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DEBUTS
JANUARY ...
Craig Charles starred in the awful pirate comedy
Captain Butler ... Spin City saw Michael J Fox's return
to sitcom ... in Dani Dares the erstwhile Word presenter
learnt how to be a comedian and policewoman among others ... following
on the coat-tails of The X Files, Dark Skies was based in
the conspiracy-heavy 1960s ... Father Lionel Fanthorpe investigated the
paranormal in Fortean TV ... Pet Rescue and Collector's
Lot started their lengthy daytime runs ... Janice Forsyth and Tommy
Udo fronted movie magazine Film Night ... Patrick Kielty hosted
the Saturday night Last Chance Lottery ... Eddie Izzard co-wrote
the sitcom pilot Cows ... and Brass Eye finally made it
to the screen.
FEBRUARY ...
The Show
looked both in front of and behind the camera ... Jon Ronson interviewed
passionate people in For the Love of ... moving over from the BBC, and with
scripts by Eddie Braben, was the fantastic Ant and Dec Unzipped ... there
was a repeat run for Hill Street Blues followed by The Client, a drama
based on John Grisham's novel ... Howard Jacobson discovered what made us
laugh in Seriously Funny ... plus there was late-night comedy and chat from
Mr Vaughan in Here's Johnny.
MARCH ...
Nina Bawden's Family Money was dramatised
... while Light Lunch arrived in daytime.
APRIL ...
Bernice Cohen offered her advice to investors
in Mrs Cohen's Money ... Mark Lamarr looked at entertainment, US-style,
in Planet Showbiz ... improvised comedy show Phil Kay Feels was most memorable
for the host making his debut totally naked ... the staff and clients of
the Beverley Artistes Agency were followed in The Entertainers ... Sophie
Grigson looked at influential ingredients in Tastes of the Times ... and
in the run-up to the General Election first-time voters had their say
in Thatcher's Children while David Frost and friends drew comparisons
with past times in 1964 and All That.
MAY ...
Alan Bleasdale's Melissa was dramatised over
five nights ... the longest ever libel trial was re-told in McLibel ... life
on a cruise ship was the subject of All at Sea ... in Fluke, Tim Vine used
completely random methods to determine a winner ... while Harry Hill had
his first solo series.
JULY ...
New comedy talents including Noel Fielding
and Peter Kay were showcased in Lee Mack's Gas ... Pat Kane invited
viewers to phone in with their opinions on TV in Nightwatch ...
George Herbert presented no frills DIY in Tool Stories ... Snap
was a spin-off from The Big Breakfast with Denise Van Outen presenting
entertainment news ... and Space Cadets attempted to mine humour
from rotten old bits of science fiction.
AUGUST ...
King of the Hill began ... former Sailor frontman
George Kajunus was among those taking a look of food in Feast ... Mark Little
investigated the quality of life in Britain's towns in The Feel Good Factor ... Game
of War saw Angela Rippon trying to bring strategy gaming to the small
screen ... while new black talent appeared in Nights Out at the Empire.
SEPTEMBER ...
Seven Sins saw seven different film-makers
get to grips with the subject ... Ian Hislop's School Rules looked at a
century of education ... and Ba Ba Zee was a strand of programmes from a
black perspective.
OCTOBER ...
Drama series Bombay Blue saw a British
policeman relocate to India ... Arthouse was C4's new arts strand ... how
the monarchy had been represented in the media was the subject of Royals
and Reptiles ... Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time was serialised
while producer Alvin Rackoff criticised the channel for its scheduling
and lack of support ... Victor Lewis-Smith fronted the pilot of TV Offal ... and
the latest hit sitcom in the US, Suddenly Susan, was screened on Sundays
at midnight by C4.
NOVEMBER ...
After a compilation of their programmes for
the Paramount Channel, Armstrong and Miller got their first full series
... Underworld saw Drop the Dead Donkey writer Andy Hamilton
try his hand at drama ... Robbie enthused about engineering in Coltrane's
Planes and Automobiles ... Brit Girls told the stories of '60s
pop icons ... Deals on Wheels offered advice on second-hand cars
... the people who played indoor games were the subject of Movers
and Shakers ... while Pantoland went behind the scenes
of festive shows.
FINALES
ROSEANNE
Previously it felt like hell would freeze over
before Roseanne disappeared from the Friday 10pm slot it had held
for years. However something changed during the 1997 series. The major
flaw was that in the first episode the Conner family won the lottery,
and spent the rest of the season trying to come to terms with their new
wealth. A decent attempt to freshen up the series? Maybe, but fans in
both the US and UK decided that they didn't like the new rich Roseanne
one bit. Despite a noteworthy episode co-written by Jennifer Saunders,
and starring Saunders and Joanna Lumley in their Absolutely Fabulous
roles, Roseanne's ratings dropped like a stone. This final series
turned out to be one too far for the show, and after three months, C4
relegated it to 11.30pm on Wednesday evenings - unthinkable even two or
three years previously. There it stayed to see out its final days, and
after an hour-long special (which C4 did at least screen at 9pm), another
of the channel's signature shows was over. However a repeat run began
within the month, and ever since, classic episodes have been a fixture
of the schedules. Despite a sad ending, the show was one of the channel's
most reliable offerings.
MISC ...
Paul Watson's The Dinner Party recorded the
conversation of Conservative party members, who later claimed that they
were "misrepresented" on screen ... the best bits of The
Last Resort were shown to celebrate its 10th anniversary on April,
followed by a brand new episode on Christmas Eve ... the 2000th Countdown
was celebrated in May by a special programme introduced by William G Stewart
... May's Sitcom Weekend was slightly marred by C4 only being able to
show what it had in its vaults, meaning Drop the Dead Donkey and
Desmond's were given more attention than you'd have thought, and
'70s sitcoms were only represented by film versions ... the channel nabbed
the rights to British Athletics from the BBC ... Is Painting Dead?,
the debate following coverage of The Turner Prize, was notable for Tracey
Emin walking out ... Eddie Izzard received the honour of an evening of
programmes scheduled by and starring himself, Channel Izzard ...
five talk shows were piloted late on Saturday nights, Melvyn Bragg's The
Sundays graduated to a series, while Something 4 the Weekend
first showed what Graham Norton could do with the format ... while the
Growing Up With 4 season celebrated C4's 15th anniversary with
showings of classic programmes, including the choices of Jeremy Isaacs
(Max Headroom) and Michael Grade (An Interview with Dennis Potter),
special clip shows (such as Adam & Joe's Fourmative Years)
and an evening of programmes chosen by viewers on 27 December - Brookside,
Friends, Father Ted, Cutting Edge - "Road Rage",
Whose Line is it Anyway?
and Shallow Grave.
ON SCREEN
JOHNNY VAUGHAN
Since his debut on Moviewatch in 1993,
Johnny Vaughan established himself as a likeable, witty presenter of various
youth TV programmes. The problem was, nobody seemed to be able to find
a decent format to really make him a star. Here's Johnny in February
was 1997's first attempt - piloted as The Bog Standard Chat Show,
the series mixed celebrity interviews with spurious "investigative"
features (such as the rise and fall of the mullet, or a quest to find
the perfect "pub shoe") and a different house band each week.
While watchable enough, it never really managed to become a must-see show.
But then in June, Vaughan was hired to stand in for two weeks on The
Big Breakfast - at the time spiralling out of control and at one of
it's lowest ebbs. Paired with Denise Van Outen, though, something seemed
to gel; his fast-talking style and quirky interviewing technique really
worked with the format. The current full-time frontman, the hapless Rick
Adams, was soon eased out, and an offer was made for Vaughan to present
the show full time. He did so from September, after which viewing figures
increased, and at last The Big Breakfast had found the ideal replacement
for Chris Evans - albeit three years after his departure. Indeed, it could
be argued that Vaughan's departure in 2001 had even more effect on the
show than Evans', after which it never really recovered.
LIGHT LUNCH
Daytimes on Channel 4 were previously the home
of schools programmes, Sesame Street and old movies. But from March
1997, there was something new. Light Lunch was a simple format
- a guest chef would cook a meal each day, which the presenters would
then eat with their special guests. The real masterstroke was the hiring
of Mel Geidroyc and Sue Perkins as presenters - the comedy double act
immediately pioneering a number of stupid catchphrases ("Brillag!")
and bringing a unique style to interviews. This was shown on the first
programme when the duo spent most of the interview questioning Cliff Richard
on whether he remembered Mel's work as a stagehand in his musical, Time.
Although some big names turned up at the lunch table, it was often the
combination of guests that worked the best - reunions of the Grange
Hill cast, Blue Peter presenters and '80s pop stars (the latter
at Mel's request on her birthday) were memorable shows, as was the legendary
combination of Lee
and Herring and the cast of Ice Warriors. Light Lunch
quickly established itself a loyal audience, one which C4 were presumably
hoping to entice to teatime when it moved to 6pm in 1998, now renamed
Late Lunch, but without the sheer number of hours (the running
jokes only came about because they had so much time to fill), it felt
a little flat. For 11 months, though, C4 provided perhaps the best alternative
to the rolling sofas and makeovers of daytime TV ever produced.
OFF SCREEN
• Michael Grade left his post as Chief Executive
on 31 May 1997, his final evening of programmes including opera from Glyndebourne
and the premiere of Reservoir Dogs. Former BBC1 and BBC2 controller
Michael Jackson took over the next day.
• From 6am on Monday 6 January 1997, Channel 4 began broadcasting
24 hours a day.
• The move of Sesame Street from 12.30pm to 6am caused so
much controversy the channel began screening half-hour versions of the
show at lunchtimes.
• Brass Eye was finally aired, although further worries over
its content led to an array of last-minute edits ordered by C4 executives.
Chris Morris responded with his infamous message in the final programme.
FOUR-WORDS
"You will see a dramatic decrease on
Channel 4 in US material over the next five years. We know about some
of the negotiations that are going on and some of the prices that are
now being paid are silly."
- Michael Grade
"Seriously unfunny ... the worst programme
currently on terrestrial television ... a headless chicken operation with
half-baked ideas naffly executed."
- Stephen Pile in The Daily Telegraph on Last Chance Lottery
"This was the man who took TV into the
sewers. He gave us a gay Christmas, lesbian nights, Europorn and four-letter
filth. Decent people will not mourn his passing. Let's hope the airwaves
smell a little sweeter."
- The Sun on Michael Grade's departure
"Grade is a cunt."
- Brass Eye
"Can it really be true? Television without
Michael Grade is going to be like meat without salt, or King Lear without
Cordelia. A little more bland, a little less passionate. It just won't
be the same when he's gone."
- Broadcast
"It is the best possible move for C4
- a very exciting appointment. But it leaves the BBC with a major headache;
to go along with the other headaches they have got."
- Alex Graham, Wall To Wall Productions, on Michael Jackson
MY FAVOURITE CHANNEL 4 MOMENT ...
MY SO-CALLED LIFE (1995)
One of my favourite ever television characters
was Brian Krakow. I never liked the conspicuous ones, like Basil Fawlty
or Del Boy. I liked the quite types, the thinkers. Morse, for example.
But Brian was the one I most identified with. He was the nerdy character
in the best teen show of the early 1990s, My So-Called Life, which
was another of the kind of imports which could only have found a place
on Channel 4.
This was the story of Angela Chase, a teenager experiencing
the growing pains of her new adulthood, trying to reconcile childhood
with creeping maturity. She was there to offer opinions on the other characters,
but they stood as individuals and we saw into their worlds too. It was
possible for any viewer to find someone they identified with, and I seemed
to bump into Brian, so like the student I had become when I was watching
in 1995. Studying hard but always missing out on the exciting parts of
life which slackers stumbled into. Heartbreakingly he was in love with
Angela, even though she had eyes for the older, dumber boy, Jordan (she
liked the way he leaned against stuff). In one of the best episodes, "The
Life of Brian", the format of the programme changed so that everything
was seen through Krakow's eyes, that in his private moments he was both
smart and funny, they way I always hoped I was.
One of the great unsung television moments came
in the closing sections of the final show. Angela found out about Brian's
feelings for her after discovering that à la Cyrano he had written
a letter for a disgraced Jordan to give to her so that she would forgive
the Adonis for sleeping with her best friend. Unlike Cyrano, despite her
knowledge, Angela left with Jordan, in his car. Brian, bicycle riding
outside his house as always, watched her go, resigned to the fact that
he'd lost her. And then, as the car started to leave, Angela turned and
gave him a look. For the first time in the series, she was concerned about
him, she cared about how he was feeling, at a time when she should have
been happy to finally be with the boy she's had a crush on for weeks.
There was hope. My heart leapt.
And then the Channel 4 announcer advised, "That
was the last in the series of My So-Called Life." Turned out
the show had been cancelled in the US due to poor ratings. I swore. Thinking
now, masochistically, I'm glad that this is how it ended. It seemed to
embody what the show had been about - tragedy laced with hope. Another
six seasons and it would never have been as good. It's frozen in time
now.
And I know Brian would have got Angela eventually ...
- Stuart Ian Burns
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