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COME [W [N «’AMA
TWIN PEAKS Channel 5, Sat 1 Dec, 12.20am 00.00
The drop dead gorgeous Laura Palmer
The mina bird. The sawmill. A waterfall. Garish green-lettered opening credits. The town’s road sign. A ghostly bass and synth. And so it is happening again. Welcome back to Twin Peaks, populated by the bold and the beautiful, the deranged and the damned.
When I Love 1990 paid tribute to David Lynch’s surreal soap opera, the B-list talking heads trotted out the usual Twin Peaks standard- bearers: Sherilyn Fenn’s nubile nymphet, the Log Lady, Coop with his coffee and cherry pie, a cross-dressing David Duchovny.
But little mention was made of the real fruitcakes: the vengeful psycho Windom Earle, Albert Rosenfield, the FBI’s sarcastic renegade or Killer Bob himself. None of these oddities will show up in this opening splurge of five episodes but it’s merely an incentive to get weekly fixes all the way through to the final hallucinatory confrontation in the Black Lodge.
For those who missed it first time round, it starts with the discovery of a corpse, washed up on the shore, wrapped in plastic. The victim of a brutal assault, Laura Palmer was surely the last person anyone would want to kill; the town’s beauty queen and archetypal girl next door. Except when the FBI are brought onto the case, in the shape of Kyle MacLachlan’s Douglas Fir- sniffing agent she is unveiled as a coke addict and serial maneater who may even have been blackmailed into prostitution.
While the series is almost raw to look at now, especially in the light of Lynch’s later lush works, the feeling of sparseness adequately reflects a sleepy community being stripped to the bone when crisis strikes. It’s also fair to say that there has been nothing like it on the box since.
(Brian Donaldson)
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Exposing neglect on the railways
‘third way' dreamed up by successwe governments to reverse the rail network's decline.
Journalist Ian Hargreaves" stylish. entertaining documentary graphically conveys the chaotic nature of rail innovation over 30 years. featuring telling interviews with politicians. civil servants and exeCuIives. all frantically passing the buck.
Opening with a chilling eyewitness account of last year's Hatfield derailment. we are then returned to the 7053' ‘age of the train‘ when even Jimniy Sawle ceiildn't mediate in bickering between exeCutives and the unions. Expenswe flops like the 'tilting' APT and consistent under- funding during the Thatcher years turned British Rail into an international ioke before Major's government spawned privatisation and the pzir't-i‘)til)lic. for profit Railtr‘ack.
Whether Byers" vague. not-for-profit trust works. only time WI” tell. What this film reinforces is the need for billions in the long term to repair the current mess. rAllan Radcliffe)
[)RAMA
SWALLOW Channel 4, Wed 5 Dec, 9pm 00..
Desperate drama
Tony Marchant doesn't like to bar his holds. Like his distant creative cousin. Ken Loach. the heart of his message is clear and simple. But unlike the veteran red
baron. Marchant lays on the style and grandeur to make his dramas sumptuous as well as passionate affairs. Which essentially makes him a much better bet.
Structurally. Swallow follows the pattern laid down by his 2000 tale. Never Never. First replace loan companies with pharmaceutical organisations. then take out John Simm and put the equally-tortured looking Steven Mackintosh in his place as the rising company star who deserts the job-for-life to help out one of his own victims. Here. it is Christine Tremarco as the single mother of two whose dependency on anti- depressants leads her to suiCide attempts and the threat of losing her kids.
Deep. dark and desperate. Swallow is the kind of drama that telly chiefs used to commission on a weekly basis. This feels like an overdue luxury. (Brian Donaldson)
ARTS DOCUMENTARY THE PRIVATE LIFE OF A MASTERPIECE BBCZ, Sat 8 Dec, 7.10pm 000
An arts documentary to make you scream
This rarest of beasts. a BBC arts dOCumentary. aims to reveal how the simple image of a screaming figure on a bridge under a bloody sky came to be more widely reproduced than the ‘Mona Lisa'.
Norwegian Edvard Munch was haunted by the idea of a scream coming from the landscape itself. and the anxious. androgynous figure in the foregrOund may have been inspired by a Peruvian mummy. Branded a ‘degenerate' work by the Nazis in Munch's adopted home. Germany. the endless process of reproduction that took flight in the 60s was begun by the artist himself, who produced over 105 versions.
The canonisation of the
painting remains fascinating. but this is essentially lazy programming (we've had nostalgia for the 70s. 808. 908 and Blue Peter. so let's get misty-eyed about late 19th century works of art). Indeed. the very existence of such a programme confirms that. in today's vapid climate. a powerful image like 'The Scream‘ could only be produced ironically. (Allan Radcliffe)
FILM
HARD BOILED Channel 4, Sat 8 Dec, 1.05am OOOO
A no-brainer of the highest order
Here is a fairly rare. but warmly welcomed terrestrial TV Outing of John Woo's classic take on American action movies like Dre Hard. Unlike these movies however, Woo's hyper- kinetic thriller grabs yOu by the short and curlies from the outset and through a series of jaw- dropping setpieces never lets up.
The plot is simple: a renegade cop and an undercover agent take on Triad gun runners who store their munitions in a hospital morgue. Cue ridiculous amounts of acrobatic gun play (later lifted with suitable footnotes by Tarantinol and slightly camp buddy-buddy dialogue between the wonderful Chow Yun Fat and Tony Leung (both WOO regulars).
This is a no-brainer of the highest order which also changed the face of the Hollywood action picture. Woo’s fortunes have been mixed since. having been enticed to the US on the evidence of Hard Ber/ed. His English language films — Face/Off, and Miss/on: Impossible 2 being a Couple — have been of variable duality.
(Paul Dale)
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DRAMA HOT MONEY
Scottish, Mon 12 Dec, 9pm .00
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A fine cast cash
The phrase ‘lTV drama' should instil a sense of trepidation in even the most hardy consumer of teleVisual stodge. But put those preconceptions to one side for a moment. because this one-off. two-hour offering. while not exactly pushing back the boundaries or modern television. is at least a reasonably watchable affair.
The plot of Ho! Money is pure cliche. Three women working at the Bank Of England hatch a plan to nick a heap of cash destined for the inCinerator And. well. that's about it. But the programme manages to avoid a lot of the usual corny scenes. and the whole thing trundles along fairly stylishly at a reasonable pace.
Much of the show's appeal is down to some impressively solid performances from the three main actresses. including a surprisingly dowdy show from Caroline Quentin. all of which helps Hot Money to be a slightly above average piece of eye- candy. lDoug Johnstonei
ALSO ON
TV Go Home IE4. Tire -: Dec. 7 /. 10pm; Spool website morphs into manic sketch show. Tamzin Outhwaite Goes Wild With Dolphins lBBCl, Tliil (9 Dec. 9pm; Ezileride's' Mel swnns With the mamn‘als.
Lethal Weapons (Channel «1. Sa: 8 Dec. 8.05pm) The state of Britain's gun culture post-Dunblane.
Turner Prize 2001 {Channel -l, Sun 5) Dec. 8pm; Madonna hands out the big art gong. When Louis Met The Hamiltons IBBCZ. 71m 7 l Dec. 9pm) Mr Ther'oux hangs out With notorious Neil and cranky Christine.
tTt“. THE LIST 111