Dumb, Or Maybe Just Happy?

Well, I'm not afraid to go after the big targets. So today I'm taking on the awesome power of the scriptwriters of the beloved long-running soap Neighbours.

A few weeks ago a plotline featured a character selling pirated DVDs. In order to apprehend this master criminal, four police went to Ramsey St in a squad car with the sirens and lights blazing. As the villian wasn't at home, the cops then raced off in order to arrest him in the middle of his own wedding.

And yet...a character who has: blown up a plane, killing three people; put a bomb in his sister's car; trapped his father in a cave; put his brother in a coma; and possibly murdered an innocent by-stander, is able to wander around the street where he and his victims lived, with neither the police nor anyone else, not even Ramsey St's own Nancy Drew, Toadie, apparently looking for him!

I almost don't have the heart to make fun of this sort of thing. It has all the challenge of hunting farmyard animals with assault weapons. It's why I think our PM John Howard, is missing the point when he calls for an end to "this stupid programme", Big Brother - TV is meant to be stupid. If people wanted enlightenment and intellectual rigour when they watched television, then Sunday Arts and Dateline would be the highest rating shows on TV.

On the other hand, ratings for The Wedge have fallen dramatically since its debut and are now nudging into "abysmal" territory, so maybe there's hope for the viewing public yet...