Television

ITV kills The Bill

For many it’ll be like losing a good friend or a member of the family. ITV has decided to close down Sun Hill Police Station and call the end to long running police drama, The Bill.

Around 90 people are expected to lose their jobs and cast members past and present are in shock at the sudden news of the show’s axing after 26 years.

While blaming falling ratings as the reason for closing the programme, the most recent episode to show on British TV won it’s timeslot with a huge 4.5 million viewers. Last year The Bill won its first Bafta for Best Continuing Drama.

A number of Facebook groups have already been set up trying to save The Bill and there is expected to be a continuing push by fans to keep the programme running, but it’s not likely to convince ITV who have messed with the show for years, making radical changes which have not been popular with diehard viewers.

During its 26 year run The Bill has featured appearances by such names as Keira Knightley, David Tennant, Spice Girl Emma Bunton, The Who’s Roger Daltrey, Robert Carlyle, Hugh Laurie and many others.

We are devastated that after 26 successful years on ITV, The Bill will be coming to an end. One of the show’s strengths has been its ability to evolve over the years as can be seen with the latest challenge of transforming itself into a 9pm primetime show.

We are incredibly proud of what the show has achieved. It is a credit to everyone who has worked on The Bill that the series will be signing out on a creative and editorial high with both critical and industry-wide acclaim and a loyal fan base who have supported the show throughout. – Lorraine Heggessey, CEO talkbackTHAMES

The Bill has always been very popular in Australia and many of the cast members have visited Australia for promotional visits, theatre shows and even book readings.

A few years ago I had the privilege of talking by phone to Graham Cole who played the role of PC Tony Stamp for 22 years before being sacked by the show’s producers when they wanted to change the style of the long running drama. You can hear our conversation from February 2007 by clicking the play button on the audio player at the bottom of this post.

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John Piper and Television

Jun 27th, 2009

by Rodney Olsen.

5 comments

John Piper seems to be beating himself up about an answer he gave at Advance ’09. While I don’t see the problem, I’m glad he decided to explain his position more clearly.

His post, Why I Don’t Have a Television and Rarely Go to Movies, is a thoughtful explanation of why he is very cautious of trivial entertainment for entertainment’s sake. He tackles the issue I touched on in my recent post, Get Naked for Success. He talks about preachers trying to remain relevant by immersing themselves in popular culture through the latest movies.

There are, perhaps, a few extraordinary men who can watch action-packed, suspenseful, sexually explicit films and come away more godly. But there are not many. And I am certainly not one of them.

I’d have to say that I’m not one of them either.

I love Piper’s explanation of why nudity in films is not acceptable.

I have a high tolerance for violence, high tolerance for bad language, and zero tolerance for nudity. There is a reason for these differences. The violence is make-believe. They don’t really mean those bad words. But that lady is really naked, and I am really watching. And somewhere she has a brokenhearted father.

I’ll put it bluntly. The only nude female body a guy should ever lay his eyes on is his wife’s. The few exceptions include doctors, morticians, and fathers changing diapers. “I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?” (Job 31:1). What the eyes see really matters. “Everyone who looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Better to gouge your eye than go to hell (verse 29).

Whether we like to admit it or not, John Piper is right.

It’s not just sex and nudity in flims and on TV that bother Piper.

But leave sex aside (as if that were possible for fifteen minutes on TV). It’s the unremitting triviality that makes television so deadly. What we desperately need is help to enlarge our capacities to be moved by the immeasurable glories of Christ. Television takes us almost constantly in the opposite direction, lowering, shrinking, and deadening our capacities for worshiping Christ.

Even if you’re not a Christian, you’d have to admit that a lot of television tends to glorify the trivial and that can’t be good for any of us who want to enlarge our vision of the world and what we’re capable of achieving with the precious life we’ve been given.

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Farwewell Bud Tingwell

May 15th, 2009

by Rodney Olsen.

3 comments

Much loved Australian actor Charles “Bud” Tingwell passed away from complications with prostate cancer this morning. He was in a Melbourne hospital with his son and daughter by his side. He was 86.

His death is a sad loss to the Australian entertainment industry.

From serious film roles dating back to the mid 40s to his work in a number of television and movie comedies, he was a well known face both in Australia and around the world.

In the later 1960s, he performed various minor voice roles for the Gerry Anderson shows Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet as well as appearing in the first series of cult television show Catweazle.

Among credits too numerous to mention Bud appeared in over 100 films. He was well known as Inspector Reg Lawson on the long running Australian television series Homicide. After Homicide he took on a number of small roles in major Australian films, such as Breaker Morant, Puberty Blues and All The Rivers Run.

He will be missed by several generations of Australians.

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The world's greatest inventions

Mar 9th, 2009

by Rodney Olsen.

2 comments

I saw a news article today talking about the world’s top ten inventions. It displayed a number of inventions which the story claims have changed the world.

The internet, television, computers, telephones, they were all there. I decided to look for a few other lists of the world’s greatest inventions and found several. Not many of them agreed with each other. I certainly liked the English list that put the bicycle at the top of the list. After all, there is no more energy efficient mode of transport in the world.

So what do you think are the greatest inventions? What do you think has changed the world we live in?

What would be in your list of the world’s greatest inventions? The printing press? Has there been a particular breakthrough in medical science that would be on your list? What about aircraft or the automobile? Would you choose the microchip? How about the camera or the light bulb? What else is there that I haven’t even mentioned?

Whether you think there’s just one invention that you think should be on the list or you want to try to come up with your own top ten, I’d really enjoy getting your point of view. Add your favourite invention or inventions in the comments section of this post.

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Oprah's Sprirituality

Aug 21st, 2008

by Rodney Olsen.

1 comment

I must admit that I haven’t seen a lot of Oprah over the years but what I have seen just serves to confirm that she’s the ultimate television professional.

Her programme, The Oprah Winfrey Show, has earned a number Emmy Awards and is the highest rating talk show in the history of television.

According to Wikipedia, she has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century, the most philanthropic African American of all time, and the world’s only black billionaire for three straight years. That’s an amazing achievement for someone who has battled the odds to be where she is today.

Born in rural Mississippi to a poor unwed teenaged mother, and later raised in an inner city Milwaukee neighborhood, Winfrey was raped at the age of nine, and at fourteen, gave birth to a son who died in infancy. Sent to live with the man she calls her father, a barber in Tennessee, Winfrey landed a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. Her emotional ad-lib delivery eventually got her transferred to the daytime talk show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place, she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated. – Wikipedia

More and more these days Oprah’s programme has focused on spiritual themes that have found a very welcome audience amongst her millions of fans. Many say she is the most influential woman in the world, so when Oprah endorses something, millions around the world not only listen, they act on what they hear.

My regular Wednesday morning guest on 98.5 Sonshine FM is Ross Clifford who is the Principal of Morling College in New South Wales and current President of the Baptist Union of Australia. Each week we chat about a range of issues relating to spirituality and belief.

This week we looked at the kind of spirituality that Oprah endorses and the latest author to have received a massive career boost via Oprah’s television show, Eckhart Tolle. Tolle’s brand of new age spirituality has been embraced by millions since attaining Oprah’s endorsement.

Oprah rejects any idea of there being one pathway to God as being unthinkable. She seems to be on a spiritual search, earnestly seeking answers and taking her vast international audience on the journey with her.

If you’d like to hear what Ross had to say about Oprah and her thoughts on spirituality, just click play on the audio player at the bottom of this post.

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