By Teri Fitsell
If there's one thing Jurassic Park taught us, it's that Walking with Dinosaurs might not actually be good for your health. Happily, the BBC-made series of that name (which started on TV One on Sun-day) lets your eyes do the walking from the safety of your couch. The first episode marched back 220 million years ago to the first dinosaurs to walk the Earth.
A test audience, which included a 9- and an 8-year-old, brought positive responses all round. The mix of animatronic dinosaurs and computer-generated image has produced what looks like a real wildlife documentary.
And while the Beeb haven't spent quite so much time and money as Steven Spielberg on details like getting the shadow right and making sure plants sway at the right time, the overall effect is very realistic.
Perhaps too realistic at times.
One of the promos for the series featured a picture of a fearsome multiple-toothed dinosaur and the catchline, "Watching this on Sun-day, you'll be hoping he's already eaten." Several gory scenes, includ-ing a Postosuchus being "eaten from the inside out," suggested to me that a better line might be, "You'll be hoping you've already eaten."
The gore factor increased when it emerged that, way back in 220 mill BC, there was a most unhealthy preoccupation with eating one's young. After watching several species of dino a-chomping on their children - one for the adults' own protection, the other just because he wanted a snack - the younger viewers on the couch started looking at the adults rather more warily.
There are five more episodes which, narrator Kenneth Branagh explained, will mosey through the dinosaurs' 160 million years of existence and then delve into theories about what did wipe them off the face of the planet.
We'll certainly be accompanying them on that amble.
Mind you, TV One is surely taking a huge ratings gamble by pitting its plesiosaurs against TV2's surefire audience grabber, the new episodes of The Simpsons. Matt Groening's brilliant long-running cartoon, featuring the world's most famous nuclear family, continues unfailingly to hit the mark.
With the news that a key cast member is to be killed off this season, the dinosaurs could lose out. What can you say about a piece of scheduling like that, except "D'oh!"
\EE There are rumours going around that the makers of fine comedy Spin City are thinking about replacing retiring star Michael J. Fox with Charlie Sheen.
Hope not. While Fox does cocky with charm, Sheen merely comes across as smug.
And on the subject of Spin City, did anyone spot Barry Bostwick, the guy who plays the nice but dim mayor, in one of his early starring roles at the weekend?
Bostwick was up there in stilettos and fishnet stockings in 1975 cult classic The Rocky Horror Show. For yes, it was he who portrayed Brad, alongside Janet (dammit!) played by Susan Sarandon. Belting out "I'm a wild and an untamed thing," while wearing little more than a feather boa and a basque, Bostwick looked as joyfully camp as a row of tents. Wonder what spin deputy mayor Flaherty would put on that one?
\EE Finally, given the controversy over video refs for the Super 12s, thought that commentator Brent Todd asked a valid question during the Auckland Warriors vs Wests Tigers league on Monday. The ref had gone to the video asking for a decision on whether the ball had been grounded for a possible Warr-iors try. The video ref couldn't decide either and handed the decision back to the ref.
Said Todd: "What amazes me is, why do they go back to the ref for the call, when he's gone to them 'cos he couldn't call it in the first place?"
Discuss.
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