Election viewing & The 4400

This article was first published in the Age on October 9, 2004

I can't help feeling that the hottest 20 Australian TV personalities (winners: Rove and Sandra Sully) didn't fully embrace the range of hotness to be found on air - most specifically among the News broadcasters on our less commercial channels. An informal vote among my friends revealed a hankering for Ian Henderson and Angela Pippos (ABC, 7.00pm), for Mary Kostakidis (SBS, 6.30pm) and Anton Enus (SBS, 9.30 p.m.) And, because I must report the facts as they are revealed to me, some of my friends were keen on Antony Green, who has been covering elections on the ABC for fifteen years now. Lucky for them, he will be on the ABC for five hours tonight in the cannily titled Australia Votes 2004 from 6.00 p.m. Kerry O'Brien will host the telecast, along with Maxine McKew and said Green. Representing the Government will be Senator Nick Minchin, and the Shadow Minister Bob McMullan. The panel will also include the National Party's John Anderson, Greens Senator Bob Brown, and Australian Democrat's Andrew Bartlett.

Noone, in either my or the official sexy people poll, put in a vote for Laurie Oakes, but he can be found on Channel 9 tonight, in the also cannily entitled, Australia Decides (6.30 p.m.). Oakes will be joined by those two shy and retiring guys, Senator Robert Ray and the Michael Kroger; and shy and retiring gals Amanda Vanstone and Natasha Stott Despoja. There is a $1,000,000 prize for guessing who will host Australia Decides. *

Will Melbourne or Sydney go to the Greens? Will Turnbill be King hit out of Wentworth? Will Hanson dance her way into the Senate? Will the Australian Democrat's decision to preference the Family First party mean they are put last? Will Garrett soon be rocking the floors of parliament? Or will we all have turned off by 7.30 p.m. and started to drink too much?

The 4400 (8.30 pm, Channel 10, Sunday and Monday) stars Australia's own Jacqueline McKenzie as Diana Skouris and some people may think she's hot. Unfortunately in this role she will inevitably be compared to Gillian Anderson of Scully fame, who is hotter. The 4400 is one of those shows that reminds you of many others: The X-Files, Close Encounters, The X-Men and Dark Angel being just a few that come to mind. I love weird Sci Fi shows, so found much to enjoy in this series, (which may, or may not, become an ongoing series) but it never reaches the heights of the shows that spawned it. The premise is that over the past fifty years, thousands of people have disappeared. All 4400 of them are returned at once, by a comet-like ball of light, without having aged a day. They have no memory of what has happened to them in the years since they disappeared but slowly it becomes clear they have developed super human powers. It's up to Tom Baldwin (Joel Gretsch) and Diana Skouris, two Homeland Security agents, to unravel the mystery and they must do so against a backdrop of increasing community fear and persecution of those that have returned.

What sets this show apart from its predecessors is its focus on the real human drama of these events, rather than the supernatural. Mahershalalhazbaz Ali is particularly good as Richard Tyler, the Black Korean fighter pilot who returns to a world which no longer persecutes him because he's black, but does mob him for being a 'returnee'. The disorientation of people returning to a world 50 years after they disappeared from it is particularly well-handled. It's a great concept that doesn't realise its potential, but it certainly provides a few hours of intriguing television. *Not really. It's Ray Martin.

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