It's Monday November 16th, 1992, and it's the post-Street-Porter DEF II struggling for relevance - lasting barely an hour, half of which was an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The aesthetic is now all tribal drumming and barcode/testcard chic, with contrast turned high and all colours solarised wherever possible.
At least they've still got Normski and his Dance Energy House Party, with (this week) the likes of Bassheads, Reese Project and Kylie Minogue, promoting her SAW-era Greatest Hits that had just come out, while simultaneously attempting to chart a course for herself post-Stock and Waterman (Aitken already left). Also, there was a competition for unsigned acts, which I think launched the careers of nothing and no-one. Here's the address anyway. Vas Blackwood was also present, providing the comedy, albeit probably not as funny as his turn on Only Fools and Horses.
DEF II is next on on Wednesday with a Rough Guide to Sicily, with Rajan Datar and the late Magenta De Vine. Not too cool and hipsterish to be above the standard Holiday 92 montage. Followed by oh no wait that's it. That's your lot for the week as far as DEF II is concerned. Unsurprisingly the strand peters out altogether within 18 months.
They do try and remind you that Dance Energy House Party is back next Monday with Secret Life, Maxi Priest and the Reese Project (again), plus more random physical motion, ticking beats and buzzing Techno House, as if Nevermind hadn't happened six months earlier. Oh, well. Rachel Purnell did what she could to keep it alive, but it's probably instructive she ended up producing Nigella Lawson's shows in the oughties.
Eureka! It's Doctor Who! The Daemons is being repeated apropos of nothing much, except that they just found a colour copy of the final episode so they might as well show it off! All fine by me, who was just getting back into the show after having been put off four years earlier by the cliffhanger to The Greatest Show In The Galaxy part three. Just in time for the 30th anniversary, too, and its vague campaign of repeats from each (colour) Doctor that ultimately stretched well into 1994 because they didn't really care. Tom got Genesis of the Daleks, Jon got Planet of the Daleks (and also this, and also the Sea Devils), Davison got The Caves of Androzani, Colin got a compromised four-episode version of Revelation of the Daleks which destroyed the pace, and Sylvester got Battlefield for some reason. Because it had UNIT and the Brigadier, I suppose. Anyway, this trailer doesn't say or indeed show much, preferring to whet the viewer's appetite with shots from the title sequence and portentous voiceovers about the Doctor being BACK - this being the first time a whole story had been repeated on "real" television since the show went off air in 1989.
More contemporary matters next - well, then contemporary - in the shape of Absolutely Fabulous. After over thirty years, the show's become so iconic - and frankly has been hammered so far into the ground - that it's slightly startling to see this first series premiered on BBC2. The episode in question is "Fat", which spends half an hour building up Alexandra Bastedo only to run out of time right when she shows up. It's better in the script book where her scene is actually intact.
Over on BBC1, Karen power trip Watchdog. Still overseen by the husband-and-wife team of John Stapleton and the late Lynn Faulds-Wood. Today they're shaking their skinny fists at exercise tapes that will actually kill you or something.
But now on BBC2, introduced by the Optics ident (because animation), another episode of Shakespeare: the Animated Tales. Why Roseanne Macmillan underlines its Soviet origin I'm not sure; it was actually a Welsh-Russian co-production, and the Soviet Union died while they were making it. This time it's the Tempest, animated by Stanislav Sokolov (best known for The Miracle Maker) with magnificently designed and detailed stop-motion puppets.
27 авг 2024
