Australian TV News
First Half, 2003

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27th June, 2003 There's been a few things going on in the schedules, but I'll start with the most recent. On free-to-air, The Simpsons and Buffy are both currently in repeats, and Friends is only featuring the occasional new episode. Both Star Trek series are being pre-empted by tennis next week, and The Fat has moved to Tuesdays at 10:00pm (45 minutes). If you haven't been watching, Spooks is a great show about a more real kind of spy (ABC, 9:30pm Fridays); it's quite episodic, so you can jump in any time. Also worth a look is the amazing camera techniques on Weird Nature (ABC, 6:30pm Saturday). It's funny: with the networks seemingly dropping the ball, I'm noticing a lot of great stuff on the ABC. The only problem is that a lot of the show titles are hidden beneath the xxx presents... type of title. This may provide continuity, but a lot of people would have missed the excellent Walking with Cavemen because it was hidden as a Catalyst special. Foxtel: I haven't received my July Foxtel Guide yet (Foxtel's publishing department drops the ball, yet again), but there's a few things worth noting. Probably the best thing is the arrival of First Wave on TV1, screening Tuesdays at 10:30pm and 3:10am. With any luck, we'll move straight into the second season in a few months' time (arena and Seven both aired just the first season, some time ago). The series has a very Canadian feel; it portrays a very credible scenario for alien invasion. A new season of SeaQuest DSV replaces Lexx on Wednesdays at 10:30pm, but the Saturday stream of Lexx has been showing the same episode for a few weeks now, so you can stay with the story if you're watching it for the first time. There's also a bunch of new Star Trek coming to Saturdays on TV1: the fourth seasons of Voyager from the 12th July and Deep Space Nine from the 5th July. Finally, Xena wraps Season Five and starts the season over on the 14th July. Not sure what's happening on the other channels (I could look it up, but none of what I've seen sounds very interesting). I do know FOX8 is revamping its 10:30pm timeslot, and with Dharma & Greg having wrapped its last season with double episodes, the Thursday 8:30pm timeslot will be used for specials in July (ah, Dharma, we'll miss you). For Pretender fans, note that Showtime has just stopped airing the first Pretender movie and started airing the second (just in case you were confused about this, like me). I haven't seen either yet, but I hear they wrap up the series nicely. And finally, arena's 3:00am run of Due South reaches the last episode and jumps back to the start of Season Two on the evening of the 9th July. I would have liked to see the first season again, but at least it's still on (probably for the last time). That's all for now. If I pick up on anything interesting in the July Foxtel Guide, I'll try to post the details.

3rd June, 2003 Foxtel in June I thought I'd at least resume my monthly Foxtel updates. There's not a whole lot of changes from last month, but a few are worth noting. FOX8 has rearranged its early-morning repeat timeslots, with Angel and Buffy repeating on Wednesdays from 5:00am and 6:00am, respectively (note that this is the opposite order to their evening play). Farscape also gains a 5:00am repeat on Tuesday nights. But best of all, Dharma & Greg moves to double episodes for June, including a repeat timeslot from 6:00am Friday morning! Episode 7 of the current season, not screened earlier in the run, will be the second episode this week, but then we should wrap the rest of the season in doubles by the end of the month. Also worth noting is the move of the Buffy strip to 4:45pm weekdays (no repeat), its old timeslot (4:00pm & midnight) now taken over by Roswell. On the long weekend coming up, a That 70s Show marathon (well worth a look for the cool factor) pre-empts the afternoon line-ups, including Earth: Final Conflict, but not the final episode of Andromeda, airing the 7th June at 6:30pm. The X-Files is also pre-empted on Monday. TV1: The Sunday stream of Xena is over (unfortunately, as I haven't seen the next episode up). This weekend, a Just Shoot Me! marathon pre-empts Sci-Fi Sector (as well as everything else). But it leaves room to pick up the Lexx marathon from a couple of months ago, midnight to 5:00am Saturday and Sunday night. The marathon also pre-empts Stargate SG-1 on Friday night, so the first episode of Season Three will screen for both the coming two weeks. UK TV: Marathons of Waiting for God and The Office pre-empt Red Dwarf this weekend. Then we get Smeg Ups on the 14th at 8:00pm before returning to regular episodes at 8:30pm straight after (and 11:30pm the next day). That's all I have for now.

11th May, 2003 New episodes of Futurama are coming to Seven! I should clarify: Season Four episodes of Futurama are coming to Seven (this is stuff that FOX8 hasn't aired yet). They kick off on Thursday, 15th May at 10:30pm, even though this means Melbourne viewers will have missed the last episode of the previous season. Fans of Felicity, disappointed in Seven's first-run treatment of the show, may be interested to know that it's been stripping at 2:00pm weekdays. The series summary page and Due South page have now been updated, but not the other series pages. Note that dates for Due South indicate the actual date at screening, so subtract one day if you're trying to stay up for or record a particular episode.

7th May, 2003 Some bad news on the Foxtel scheduling front. Contractual issues mean that two different channels will be unable to air scheduled programmes. On UK TV, Blake's 7 will not air in May, to be replaced by Quartermass. On FOX8, Thieves and Night Visions were scheduled for tomorrow night, but the Billboard Awards will air instead, with Season Six of Buffy and Season Three of Angel kicking off again the following week. The channels involved are endeavouring to sort out these problems as soon as possible. On arena, Due South didn't quite air in the expected order last time around, with one episode at the end of the first season, in particular, clearly out of order, narratively. This seems to have been the result of a tape labelling mix-up and will quite possibly be rectified in the episodes' second airing, from Thursday night, 22nd May. The Foxtel website should be updated appropriately if the problem is indeed corrected. It also looks like Seven has delayed Angel by one day this week in AFL states, moving it to 10:30pm Thursday.

2nd May, 2003 I know I haven't been here for a while, and chances are, no-one's watching this space. But with so much happening on FTA this week, I thought I'd post a few quick notes. First, though, if you've been following Due South on arena, the very first episode airs tonight at 3:00am! That means we've now seen every episode once, and we're into the second run through. If you haven't seen it, set the VCR, as it's a great series, full of understated, Canadian humour. Next Monday, Sex and the City returns to Nine with two new episodes from 9:30pm. On Tuesday, Ten is showing two new episodes of The Simpsons from 8:30pm (and a repeat on Wednesday, followed by skitHOUSE). Thursday, Will & Grace is on at 8:00pm, Boston Public returns with new episodes at 9:30pm, and Futurama finally wraps Season Three at 10:30pm. On Foxtel in May, Buffy and Angel are replaced by premiere seasons of Thieves (starring Melissa George) and Night Visions from Wednesday, 7th May on FOX8. In case you missed the first run through, UK TV reprises the great, 80s, SF series, Blake's 7 from Wednesday, 21st May, starting around midnight on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights. Also be aware of the change in late-night repeat times on TV1 from the 8th May.

6th March, 2003 Unfortunately, I'm not able to update the site properly yet, but I'm going to try to put in brief notes about scheduling changes each week. Next Monday, Seven brings back Futurama at 10:30pm (nothing FOX8 viewers haven't seen already) and Nine starts new episodes of Sex and the City at 9:30pm. On Wednesday, Nine starts Season Two of Enterprise at 11:30pm. Thursday, Dharma & Greg returns to Seven at 7:30pm (actually, that starts tonight) and a double episode of Will & Grace (plus a third, repeat episode). On Foxtel, TV1's running a Star Trek: The Next Generation marathon this weekend, but the big news is that arena has picked up Due South! The bad news is, they've been forced to pick it up and they don't think it suits their demographic, so they've been stripping Due South at 3:00am every night. If you're a fan, ring them up and ask for more and more convenient screenings! They seem to have all three seasons and will probably be repeating them in May. Blake's 7 is also likely to be repeated starting in May (on UK TV). That's all for now.

11th February, 2003 I haven't had time to catch up on this site yet, but with ratings back, I thought I'd just post a quick note. Of the shows that I monitor, new episodes of Friends started yesterday (Sex and the City possibly to follow next week), Buffy tonight at 10:30pm and Angel tomorrow at 10:30pm (possibly a day earlier on both counts outside of Melbourne -- check your guides), and The Simpsons at 7:30pm Wednesday on Ten. And then there's the Cricket World Cup! (24 also kicked off yesterday.) On Foxtel, a new season of Xena on TV1 Mondays at 7:30pm, and a new season of Earth: Final Conflict on FOX8 starting Saturday week at 5:00pm. Star Trek: TNG has also moved straight on into a new season, with that just completed to feature in a marathon in March. There's all sorts of Valentine's Day specials, and Sliders will soon be replaced with Deep Space 9 in the Mon-Thu strip. Is anyone else really enjoying Andromeda? Wow! I'll try to get back to more regular updates soon, but unfortunately the real world is likely to continue to interfere for some time to come. My apologies.

8th January, 2003 Due to unfortunate circumstances, this site will not be updated for at least a week. I do apologise and hope to be back as soon as possible.

Australian TV News Archive: Second Half, 2002.