|
DEBUTS
JANUARY ...
David Caruso moved from NYPD Blue to
Michael Hayes ... Kangaroo Palace was set in the 1960s and
depicted the lives of Australians moving to London, while a deposed African
dictator made the trip in the 1990s in the lousy sitcom In Exile ... developments
in car safety were examined in Crash ... The Brats showcased new musical
talent in association with the NME ... and Travelog got a new look, profiling
travel opportunities for the disabled.
FEBRUARY ...
Marks and Gran took a break from sitcom to dramatise the life of Oswald Mosley.
MARCH ...
Planet Football looked forward to the
World Cup by examining the worldwide soccer scene, supplemented with occasional
live matches ... First on Four traced the careers of comedians who made
their debuts on the channel, including Harry Enfield, Julian Clary and
The Comic Strip ... Slap! Love Lies and Lipstick was set in a department
store and nearby bank ... while Light Lunch moved to teatimes and an obvious
change in name to Late Lunch.
APRIL ...
David Aaronovitch looked at literature in Booked
... Chef for a Night saw members of the public take over a restaurant
... Jo Whiley started her earnest music chat show ... the first episode
of Scrapheap was screened - it would later add a "Challenge"
to the end of its name ... and the words and numbers game made a rare
peak-time excursion with Celebrity Countdown.
MAY ...
Dawson's Creek began ... Lynda La Plante
enraged techies with her drama Killer Net ... The Tourist Trap
examined the behaviour of various nationalities on holiday ... Melvyn
Bragg examined the next day's papers in The Sundays ... while Chris
Evans toured the world's golf courses in Tee Time.
JUNE ...
The proprietors of The River Café got
their own cookery show, The Italian Kitchen ... Watercolour
Challenge began a lengthy daytime run ... Richard Seymour and Dick
Powell took a closer look at everyday products in Designs
On Your ... Barking was a sketch series showcasing new
comedians ... and Ally McBeal began.
JULY ...
Fay Weldon's '70s-set drama Big Women
began ... South Park arrived from Sky One ... while another Friday
night fixture started: So Graham Norton.
AUGUST ...
Five years after the first series, C4 part-funded
Armisted Maupin's More Tales of the City ... Edinburgh or Bust
followed stand-up comedians at the Fringe ... and the first anniversary
of Diana's death was marked with a series of programmes on landmines,
including a series of French shorts, Spotlight on a Massacre.
SEPTEMBER ...
Nigel Slater's Real Food saw the culinary
expert assisted by one Nigella Lawson ... Jack Davenport starred in vampire
drama Ultraviolet ... She's Gotta Have It saw Liza Tarbuck
bullying women into trying out the latest styles ... David Bailey looked
at Models Close Up ... Portillo's Progress saw the temporarily-dethroned
MP examine the future of the Conservative Party ... while The 11 O'Clock
Show: The News Alternative began.
OCTOBER ...
The Clintons - A Marriage of Power looked at
two of the planet's most famous people ... Driven was C4's new motoring
show, while Charlie Higson fronted the film review Kiss Kiss Bang Bang ... MTV's
claymation series Celebrity Death Match arrived on Friday nights ... Davina
McCall ran around city centres attempting to set up a Streetmate ... Is
It Legal? moved over from ITV ... and four decades of sex lives were examined
in Sex Bomb.
NOVEMBER ...
The Young Person's Guide to Becoming a Rock
Star took a wry look at the music business ... Anatomy of Desire examined
what went on under the nation's bedclothes ... Peter Kay and Trigger Happy
TV starred in the first series of Comedy Lab ... Joe Layburn investigated
miscarriages of justice in Joe Public ... Body Story looked at people's
insides ... the animated sitcom Bob and Margaret began ... while Planet Ustinov
saw the raconteur follow in the footsteps of Mark Twain.
DECEMBER ...
A new comedy talent made his debut in The Johnny Vegas Television Show.
FINALES
AMERICAN FOOTBALL
Channel 4 had tried to bring many minority
sports to British screens, some with more success than others. Perhaps
the most famous for many years was American Football, which had made its
debut within a week of the channel's launch in 1982. However C4 never
really found a decent way to present it. At one point in the late '80s
comedy double act The Vicious Boys were in charge, whose lame gags about
refrigerators did nothing but piss off the loyal audience. Later the arrival
of former player Mick Luckhurst added some credibility, but little technical
ability. Eventually a settled format was found with Gary Imlach hosting
a 90-minute highlight show late on Monday nights and a magazine show on
Saturday mornings. However after 1998's Superbowl, C4 abruptly dropped
their coverage of their sport. It was said that this came about because
attention was being focused on the fact that much of their programming
was bought in, and the axing of gridiron showed they didn't have to rely
on imports. C5 then picked up the sport, screening live games overnight,
but their scheduling (even the Superbowl highlights went out way after
midnight) still means that it has little of the profile it did 10 or 15
years ago.
MISC ...
TV Dinners in January saw a TV first as placenta
was used in a recipe ... Dermot Morgan died, and as a mark of respect
the imminent new series of Father Ted was delayed by a week ...
a weekend of programming marking the anniversary of Labour's election
win was screened under the title Now We Are One ... the screening
of the episode of Ellen where she announced she was a lesbian was
the excuse for a Coming Out Party theme night ... The Comic Strip
returned to C4 with the first new film for five years, "Four Men
in a Car" ... Dazed and Confused magazine took control of the schedules
for a night in Renegade TV Gets Dazed ... the MOBO Awards were
networked for the first time ... World Aids Day was marked with a fund-raising
evening of music and comedy presented by Stephen Fry Live at the Lighthouse
... the festive season was marked with a number of programmes on alcohol
in the Smashed season ... and 4 Later saw a new look to late night
programmes on Thursdays - Sundays.
ON SCREEN
GRAHAM NORTON
Norton first came to the public's attention
after some memorable appearances in Father Ted, and the odd sighting
of his stand-up act on TV. It was Channel 5 that gave him his first break,
fronting panel game Bring Me the Head of Light Entertainment just
after the channel launched and as a regular stand-in on The Jack Docherty
Show. But soon it was Channel 4 offering him the most work, and he soon
became ubiquitous. In the spring he fronted theme nights for two consecutive
Saturdays, holding a Coming Out Party celebrating "The Puppy Episode"
of Ellen, followed seven days later by Eurovision's Waterloo, looking
at the Song Contest. His success fronting Docherty's show saw the producers
decide to give him his own series, and So Graham Norton began on Channel
4 in July. His unique interviewing style, coupled with his ability to
get the most out of his audience and his researchers' ability to find
exactly the right sort of guest, saw it become an instant hit. The show
soon became a Friday night fixture, and despite at times relying rather
too much on a parade of freaks from the USA it managed to consistently
entertain. Norton soon found himself much sought-after, but in 2001 he
turned down a deal with the BBC to stick with C4. With the programme extended
to five nights a week in 2002, the channel certainly thinks he's one of
their biggest stars.
T4
Former occupant of the CBBC Broom
Cupboard, Andi Peters arrived at Channel 4 in 1998 via a stint at
LWT. He wasn't specifically hired as a presenter (although he did regularly
front special programmes interviewing celebrities) but instead as Head
of Youth Programming. The first subject of his attention was Sunday mornings.
This was the nearest thing C4 had to a specific slot for young people,
with programmes like Wise Up and the Hollyoaks omnibus,
but there was little attempt to turn this into a specific strand. Peters
therefore decided to brand the whole morning, from 6am to lunchtime, as
T4, with Ben Shepherd providing links between the output. In its
early days the biggest reaction came from fans of The Waltons,
enraged at the huge, animated on-screen logo that was displayed during
the programme. Eventually, T4 was streamlined to begin at 10am
(with The Waltons screened an hour earlier), and with new presenters
Margherita Taylor and especially Dermot O'Leary the strand started to
get a reputation for an irreverent approach and the home of a range of
popular teen shows (especially when Dawson's Creek joined the line-up).
So successful was it that the strand was soon expanded to take in all
the channel's teen output, during school holidays, on Friday teatimes
and Saturday mornings, and on the channel's digital spin-off E4.
OFF SCREEN
• Cutting Edge documentary "Daddy's
Girl" was dropped when it became apparent that one of the father-daughter
pairs featured were actually boyfriend and girlfriend.
• The channel launched its first spin-off when Film Four began transmitting
on digital, cable and satellite TV from 1 November. The first night was
simulcast on C4 and included the premiere of The Usual Suspects
and a contribution from Adam and Joe.
• C4 were criticised by the ITC for screening The Omen on
Christmas Day.
• The launch of Sky Digital meant that the channel could be seen
in the whole of Wales for the first time, while S4C's digital version
contained programmes entirely in the Welsh language.
FOUR-WORDS
"Not since thirtysomething has
a show divided its viewership so definitively between the camps of 'can't
get enough' and 'what is this crap?'"
- Dennis Hensley on Ally McBeal
"It'll be like having a repertory cinema in your own living room."
- David Shaw, C4 press officer, on Film Four
MY FAVOURITE CHANNEL 4 MOMENT ...
WANTED (1997)
There have been many moments of great television
over the years, and Channel 4 have been responsible for a lot of those,
The Tube, Countdown, Treasure
Hunt, The Word, The Big Breakfast and many others
...
However, my favourite has to come from the late
1990's, the second series of Wanted,
hosted this time around by ex-MTV VJ Ray Cokes, who is in my view a wonderful
talent and really helped make the second series a great improvement on
the first series which was poorly hosted by Richard Littlejohn.
The moment in question was when ex-SAS man Dave
McBride was brought back as a Tracker. He was given what was seen as a
"warm-up" task for him in tracking down two female contestants
who were in their 50's, I believe. He said he was looking forward to taking
them down, easily. Unfortunately, things didn't quite go according to
plan.
They gave him the slip, and he could not get back
on their tail, no matter how hard he tried. Even on the live Sunday show,
he was not able to find them in their telephone box. This happened three
weeks in a row. For the ex-SAS man, this was major league embarrassing,
and he had to be taken off the physical tracking, and brought back to
the studio. His replacement tracker was on their case all the time and
caught them on the next live show.
It was fun to see this ex-SAS man getting
outwitted and outmanoeuvred at every turn, and it was amusing to see him
getting more and more frustrated. Not surprisingly, Ray Cokes ribbed poor
Dave McBride mercilessly about this who didn't seem to like that much
either.
- Ian Beaumont
|
