The Young Lions Cop It But Spare A Thought, Too, For Those Poor Overworked Fillies On Ten
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday August 7, 2002
Young Lions
8.30pm, 9: Nothing like a spot of class warfare to enliven the evening. Donna and Eddie are investigating a spot of bother at an elite private school. Some bounder has been using computer terminals to download filth from the Internet. Not good for the academy's reputation or groomed image. You don't have to scratch too deep into a polished facade to find rough trade, as a cursory glance at the financial headlines on any given day readily attests. Arrogance is frequently cultivated in upmarket academies where privilege and silvertail networking are par for the course. As inquiries proceed, all sorts of deviant behaviour and prejudice emerge. Meanwhile, Guido is trying to define trust with his partner, Cameron. But after dangerous undercover work, where survival tends to rest on an acute sense of your own fake identity, he's still on the margins and Cameron doesn't realise the significance of the card attached to a huge bunch of flowers when it arrives at HQ. Donna's brother, Kenny, hits town from Bingara to see a doctor and while he offers useful counterpoint to the principal story strand, he's soon bussed back underused. Still! There's a growing sense of coherence and cohesion in this series and despite the instant verdict of the bloody ratings, it shows considerable promise.
Foreign Correspondent
9.30pm, ABC: Is Yasser Arafat yesterday's man, as the Israelis and Americans insist? Are liberation, freedom, peace and democracy feasible in the Palestinian territory? Dr Eyad Sarraj and Hussam Khader say their piece. Philip Williams logs into the town of Hun, in southern Spain, to see how locals are using the Internet to prevent teenagers abandoning home for city attractions, and Jennifer Byrne has a yak with Lewis Lapham, editor of Harper's magazine. Lapham has been labelled un-American because he has the good sense to realise the greatest threat to America's security comes from within. Obviously the guy is a dangerous fanatic.
City Cabs
7.30pm, SBS: Off we go on a tour of Budapest with Gyula, a cabbie who leases his cab from his girlfriend who sold her Harley to buy the vehicle. He takes Michael Krass to look at the derelict statues of prominent communist figures and to meet the highest paid of Hungary's legion of porn stars.
Philly
8.30pm, 10: More glamorous lawyers working to deliver justice to the oppressed as they confront the ratmangle of America's overloaded legal system. America has 10 per cent of the world's population, 50 per cent of the world's lawyers and the largest prison population on Earth despite the sterling efforts of all these committed televisual lawyers. Former NYPD Blue star Kim Delaney features as an overstressed Philadelphia lawyer, Kathleen Maguire. Kathleen is a single mother (of course), her caseload is overwhelming and she cops even more pressure when her colleague, Mary, spins out in a court case, ripping open her blouse and telling the judge: ``My client would like to make a clean breast of it, your worship. What do you think of this little lot?" Meanwhile, Will Froman, a fellow lawyer who fancies a partnership with Kathleen, shows his form by stinging one of her clients and, emulating the style of the unsavoury lawyers in the ABC's recent series North Square, bonking his opposite number in a mediation chamber during a recession. North Square it is not, more's the pity, but it looks attractive and that's what counts, isn't it?
© 2002 Sydney Morning Herald