the first issue here is that this is a programme that is trying to be something for too many people…
this weekends’ offering being a case in point…
we start off with politics….
then we veer into a ‘country calender’ episode on small-town new zealand memorial halls…
(a worthy piece in its’ own right…but w.t.f. was it doing levered into a politics/currents affairs show…?..)
more politics….
..and then we have an ‘arts on sunday’ piece…on an exhibition in melbourne of designer frocks…(!)
and then of course there is the silly/annoying go at a quizz show/competition…popping up at regular intervals…
i mean..do the programme makers think we don’t have the attention-span-stamina to be able to handle a full hour of politics..?
isn’t there already a surfeit of quaint-rural/frock-shows on the telly…?
do they think there are not enough issues around to fill a whole hour…?
i saw the nation as having the opportunity to be what q&a isn’t….a serious/considered examination of the issues…
..which brings us to the long-interview…
and i gotta say…why are they letting duncan garner do the corner-stone-interview…?
two reasons for that question….
one is that they have in the host…a person who has been inhaling long-interviews…five days a week…for years…
i mean..i thought that was why he had been brought onto the show…to do a political-radio-with-pictures for us…
..to echo the grillings/cross-examinations he subjects pollies to on morning report on nat-rad..
(with the extra bonus for us being able to see their lying-eyes and face-clawing lying in general…(not to mention the sweating/squirming…)
but no..today garner gave paula bennett a long kneck-rub…(and asked if she’d like any ‘extras’..)
it was such a pathetic attempt at holding her to any account/rational-explanation for her deeply-irrational railings against benificiaries…
(last week it was sole-parents….this week its’ sickness-benificiaries…)
you could see in her eyes..that bennet could hardly believe her luck…
..she had garner so much in her hand…that he ..at the roundup at the end..
..echoed/repeated her shock-statistic-du-jour….that some benificiaries cd work part-time..but aren’t…
garner got quite heated/worked-up over that one….(taking the thought of ‘skiving-sickness-benificiaries’ quite personally…)
so much so you could imagine him joining bennett in a posse-of-two….(camera-crew in tow..)
..to drag one/some of these skiving-benificiaries out of their luxurious digs/lives-of-plenty…
..and into the harsh light of the camera….
which brings me back to the long-interview issue…
garner is not trained to dig..and dig….he is trained for the short ‘did you? no..?..alright!’-segments of the evening news….
he needs to be sent back to where he is most comfortable…
…the quizz/country-calendar/frock-components need to be ditched….
and then they can get paula bennett back again…
..for that long overdue hard-questioning of this irrational/agenda-driven targetting of the weakest/poorest ….
..i think sean plunkett should be up for it..
..eh…?
