FRIDAY 5
0 International Athletics (Scottish)
8. iii-8.30pm. Jim Rosenthal with coverage of the lvo Van Damme Meeting from Brussels— last ofthe qualifying events before the Rome final. Coverage continues on Channel Four (8.30-9pm).
0 Never Love a Stranger (BBC 1) 11.45pm - 1. 15am. The Steve McQueen season continues with this early rarity. a predictable Harold Robbins yarn about a petty criminal who rises to become boss of the New York Crime Syndicate. McQueen is the childhood chum who follows a different course and becomes a crime-busting District Attorney. 1958.
SATURDAY 6
o DoctorWho (BBC l)The Doctor back after the unusually long lay off- but all is well with the time travel sci-fi series. Colin Baker is potentially a wonderful Who but the last series wasn‘t up to much. This time it‘s back to an old plot idea - the Doctor is put on trial again by the Time Lords for interfering with
_ MEDIA LIST
! galatic affairs. The whole 14 part ' series is taken up with his defence. I Producer John Nathan Turner is 1 generally excellent when it comes to * Who folk law but less good on drama 1 and production values. 0 Roland Rat (BBC 1) the big time for ' rat. Followingin the paw prints of Basil Brush et al. These could be the television schedules of twenty years
3 ago.
0 The Buss Abbot Show (BBC 1) First in a new series— his lirstiorthe BBC— irom the talented comedian and impressionist, Buss Abbot. A natural successor to Dick Emery in the Saturday evening Autumn tun spot?
0 Psycho (Scottish) 1(l.(X)pm-midnight. Alfred Hitchcock‘s original made in 1960 with Norman Bates as the creepy motel owner. Shower first.
0 Raging Bull (C4) 10.55pm-1 . 10am. The British television premiere of the cinema biography (made in 1980) ofWorld Middleweight boxing champion Jake La Motta. starring Robert De Niro and directed by Martin Scorsese.
O The Killing (BBC 2) Stanley Kubrick‘s third film. an elaborate racetrack robbery in which an ex-con plans a two million dollar heist. Terrific cast ofcharacter studies from the likes of Elsha Cook Jnr,
‘ __ ._ _ - .__._____.__ ...._._ _ __ _.._ -- ....-- _.._
TELEVISION.
Marie Windsor and Timothy Carey. 1956.
SUNDAY 7
0 West of Paradise (Scottish)
9. 15-1 1 . 15pm. Art Malik. a favourite from Jewel in the Crown, stars with Alphonsia Emmanuel and Charles Kay in this inheritance thriller set against a backgound of romance and voodoo on a tropical island.
0 American Football (C4) 6.15-7.15pm. Welcome back to American Football the sport that Channel Four has been so influential in establishing in this country. and bye bye for now to presenter ‘little’ Nicky Home. The new series is being produced for the first time in America by the production company. Cheerleader, and ex-player turned US commentator Frank Gifford will be introducing the action. The series leads up to the Super Bowl in January.
0 Country Matters: The tour Beauties (C4)9. 15-10.15pm. Last in Granada‘s repeated series of plays made in the early seventies. Michael Kitchen plays a junior reporter in a small country town who finds more than his romantic match when attempting to choose between the four females in the Davenport family. Also stars Kate Nelligan.
0 US Open Tennis (BBC 1)
i 8.55pm—12. 15am. Can Becker be
; stopped?
; MONDAY 8
0 Oil: God Bless Standard Oil (C4) lOpm-l 1pm. Grampian’s (in collaboration with NRK Norway) expensive new eight part documentary series tracing the impact ofoil on the modern world.
O Marnie (Scottish) 9.00pm-midnight (with break for News At Ten). More Alfred Hitchcock. The 1964 thriller starring Sean Connery.
o Panorama - Family Secrets (BBC 1) 930—10. 10pm. Can the courts cope with the delicate task of dealing with victims of child abuse and incest. Margaret Jay reports (New series).
0 The Buddy Holly Story (BBC 2) 6-7.30pm. Excellent Oscar-winning biopic of the rock’n'roll legend born fifty years ago this month. Gary Busey earned an Oscar nomination for his conscientious and sympathetic portrayal of Holly. Together with the other cast
5 members he recreated live approximations ofhits like Peggy
Sue and That’ll Be the Day. 1978.
TUESDAY 9
O No Limits (BBC 2) 6—6.55pm. As well as the usual blend ofpop videos and interviews. Jenny Powell visits
Loch Ness in search of the monster.
She’ll also be ‘sampling a “wee dram" when she visits a distillery and she might even discover what Scotsmen wear under their kilts when she drops in on Inverness to look at Scottish tartans.’ Scotland as seen from Manchester.
0 Changing Times: The People’s Palace (C4) 6.3(l—7pm the last in the series of films about museums by Denis Mitchel looks at Glasgow‘s People‘s Palace.
0 New Orleans Now (C4) 11.40pm—12.35am. First ofa new four parter on the origins and traditions ofthe New Orleans Mardi Gras.
WEDNESDAY 10
0 Dallas (BBC 1) 8—8.50pm. This series is becoming a bit ofa curiosity,
— '
BLACK GOLD
Grampian Television’s new eight-part series on ‘Oil’ for C4, which starts on Mon 8 Sept cost a million pounds. Peanuts in comparison with the money that surrounds the documentary‘s subject. Made in collaboration with Norway's Milk and sold to Channel 4, judging from the iirst instalment it is going to be a iascinating series.
God Bless Standard Oil outlines the themes that dominate the business oi oil - the repeated attempts to control oil production prices and their repeated failure. Alter an uneasy opening sequence rather over-iond oi the grandiose statement (lots at ‘Space Age’ and ‘Second Millennia') the programme finds its ieet with the early accounts of oil discovery and story at John D. Bockerieller.
Bockerteller made the world's largest lortune by not making the mistake oi messing his hands with the raw product that later-to-be-ruined
. Colonel Edwin Drake iirst drilled tor.
For Bockerteller and his huge
l corporation Standard Oil, the name oi
; the game was control. That control was , to be achieved by buying up all the relining capacity and later by
i monopolising rail and pipe supplies at
'Loil. According to his grandson David
32Ti‘ieiList 5 — 18 September
3 Bockerieller—chainnan oi the
I Bockerteller Group at Companies-this
[ was as much as anything because at a
; personality trait. John D. hated any
i kind at disorder and was capable oi
what look like more ruthless deals than
1 JR. ever came up with. Soon Bockertel
fl ler was the most hated man in the US.
' But the curse tor anyone hoping to
control the oil markets was always just
3 around the corner. Just when the
supply becomes steadier someone
' discovers another big source, whether
it be in Russia orthe iirst oi the
enormous ‘gushers’ in the States that
at the time made the country
sell-suiticlent. Rockerteller's dream of
control was to prove impossible and
eventually his massive corporation
5 was split up by the Government.
Bockertelier himsell was to retire to
; an old age at goll, philanthropy and the
constant attention at his public
relations men. ‘Oil’ shows us intriguing
tootage oi the man, portrayed in
cartoons as a vulture and a monster, as
a trail old man who dispensed dimes to
anyone he saw and lead iascinated
onlookers in impromptu community
singing. You may not be able to control
: the oil, but as Rockerteller’s son has proved, you can, with enough money and a constantly on hand film crew,
, control the image. (Nigel Billen)