Critic's view - Thursday, February 3
The Age
Thursday January 27, 2011
Desperate Housewives: series return Grey‚„s Anatomy: series return The Bionic Vet Luke Nguyen‚„s VietnamDesperate Housewives: series returnChannel Seven, 9.30pmPREVIOUSLY on Desperate Housewives ... Orson left Bree after she revealed her son Andrew was driving the car that killed Carlos's mother. Bree revealed she harboured a secret that could end her friendship with Gabrielle. The death-bed confession of a nurse revealed a baby-swapping incident eight years earlier ‚€¯ and that means someone in Wisteria Lane might have brought up someone else's child. Oh, and Paul's back. Remember Paul? He was the bloke jailed for killing the sister of the woman who had found out his wife had accidentally killed another woman all those years ago and sent her a note threatening to out her, causing her to kill herself. Turns out ‚€¯ you'll love this ‚€¯ the sister he "killed" wasn't dead at all, she had framed Paul for her own murder because she believed he had killed her sister after he learned she'd driven his missus to suicide. Which he did. She even cut off two of her fingers to do it. Now Paul is out of prison and has returned to Wisteria Lane, all cashed up after his wrongful imprisonment and looking to buy his old house so he can get under the skin of the unsupportive neighbours. What's he up to? According to one source, Paul is the focus of season seven's mysterious manoeuvrings. That source is Wikipedia, so that might or might not be true. What is true is Desperate Housewives is still a deliciously fun melodrama with a batch of fresh, juicy intrigues. This is daytime TV with better production values, better writing and a cheeky wink to the silliness of the genre.Grey's Anatomy: series returnChannel Seven, 8.30pmTONIGHT'S season premiere kicks off with a medical fact: every cell in the human body is renewed every seven years, so we are constantly changing, becoming completely different beings on a regular basis. The same can't be said for Grey's Anatomy ‚€¯ which, coincidentally, starts its seventh season tonight. There's the same philosophising narration from Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo), the same troubled relationship between her and Dr McDreamy (Patrick Dempsey), the same attempt to wring humour out of the juxtaposition of trivial relationship issues and major dramatic events arising from work in a large surgical hospital. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. The most recent dramatic event was the shooting by the husband of a patient that led to the deaths of 11 staff at Seattle Grace Hospital and a world of psychological trauma for survivors. That's where this season picks up, with Meredith and Cristina (Sandra Oh) being denied surgery clearance due to "issues" they're yet to deal with. Conversely, McDreamy is on a high after surviving a point-blank bullet to the chest ‚€¯ and what a dangerous high. He feels he was the reason so many people got shot and he's realised life is short, so now, "I think less and just do." Result: a ticking time bomb, an adrenalin junkie looking for new thrills. Not the sort of quality you want in a brain surgeon.The Bionic VetABC1, 8pmFIRST let's get something straight: despite the title, it's not the vet who is bionic in this series. Dr Noel Fitzpatrick is no Colonel Steve Austin from The Six Million Dollar Man. It's the animals he pieces together with his kit of drills, spanners, ratchets, implants, pins, nuts, bolts, carbon-fibre rods, hinges, wire, cotton spools and Blu-Tack who are bionic. Although, given advances in medical technology price tags, a puppy with a bent whisker could end up costing its owner six million quid. Especially since Dr Fitzpatrick is a pioneering veterinary medical engineer who uses cutting-edge machinery at his specialist clinic in Surrey, England. His beneficiaries in this episode are a collie hit by a car; a black cat, also hit by a car; a dog with "flipper syndrome", which has deformed his front legs; and a black Labrador recovering from hip surgery. The animal tales are traumatic, the human stories are emotional, the vet is exhausted. What Fitzpatrick needs is to swap jobs with the bloke from Bondi Vet so he can fit in a bit of surfing between consultations and work on his tan. He deserves it.Luke Nguyen's VietnamSBS One, 7.30pmLUKE Nguyen's Vietnam hints at a life of sustainability that city dwellers romanticise. In his final episode he visits Mai Chau where jackfruit can be had from the side of the road and mud carp pulled out of the village pond. Then you learn that the villagers from the remote village wake at 4.30am every day, walk two hours to their farming plots where they grow corn, rice and cassava, work eight to nine hours, then walk home again carrying cane baskets full of their harvest. A beautiful life, but tough.
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