When Scrubs uses your premise as a story device for Carla in the first season you’re officially no longer allowed to use it.

Mercy wants to be sexy, it wants to be serious and it wants to be kooky and loveable as well. So we get to meet the new nurse Chloe played by Michelle Trachtenberg. Chloe gets upset when she  has to pull the plug on an old man, she wears a Hello Kitty smock, and she spills urine all over herself. All the while Mercy’s soundtrack is so nice and poppy that if you close your eyes you’d think you were watching a completely different show to the one where the guy gets a glass bottle smashed through his chest.

By trying to be everything all at once Mercy ends up being about nothing whatsoever. Mercy is a horrible clichéd show that’s about as subtle as a being shot up by a helicopter in a dream sequence. On top of all the ‘nurses are the only competent ones in the hospital’ bullshit we’re treated to stories about Iraq from Veronica like this one:

“You want to see sad. You go down to the paediatric burn unit. You treat a six year old Iraqi kid who got his arms blown off because he thought a bomb was a toy.”

Which is followed up by Chloe saying in shock: “She was in Iraq? Wow.”

No, not wow. You want to see ‘wow’ you create a show where a character can be shell shocked and talk all super serious about blown up Iraqi kids one minute but then have Lily Allen bopping over the soundtrack and that same character making out in a medical supply cupboard the next.

Mercy is a painfully stupid show, and if you really want to mix your serious medical drama with your romantic medical drama and your wacky medical drama you’d probably be better off watching episodes of ER, Grey’s Anatomy and Scrubs back to back. Don’t waste your time with Mercy.

Good, Alright, Bad Or Ugly?
Ugly

When I first came to L.A. in 1993, one of the places I really wanted to go to was Bob’s Big Boy. The reason being I had long been into American cars and knew that Bob’s was right at the heart of the original Hot Rod and cruising scene.

It felt great the first time I went to the traditional Friday Night at Bob’s wandering around some amazing cars.

It is very hard to convey then, just how it feels to now only visit Bob’s Big Boy, but to be parked right by the walk up window on Friday Night at Bob’s in my own Ariel Atom. The feelings of being not real came flooding back as did the Cheshire Cat grin! Probably this is a cheesy thing to say, but it really felt like I had got a huge piece of my personal “American Dream”.

I was there with my friend George Hartmann who is also the Master Distributor of SponsorDaddy. We call this “Attraction Marketing”. Even though this was so much fun and such a cool thing to do, in handing out fliers about the Atom, we are actually also doing business!! This means that Uncle Sam is kind enough to pay me $0.55 per mile to go to Bob’s and he also bought the burgers! I can’t think of much better!

As always there were top notch cars there. My Mopar lust was fuelled again by an awesome RoadRunner that parked right next to me. The Oldsmobile 88 below was outstanding. It looked brand new, but smelled like it was still in the 50s (the windows were open and I stuck my nose in).

Bob’s Big Boy has added solar panels to the parking structure which will generate 1/3 of it’s electricity. Pretty cool that such an old established entity is taking the reins on eco action. Local Channel 7 were there to cover that story last night and there are glimpses of the Atom on their report here.

Honestly, this is the most attention that the Atom has ever had at a show. Almost all was very cool (whoever turned off the master electric switch and made it look like it was on was not cool at all).

George and I went to Bob’s Big Boy through a Canyon which shall remain nameless. The Ariel Atom is simply the most stunning experience imaginable even after all this time I’ve owned her. Breathtaking performance through a breathtaking Canyon. It’s impossible to convey what she feels like through twisties, especially uphill twisties.

I can’t tell you how it feels to do that, end up at Bob’s Big Boy, be doing business and getting paid to do all that! I have to say I can’t imagine how it gets better and I am very grateful for the business choices I’ve made that have got me there!

We took the Freeway back after a very cool few hours. If you’re in L.A. and you like cars, make it to Bob’s Big Boy on a Friday from 5-10PM – always worthwhile and if you’re like me, an amazing American cultural experience.

Courtesy of WABC-TV

After much anticipation, here is my brief interview with WABC Eyewitness News This Morning anchor Ken Rosato on the future of journalism. This is the first in a series of interviews that will usually take place once per week.

First, a little background on Rosato that I originally included on the initial post about having him be my first interview: Ken Rosato is a morning and noon anchor for WABC’s Eyewitness News. He originally joined WABC in 2003 as a freelance reporter. Prior to that, Rosato worked at FOX-5 as an anchor and reporter. He also used to be the news director and main anchor at WLNY-TV on Long Island, where I am currently employed. A full description of his accomplishments can be seen here.

These interviews will run Q&A style in print form unless I get the opportunity to record any of the interviews. So, enjoy and if you have any follow up questions you would like to ask Ken, please let me know and I will try to get as many answered as possible! As with all interviews, you can quickly access them on the “interviews” page of this blog.

Q: Technology is changing at a rapid rate, do you think this is good or bad for broadcast journalism?

Technology is wonderful in its intended place. No matter how advanced the technology, humans will always be needed for their judgment and ability to communicate. A balance must be struck between the two. Sadly, far too many broadcast execs drool for the day when they can set up a computer that can scour the world for a story, shoot it, edit it, write the corresponding script, have the computer voice it and transmit it over the air and the Internet without ANY (paid) humans to get in the way. Simultaneously, the sales department would be a room of computers that would do nothing but cold-call potential advertisers all day long to bring in dollars.

Q: Do social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook have any benefits or disadvantages for people in the industry?

I have been using Facebook and Linkedin for several months now. I find that Facebook, specifically, has helped connect me to my viewers in a way that ordinary e-mail can’t. Comments come in instantaneously and I usually respond within minutes (as the broadcast schedule allows). Never before in history has this been possible.

Q: What would you like to see happen in the coming years for broadcast journalism?

It would be nice to see corporate types allow news departments to continue running the way they always have. Sadly, in the desire to save a buck, more and more news departments are consolidating jobs, forcing the focus off of the art of journalism as reporters are often made to shoot, edit, and double as a teleprompter operator, etc. Let reporters be reporters; photojournalists be photojournalists; editors be editors!

Q: What do you think will ACTUALLY happen?

As computers get faster and the economy continues to tank, you will see more reporters looking like the Al Franken character in the classic Saturday Night Live episode in which he wore a camera on his chest and a satellite dish on his back to What do you see for yourself in the field as the years go on?do his own live shot. We laughed at it then, but see it happening today. I give it a year or two before reporters will simply flip their cell phones around, point them at themselves and stream live video telling a story from a scene. Sadly, in spite of the decreased quality of the broadcast and the security challenges this can present for a reporter at an active crime or fire scene, many corporate types will think it’s great television (ie: CHEAP TO PRODUCE).

Q: What do you see for yourself in the field as the years go on?

I’d love to keep on anchoring or hosting as long as they’ll have me do it.

Q:  What’s best for journalism – broadcast, print or the Internet? Is there a happy medium?

There is definitely a place for all. The Internet is great for someone whose schedule changes day-to-day or who wants a specific story on demand, or details on a story that could never be fit into a news broadcast. Print is phenomenal for its portability and its ability to tell a story from different dimensions and perspectives. Broadcast news is the perfect condensed capsule of the events of the day for the busy family or an individual who has a pretty regular schedule.

Courtesy of WABC TV

Special Interest Questions:

Q: If you could have dinner with one person in the industry from any time period, who would it be and why?

Edward R. Murrow, because I believe he had a vision of the future of the industry that was spot-on.

Q:  If you could do a news story on anything, then what would that be?

The behind-the-scenes construction of a news story for broadcast.

Well, that does it for the first interview for this blog. Be sure to chime in with your thoughts and who else you would like to see interviewed as the weeks roll on!

Sunday Night – Channel 7 – 6:30pm Sunday – AUS
60 Minutes – Channel 9 – 7:30pm Sunday – AUS

For thirty years 60 Minutes has been a news program that has entertained and informed Australians on Sunday nights. Recently however it has slipped considerably in quality and audiences have fallen away. So last year Channel 7 launched their very own ‘3 stories a night’ ‘Sunday night’ ‘news magazine’ program called, originally enough, Sunday Night. With Sunday Night returning to our screens I thought I’d compare the two programs to see how they stack up.

Sunday Night is hosted by Mike Munro and Chris Bath who adhere to the strict Channel 7 policy of ‘double hosts’ just like on Sunrise or The Morning Show. Sunday Night also sticks to the supposed ‘relaxed’ atmosphere Channel 7 so desperately tries to create by getting Mike & Chris to wander around a large set with no desk in sight – look at them present the news from a standing position, isn’t that relaxed?

60 Minutes as we all know is hosted by a set of reporters including Liz Hayes, Charles Wooley, Tara Brown, Michael Usher, and the always terrifying Liam Bartlett. They introduce each story from in front of a black screen just like they always have; there’s no fancy set to wander around for these guys.

Last night both shows featured a story about Jaycee Dugard, the American girl who was kidnapped when she was 11 and held captive for 18 years by Philip Garrido. Sunday Night scored an interview with Jaycee’s stepfather who was there on the day she was kidnapped, while 60 Minutes “scored” an interview with Katie Hall, another victim of Philip Garrido. Sunday Night pulled hard on the heartstrings with the ‘how would you feel if your daughter was kidnapped right in front of you’ angle

60 Minutes on the other hand had a different direction for the story. Katie Hall’s story of being kidnapped by Philip Garrido is just as tragic, but it’s not the Jaycee Dugard story. Sunday Night scored the better interview subject, and 60 Minutes had to settle for the old ‘into the mind of a monster’ angle for their story. It should also be noted that both programs decided that taking their interview subjects to the respective scenes of the crime would be a good idea – totally not exploitive at all…

You couldn’t possibly expect viewers to sit through nothing but weighty news stories on a Sunday night so you have to lighten the place up a bit with a fluff piece. Even though everything on Channel 7 manages to somehow feel like fluff their fluff piece was their first story on Australian dinosaurs, while 60 Minutes had a Fleetwood Mac reunion tour.

Sunday Night recreated recently discovered Australian dinosaurs in full CGI. Never mind that when they talked about the dinosaur’s land speed, or skin colour, or even attacking technique that they were just making it all up. You wouldn’t hear the word ‘speculation’ on Sunday Night that would ruin a good story. Every single thing they said about these new dinosaurs was treated as fact. The most unbelievable part of the story those was when we learnt these dino-jerks had named the dinosaurs Matilda and Banjo – way to ruin dinosaurs guys!

Later 60 Minutes fluffed their piece around the place with a story about the behind the scenes turmoil of Fleetwood Mac. Now, either you know who Fleetwood Mac is so you’re already well aware of the ‘behind the scenes turmoil’ or you don’t know who Fleetwood Mac is so you don’t care. Either way no matter how rubbish Sunday Night’s story on dinosaurs was it trumped a Fleetwood Mac reunion story. I’m pretty sure there are members of Fleetwood Mac who don’t care about a Fleetwood Mac reunion.

This sort of half assed interview of an old band is one of the reasons 60 Minutes has been copping a bit of flack lately. It’s not surprising though, when one of the hard hitting questions posed to the band was “Is it good getting back together?” What’s your follow up going to be ‘what’s your favourite thing about Australia?’

Sunday Night ended with a story about home birthing that if I hadn’t stupidly decided to review this show I could have flicked over from because watching somebody give birth into a wading pool is not my idea of fun. We got to sit there as Sunday Night played the “us vs. them” card trying to convince their viewers that “they” were trying to stop “you” from having the choice of a home birth.

This was a story Sunday Night wanted you to form an opinion on. Either you thought these mothers were morons or you thought they were modern heroes, Sunday Night made a story that would get people talking – which is exactly what they want. On a side note: at one point one of the home birthing mothers said of their perfectly natural birthing experience “In the Bible there are midwives.” Yeah, and public stonings.

60 Minutes final story was the tragic tale of gold mining in the Congo. The sort of story that 60 Minutes used to deliver all the time: exotic location meets human atrocity. The Congo gold story was probably the best of the six for the night, but was paired on 60 Minutes with a less than exclusive interview loosely connected to the Jaycee Dugard horror story and a lighter than air interview with Fleetwood Mac.

Over on Sunday Night you have to give them the win based on audience manipulation alone. Lure the kids in with the promise of CGI dinosaurs, break the hearts of families around the nation with the story of a stepfather and his loss, before bringing it home with a little bit of forced outrage around a home birthing story.

Courtesy of WABC-TV

I added a new page to this blog titled, “Interviews”. It can be found with the rest of the pages at the right hand side of the screen. I will be conducting interviews with journalism professionals in all mediums about their views of where journalism stands today and what they think we can expect in the days and years to come. This will be an interesting way to see many different viewpoints on this topic.

The first interview, this one in print form, will be with Ken Rosato from WABC-TV in New York City. Ken is a morning and noon anchor for WABC’s Eyewitness News. Ken originally joined WABC in 2003 as a freelance reporter. Prior to that, Ken worked at FOX-5 as an anchor and reporter. He also used to be the news director and main anchor at WLNY-TV on Long Island, where I am currently employed. A full description of his accomplishments can be seen here.

Personally, I have known Ken for about a year now and am grateful he is willing to let us know his views on the subject. If there is a specific question you have or topic you would like to see discussed during the interview, please let me know.

The interview will take place later this week!

Coincidence?

I feel bad for this guy. Not only does he have to report on the nightly news, but he’s stuck here, with his channel 7 lapel pin talking about a rapist. He has to show an iffy sketch of the suspect. And that sketch looks an awful lot like him. Now, it’s not just the whole, “white people think all black people look the same” thing going on. It’s just that – well – there’s a similarity. And that’s pretty funny.

Hello All,

I am putting all my energy and well wishes out there to win Denver’s best portrait photographer, but I need your help. We slipped into 6th place and I can only win with your vote, and your friend votes, and your family’s votes, and your co-workers votes… you get the idea.

So please take a few moments and  VOTE HERE

With much love and gratitude,

Diane

The “new” Darna show started airing at the Kapuso network GMA-7 last August 17, 2009. Starring Marian Rivera as the newest incarnation of this Filipino superheroine and just after four days of watching the show, I couldn’t help but wonder why they even bothered showing “reincarnating” this very tired genre on local television. After seeing very revealing pictures of the new Darna spreading around the internets like wild-fire, wha-? You haven’t seen these photos yet?

Okay, now that you’ve seen what sparked my curiosity (and I bet yours too!), I gave this sorry-ass show a shot. Was I disappointed? More than ever. I’ve compiled a short list below so read on!

1. WHY MAKE ANOTHER ONE?

With more than a dozen incarnations of the arguably most famous Pinoy super-heroine, I bet Dolphy and Ate V’s version was much more entertaining!  (Especially if you already did one four years ago! That’s not even enough to make me forget Angel Locsin’s curves yet. You know what I mean.) I just don’t see a perfectly sane reason why you should recreate or rehash something unless:

• You’re going to do a much better job.
• You know that the material is from a different era that it’s nice to give it a fresh new look.
• Lastly, that you’re going to give it justice.

Out of three, I give this re-make a big resounding ZERO. (More reasons below.)

2.Angel Locsin is so much hotter than Marian Rivera. ‘Nuff said.

3. I’d rather watch the “original” and so much cooler superheroine. Did I say original?

Coincidence? You decide.

4. Get better writers.

The writing is so lame. (Paging, Jun Lana) So lame in fact that my migraine starts the moment the show starts airing. The characters are so flawed, the pacing is predictable and the super-heroine is an idiot.

Example 1:

According to the Guardian of the Snowbear aka White Stone, to beat the Babaeng Impakta (When it should’ve been ImpaktaS, they’re twins.) she should separate the two. Our heroine does just that, and the more human “Impakta” faints (WTF?), the monster (presumably the Impakta they are referring to) flies away (WTF again?!), Darna regains her flying power by literally punching it out of the villain! I’m no master of the superhero genre but that is just plain stupid.

Example 2:

Before Narda accepted the stone, the Guardian is “forced” to surrender the Snowbear aka the White Stone to the four villains. In effect, the four gets warped in a different dimension, gets a slice of Darna’s power, giving them the additional “edge” for their glorious revenge. Nifty…

Example 3:

Back to the Impakta incident, the moment the “monster” and Darna was about to square off and after uttering several lines of rubbish, a couple of reporters arive at the scene. Our heroine actually gets distracted by the camera flash (She’s shy daw kasi.), the monster succesfullt escapes in a split-second, running using it’s teeney-tiny legs.  (Take note: the monster doesn’t have flying powers anymore . ) Just amazing. (And I’m being sarcastic here.)

5. Make up your mind!

I’m just confused, I’m not really sure what they want us to think? Is this a drama? A comedy show? Make up your mind! The side characters were obviously cast for comic relief. The News Editor, played by Raymart Santiago, has three bumbling employees while Mark Anthony Fernandez, playing as Narda’s love interest, also has the very funny (not!) Bearwin Meilly as an assistant. The oh-so-dramatic scenes between Narda, Valentina and whatever-Mark’s-character-name-is love triangle doesn’t add much entertainment value either.

My advice? Stick to your strong points. This is supposed to be a superhero show right?

6. “Mas matitinding special effects!”

What special effects? The flapping wings? The extending vines? The extending (again) limbs of the Impakta? The whirlwind effects? What’s new?! Nothing.

7. Where’s Ding?

It’s the fourth episode tonight and we haven’t seen this annoying kid yet! I though they were supposed to be orphaned siblings? Hmmm… Budget cuts, anyone?

8. What? You were actually looking for a number 8?

Gee, according to a recent psychological study I made up, 7 reasons should justify how much a show sucks.

9. Just to make this list complete: Facebook apps are so much better than this show.

Play Mafia Wars, plant vegetables on your farm,or go “all in” in online poker! I’m just dumbfounded how more entertaining this online games are compared to Marian Rivera’s high flying character.

10. Rehashing = couldn’t think of something else = desperation

And with these three “ideas” summarizing what this show is about, you couldn’t expect something good ever coming out of it.

Tell me what you think!

PBA09rr1noop

Packed To The Rafters – Channel 7 – 8:30pm Tuesday – AUS

Nearly two million Australians endure Packed To The Rafters on a weekly basis. I’m one of those weekly sufferers. Season one came and went and along with it such fond memories as the time Dave got an erection that wouldn’t go away, or the time Ben was a complete retard, or the time Rachel was a massive slag. There have been a half dozen episodes of season two so far and the Rafter family is back acting like dropkicks all over again.

Now I like to pretend that I really hate Packed To The Rafters despite watching it on a week to week basis. The thing is Packed has a lot of potential and could be quite good if it didn’t go to great lengths every episode to make us hate it.

Packed To The Rafters follows the story of the Rafters, a stereotypical suburban Australian family. There’s Julie Rafter, the mum, played by Rebecca Gibney who’s always there to remind us what a good actress looks like. There’s Dave Rafter, the dad, a real bloke. Their oldest son Ben lives next door with his best friend Carbo. Their only daughter Rachel has moved back home and spent the first season struggling with the concept of acting. Their youngest son Nathan is a tool and is married to Sammy who sometimes gets a storyline. Last but not least is Grandad Ted played by Michael Caton who shows up to accept a pay check and then disappear for a couple of episodes.

In case you missed the end of last season Julie is having a baby. In case you missed every other series in the history of television that means they’ll be jumping the shark in less than nine months time. The start of season two has produced no surprises whatsoever. Nathan got a job that seemed to be going well for him, but that of course that only meant there was another job on the horizon. One that’s bound to bring more of that trouble Nathan seems to love getting into.

Julie grew a fringe in between seasons and met a future predicting lunch lady in a storyline that I wish I was just making up. Rachel ran through a gauntlet of storylines that we’ve seen a thousand times before. She went to a high school reunion (who goes to a seven year high school reunion anyway?), she went on a bunch of unsuccessful blind dates, and she met a bloke who she absolutely hates – no bets on whether she ends up with him.

We also found out that Ben is still a complete moron. He and Mel broke up and an episode didn’t get go by without Ben getting jealous and acting like a spastic. It was revealed that Dave was adopted and he was faced with a tough decision when he had to fire Warney. It was a decision that was soon forgotten about by the time he hired Chrissie as his assistant. Sammy still hasn’t been given an actual storyline while Ted is dating the worst actress on the planet, Marjorie, and just after we found out Ted hates lesbians we also found out that Marjorie has a lesbian daughter TWIST TWIST TWIST.

Expect the rest of the season to give us more of the same. I’d bet a lot of money on the fact that the writers are all graduates of the Home & Away school of plot making as they can’t seem to create drama without forcing a character we’re supposed to like into making a stupid decision. It’s a telling fact that the most intelligent character on the show is Carbo.

Yes, I hate Packed To The Rafters. It’s stupid, predictable and includes so many roll your eyes moments that it leaves me feeling like a fourteen year old in an extra lame science class. But I’ll still be watching next week, because just like the Rafters I make stupid decisions every week.

Double Take – Channel 7 – 8:30pm Thursday – AUS

The second episode of Channel 7’s sketch comedy Double Take was on last night, and I watched it because it appears plum in the middle of The Amazing Race & TV Burp… also I’m a glutton for punishment.

Yes, Double Take is still as bad as it was last week, but I want to get into why it’s so bad. What about Double Take makes it inherently awful? Whether it works or not has nothing to do with the actual joke content. Whether you think jokes about drunk women at the races being put down, or Kevin Rudd “talking black” to Barack Obama, or even just a good ol’ incest are funny, that doesn’t matter.

David McDonald and Rick Kalowski are the co-creators of Double Take and I think if we take a look at the interview they gave to the Sydney Morning Herald we can find out why Double Take just doesn’t work.

McDonald lists his comic influences as being Fawlty Towers, the Marx Brothers, Friends and Seinfeld. That’s fine, you can like whatever you want to like but he’s just named four shows that AREN’T sketch comedy programs. Fawlty Towers is an influence not Monty Python.

Kawolski on the other hand likes Arrested Development, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Will & Grace, Scrubs as well as Fawlty Towers and Seinfeld. That’s five shows that aren’t sketch comedy programs. Arrested Development is an influence but not Mr. Show.

I know the chance of them getting to make a sitcom on network television these days is slim, but why are they subjecting us to a genre they don’t even care about? Why don’t they at least attempt a Curb Your Enthusiasm type show? Why must they dive head first into a comedy genre that doesn’t influence them in the slightest. That’s like me deciding to write a whole album of song parodies because I’m a big fan of Dr. Strangelove. They’re both comedies right?!

In the interview Kalowski mentions that he wants Double Take to be “a good laugh but we have a strong philosophy, which is that people are generally smarter than you think and we wanted to give them a broad range of funny stuff that didn’t necessarily insult their intelligence.” – which is probably why we got to watch a sketch about a woman shoving her hand up a farmers arse…

They also seem to think that audiences these days have the attention span of a goldfish. McDonald says “Using Fast Forward as an example, there is no way an audience would sit through an hour of sketch comedy now.” Okay then, using Saturday Night Live being more popular this year than it was five years ago as an example I’d just like to say YOU’RE WRONG.

The biggest problem other than the fact these guys obviously don’t like sketch comedy is that they don’t understand how it works either. If you got a list of the one hundred most popular sketches of all time I guarantee that they all run longer than 45 seconds. Whether it be The Parrot sketch or Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake singing Dick In A Box they all will have appeared in full and not chopped up around the rest of the episode. And they all will have run longer than a minute.

To that point McDonald says that Double Take can still deliver “minute-and-a-half” sketches but they are broken up into smaller segments.

Apparently a minute and a half is now too long for a sketch.

Double Take did a song parody in last night’s episode. Daniel Johns sung about how nobody thinks he’s a ‘straight guy’. Forget about how changing the song Straight Lines to Straight Guy must have taken, oh, four seconds to think up and take a look at how they put it into the episode.

The song appeared; we got the first verse and part of the chorus and then BAM we cut to another sketch, then an ad break and about seven minutes later the second verse appeared over the end credits. Whatever momentum built up during the first part of the song is destroyed by the time the second verse comes around because they seem to think Australians have ADD.

Why must Australian sketch shows be so hyperactive? Any claim that it’s due to shorter attention spans is rubbish. I haven’t seen an episode of Packed To The Rafters recently where we only get forty five second bursts of family hijinks before we’re on to a completely different storyline. All Saints doesn’t treat forty patients an episode because they think the audience will get bored with just a couple.

I want to know if there’s a single person out there who actually prefers rapid fire sketch shows over proper sketch shows? I want to find out if there’s a person whose favourite sketch is one that ran less than a minute and was chopped up and reinserted around other sketches?

Finally in the interview McDonald said that television audiences are usually not looking for anything more complex than to be entertained. Yeah, well could you just hurry up and entertain us already.

Pemutaran perdana film yang berjudul Balibo, dibintangi Anthony LaPaglia, pada ajang Festival Film Internasional Melbourne, Australia (24/7) ; membuat Presiden Timor Leste Jose Ramos Horta buka suara soal tewasnya 5 wartawan asing yang juga diisitilahkan Balibo Five, di Timor Timur 34 tahun silam.

Ramos Horta mengatakan, dia memeriksa kematian kelima wartawan itu tidak lama setelah mereka tewas di batas kota Balibo. “ Mereka tidak hanya dieksekusi. Dari yang saya ingat saat itu, salah satunya disiksa secara sangat sangat brutal, “  katanya saat penayangan perdana film Balibo dengan pengambilan gambar di Timor Leste ini. Harap dimaklumi Ramos Horta sendiri waktu itu adalah pemimpin Fretilin dan menjadi tokoh sentral dalam film ini.

Balibo Five terdiri dari, Reporter Greg Shackleton dan Juru Kamera TV Channel 7 Melbourne, Tony Stewart (Australia), Juru Kamera Brian Peters (Inggeris) dan Teknisi TV Channel 9 Sydney Gary Cunningham (Selandia Baru) dan Reporter Malcolm Renie (Inggeris), yang tewas saat pasukan Indonesia menyerbu Balibo pada Oktober 1975. Kelima wartawan itu bertujuan meliput masuknya tentara Indonesia ke Timor Timur untuk jaringan televisi Australia.

Di lain pihak, masih ada wartawan keenam, Roger East, yang datang ke Indonesia untuk menyelidiki nasib rekan-rekannya ini, ia tewas di Dili, ibu kota Timor Timur, enam pekan kemudian saat tentara Indonesia menguasai kota itu. Versi film Balibo ini menggambarkan East dipukuli dan kemudian dibunuh.

Pemerintah Indonesia telah resmi menyatakan bahwa kelima wartawan itu tewas tanpa sengaja karena terjebak di tengah baku tembak tentara dan kelompok Fretilin. Versi ini pun telah diterima oleh Pemerintah Australia.

Menurut Ramos Horta, pejabat Indonesia telah melakukan penyembunyian bukti dengan memerintahkan agar mayat kelima wartawan itu dibakar. “ Orang-orang yang membunuh mereka merasa perlu untuk membakar mayat mereka karena pejabat senior tiba di lokasi dan melihat apa yang terjadi, “  kata Ramos Horta lagi, “ Orang-orang itu tahu apa konsekuensinya sehingga mereka harus menghilangkan bukti bahwa para wartawan itu ditangkap hidup-hidup lalu dibunuh dengan brutal. Itulah sebabnya, mayat mereka dibakar untuk menghilangkan bukti penyiksaan.”

Tahun 2007, seorang koroner Australia yang meninjau kembali bukti-bukti kematian menemukan bahwa para wartawan itu tewas saat mereka mencoba menyerahkan diri kepada tentara Indonesia. Dia merekomendasikan agar para pembunuhnya dituntut atas kejahatan perang. Akan tetapi, pemeriksaan tidak menyebut adanya penyiksaan. Hampir 18 bulan setelah temuan itu diserahkan, Pemerintah Australia tidak merespons seruan sang koroner tersebut. Sampai kemudian film Balibo diluncurkan dengan harapan dapat mendorong Pemerintah Australia untuk bertindak.

Versi lain Balibo Five

Dari sekian banyak versi yang terkait hal ini, salah satunya bisa kita lihat dalam buku Saksi Mata Perjuangan Integrasi Timor Timur,  karya Hendro Subroto (1996). Ia menuliskan berdasarkan pemantauan lapangan bahwa perebutan Balibo dimulai pukul 06.00 pagi tanggal 16.10.1975. Pertempuran hanya berlangsung sekitar 45 menit, serangan mortir mengenai salah satu rumah yang digunakan sebagai pertahanan Freitilin yang hancur dan terbakar. Belakangan ditemukan 15 jenazah dalam rumah tersebut yang hangus terbakar dan empat di antaranya empat jenazah orang kulit putih.

Kemudian pihak Apodeti, ketika melakukan pengamanan, menemukan dua jenazah lainnya dalam hutan di luar Balibo pada tanggal 27.10.1975, pada jalur yang digunakan Fretilin untuk mengundurkan diri dari Balibo, satu di antaranya adalah orang kulit putih disamping satu set kamera dan dokumen.

Memang tidak disebutkan adanya investigasi rinci terkait total lima jenazah orang kulit putih ini ; yang jelas pihak Apodeti, UDT dan Kota ; faksi-faksi yang menentang Fretilin, membuat surat pernyataan bersama pada tanggal 22.10.1975 yang menyatakan ketidak-yakinan mereka jenazah orang kulit putih itu sebagai wartawan Australia. Sebab maklum pertempuran sengit dan medan tempur yang kacau tampaknya tidak memungkinkan dilakukan penyidikan khusus yang seksama pada waktu itu, termasuk pula pembakaran jenazah yang tampaknya untuk kepraktisan semata karena kondisi jenazah yang rusak.

Tanggal 05.12.1975, abu jenazah kelima wartawan Australia itu dimakamkan di TPU Tanah Kusir, Jakarta, atas permintaan pihak keluarga. Upacara pemakaman ini dihadiri oleh Dubes Australia untuk Indonesia Woolcott dan Sekretaris Jenderal Persatuan Wartawan Indonesia (PWI) Sunardi D.M.

Tapi satu hal yang menarik, dalam tulisannya Hendro Subroto menyebut Frank Palmos Chief Reporter TV Channel-9 yang sempat memprotes secara tertulis kepada Australian Journalist Association (AJA) bahwa penugasan kerabat kerja TV Channel-9 ke Timor Timur ini  adalah tugas peliputan yang amat sangat berbahaya. Tapi Frank, yang pernah kuliah di Universitas Pajajaran Bandung ini, kemudian memperoleh jawaban AJA yang tetap merestui sepenuhnya hal ini dengan alasan Freedom of the Press.

Di sisi lain Frank Palmos menyatakan pula bahwa salah satu wartawan yang tewas itu, Gary Cunningham yang berusia 23 tahun dan baru beberapa hari tiba dari London, bertanya padanya : “ Where is East Timor located ? “  Parahnya lagi tidak ada seorang pun, menurut Frank Palmos, dari mereka yang menguasai bahasa Portugis, Indonesia mau pun Tetun yang akan amat mempermudah mereka untuk tugas peliputan ; intinya kerabat kerja yang melakukan liputan ini sama sekali tidak memiliki pemahaman rinci terkait tempat yang dituju dan permasalahan konflik yang terjadi.

Juga ada pengakuan Ketua Partai Fretilin Fancisco Xavier do Amaral ketika bertemu dengan kerabat kerja Channel -7 dan Channel-9 ini bahwa ia menyatakan tidak bertanggung jawab jika terjadi musibah menimpa mereka ; sebab keadaan memang sangat berbahaya. Namun mereka mengatakan jika terjadi sesuatu atas diri mereka, maka hal itu merupakan tanggung jawab mereka masing-masing. Bahkan mereka tidak akan meminta pertanggungjawaban kepada siapa pun. Setelah itu, menurut do Amaral ; mereka bertolak menuju Maliana, kemudian Balibo.

Dan di Balibo-lah segalanya berakhir bagi mereka berlima.

Sumber  :

Kompas | AFP | BBC, 25.07.2009
Saksi Mata Perjuangan Integrasi Timor Timur, Hendro Subroto – 1996

The Amazing Race – CBS – Season 14 – USA / Channel 7 – 7:30pm Thursday – AUS

Helicopters fly across the ocean. Phil declares that the time is “Oh Seven Hundred Hours.” The Amazing Race is back and as the soundtrack wells to unbelievable proportions it’s as over the top as ever. But isn’t that exactly what we love about it?

This is Season 14 of the show and by now I think we’ve all given up on remembering contestant names. As we meet our couples we assign them their nicknames for the next thirteen weeks: Blonde Flight Attendants, Mum & Deaf Son, Asian Brother & Sister, Rednecks, Black Sisters (or is that Sistas?), Dating Couple, Old Couple, Hot Couple, Gay Dad & Son Who’s Been In Movies I’ve Seen Before, Little Stuntmen (or Guys That Look Like Garden Gnomes), Cheerleaders… You know you’ve seen too much Amazing Race when you can pick who’s going to get eliminated first just from their intro. Go through that list and pick the least memorable nickname.

Yeah, sorry Dating Couple… you were the last to arrive.

After all these seasons The Amazing Race producers have finally introduced a new and exciting TWIST!!! This year if you’re the last team to arrive you get eliminated… oh wait. That’s what always happens. It’s that kind of dependability that keeps you coming back to the Race time and time again.

There is a new 3D map though which is the only way can tell this season apart from seasons 1 through 13. Other than that everything you know and love is back, there are airports, and trains, and the random “extreme” challenge followed by the random “weird local tradition” challenge, and Phil, and chopped up conversations, and out of context voice over and some seriously dodgy editing to make things more urgent than they really are.

Every year you pick a collection of Racers to love and a collection to hate. For me the douchebags are going to be the Old Couple, those precocious Asian Siblings and the incredibly pathetic Rednecks. On the flipside I can see myself rooting for the Garden Gnomes, the Blonde Flight Attendants, and even the Mum & Deaf Son. The Deaf Son just wants to prove that deaf people can do everything normal people can… except hear of course. I’m not sure anyone ever doubted deaf people couldn’t… it’s not like they’re blind or anything… man, I bet a blind guy would have trouble dancing… PROVE ME WRONG REALITY TV. Prove. Me. Wrong.

My favourite moment from the first episode had to be the Redneck dude yelling at his wife that “we’re going to be eliminated!” Calm down guy, you haven’t even got to a road block yet, or a detour, or the second clue… you only get eliminated in the last bit.

It’s weird that something as predictable and over produced as The Amazing Race can stay so damn lovable. But it does. After all this time we’re still excited to see who makes it to the mat to meet Phil and a local dressed nothing like real locals. After Phil tells the last contestant that unfortunately they have been eliminated from the race and they tearfully explain that they’re closer than ever before and better people because of the experience you know that you’re still going to tune in next week because it’s The Amazing Race dammit and The Amazing Race is awesome.

Family Guy on now! Huhuhu …

- Gah … Smoking dog in therapy room … Brian in mid-life crisis. LOL.