TV Freak Scott Goodings is crazy about TV. Scott's first TV memory is an
episode of "Matlock Police" called "A Piece Of Cake". His first experience of
the medium in colour was seeing a Hector The Cat road safety commercial through
the window of the CBA bank in Cheltenham in 1975. Catch his regular reviews at
Quickflix
.
Villains
They torment our childhood; visit us still in our dreams.
Some get their comeuppance, others sneak away destined to return in later
episodes.
TV villains – they're out to maim, kill or just ridicule and humiliate.
Be prepared to hide under the beanbag and fast forward through the chilling
bits as you confront some of your worst TV demons.
- Scott
Dr Alexander Stark – fauna thief
Check out the episode "Long Way Home" on
Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo-Volume 1 (1966)
'Come to me my little beauty'. Clutching his 'pet' koala, resplendent in white
linen suit, straw hat and cane, Frank Thring as Dr Alexander Stark is a cross
between a 60s Bond villain and "The Night Stalker's" Carl Kolchak. The first
time Skippy lays eyes on the bad doc she leaps for him leaving a writhing mess
on the ground. But Stark is determined in his pursuit to buy Waratah National
Park's finest for his private zoo, so when it is explained to him by Ranger
Matt Hammond that marsupials can not be sold on the open market, Stark enlists
his henchmen to steal the wonderoo. But it takes more than a hessian sack and a
metal cage to hold our national treasure, and Skippy escapes Stark's evil
clutches, beginning her own epic version of "Lassie Come Home". Particularly
harrowing is the sight of a stunt Skippy, surrounded by baying hounds, and
caught in a metal road grill.
Jake – psycho carjacker
Check out the episode "That's My Dog" on
Six Feet Under – Season 4 – Disc 2 (2004)
Struggling with his partner Keith's departure on a tour as a celebrity
bodyguard, David Fisher picks up Jake the hitchhiker who appears to have run
out of petrol. By the end of the episode, it is Jake who has taken David on a
ride to hell involving robbing a bottle shop, emptying David's bank account,
taking a gun in the mouth, being doused in petrol and smoking crack in
Macarthur Park – oh, and losing the body of Anne Marie Thornton that David was
transporting in the Fisher and Diaz funeral van because Jake didn't like the
idea of a corpse riding shotgun. So many times you will scream at David to take
his chance to escape, and yet somehow appreciate the underlying jet-black
macabre nature of Jake's dark charm and David's sexual fantasy dream sequences
based on his ordeal.
James Randi takes on the psychics
Check out The
Best Of The Don Lane Show (1983)
Way before John Edward and "Medium's" Allison Dubois mastered the art, British
'channeller' Doris Stokes could see dead people. Uri Geller bent spoons, Kevin
Arnett talked up UFOs, and Doris sold out three nights at the Sydney Opera
House. They were the psychic phenomena posse, as much a part of the fabric of
"The Don Lane Show" in the late 70s and early 80s as Don commandeering the
camera at the end of each show and giving away a gold ingot necklace to an
audience beauty. Then along came Canadian sceptic James Randi to debunk all the
apparent hocus-pocus. But no one was going to diss Don's Doris. 'We're going
for a commercial break and you can piss off', defiant Don declared, and we had
to wait another two decades for the re-emergence of the TV psychic.
Bogart and Lilli Lo
Check out Chances
– Volume 2 – Disc 1 (1992)
Exotically named Asian triad gangster Bogart Lo breathed esoteric life into a
show that began as a drama focusing on the lottery winning Taylor family with a
guaranteed nudity per episode clause, and then morphed into an insane high camp
pantomime. Deft masters of the cartel, mysterious father and daughter Bogart
and Lilli Lo top the "Chances" creep factor, despite tough opposition from the
neo-Nazis searching 1990s Melbourne for Eva Braun's necklace, Wanda the
reincarnated dolphin psychic secretary, and Bruce the hunchback and his rat.
Midshipman Jack Simpson - HMS Indefatigable bully
Check out
Hornblower-Volume 1: The Even Chance (1998)
If joining the British navy just as the French Revolution broke out wasn't bad
timing enough, seventeen-year-old nautical novice Midshipman Horatio Hornblower
(Ioan Gruffudd) has to contend with seasickness and a bully called Jack
Simpson. Simpson, played by Dorian Healy (also responsible for one of the late
80s creepiest when he played Jimmy Destry – not to be confused with the
keyboard player from "Blondie" – in the London yuppie drama "Capital City"),
has lauded it over his subservient crew for years, but he'll discover no one
calls Hornblower a cheat at cards. It's bound to end in tears; it's bound to
end in a duel. Best viewed knocking back some rum, wearing a midshipman's hat
made from the pages of a broadsheet newspaper.
Ronnie Stark - Jack Bauer's torturer
Check out episode 19 "Day 2: 2:00 a.m.-3:00 am" on
24-Season 2 - Disc 5 (12AM - 4AM) (2002)
Once again it's really only Jack Bauer who stands between the plans of evil
terrorists and disaster. This time a nuclear bomb is to be detonated somewhere
in Los Angeles. The terrorists think CTU Agent Bauer has swallowed a microchip,
foiling their plan - hence "24" Series 2 main villain Peter Kingsley barking
orders from a chopper, while henchman Ronnie Stark is forcing Jack to vomit.
Jack's still not 'fessing up, so it's torture in the nude time, as a scalpel
dipped in ammonia tears into his stomach. Pain for fictional Jack Bauer, but
out of evil does come good – at the Series 2 cast and crew wrap party, actor
Kiefer Sutherland auctioned off for charity the sock he used as his 'vanity
patch' covering his genitals during the torture scene.
The Dead Parrots – Chris Finch and David Brent
Check out the episode "The Quiz" on
The Office – Series 1 (2002)
Finchy – travelling sales rep by day, trivia quiz champ with David Brent six
years running by night. It's like Finchy has been in a time warp and just
arrived back in Slough from 70s sitcom "Love Thy Neighbour" in time for the
annual Wernham-Hogg quiz night. This year though, Finchy and Brent's double act
"The Dead Parrots" has serious competition from Tim and Ricky's "The Tits". It
all comes down to a tiebreak. Finchy comes up with a novel decider – to win he
must throw Tim's shoe over a building. The thing is "The Dead Parrots"
shouldn't have even made it this far – look out earlier for David Brent
'phoning a friend' to find out who sang "In The Summertime".
Greg Marsden and Jilly Stewart – 'feed 'em to the crocs'
Check out Return To Eden
While sibling David acted the indie rock god in the ABC's "Sweet And Sour",
James Reyne took a sabbatical from fronting his band "Australian Crawl" to play
slick-back haired ex-Wimbledon champ Greg Marsden. There wasn't much money in
tennis in the early 80s, so Greg had to marry frumpy heiress Stephanie Harper
(Rebecca Gilling) and go for a deceased estate by pushing her into a crocodile
infested river on their honeymoon in the Northern Territory outback. Greg and
Steph's best friend Jilly (Wendy Hughes) impatiently sit out the seven year
legal waiting period before they can claim the fortune and marry, but Steph's
been washed up on a beach, befriended by a hermit who hands over his life
savings of opals, which pay for her miraculous plastic surgery transformation
into revenge seeking supermodel Tara Welles. It's the croc though, with the
most expressive reptilian eyes since the beast from "Peter Pan", who delivers
the acting tour de force.
Mr Johnson – sneaky fornicator
Check out the episode "The Psychiatrist" on
Fawlty Towers: The Complete Collection – Disc 2 (1975)
For a while it looks like Torquay hotel owner Basil Fawlty is the closest to a
'victory' since the hard of hearing Mrs Richards and her missing seventy-five
pounds. Desperate to attract 'upmarket' guests like the Abbots (the husband and
wife team of doctor and psychiatrist), and not the seemingly sex-crazed Mr
Johnsons of the world, Basil becomes obsessed with the idea Johnson is trying
to smuggle a girl into his room after hours. Basil's wife Sybil's fawning over
the young man's hirsute body and collection of medallions around his neck only
compounds the irritation. Can Basil, whilst also resisting the charms of the
bosomy extreme-strine accented 'Australian' Raylene, catch Mr Johnson 'at it' –
and in the process avoid becoming a case study for the visiting shrink?
First mate Slater – slave trader
Check out Roots -
Episodes 1&2 (1977)
Playing totally against 'Pa Walton' type was Ralph Waite's sadistic first mate
Slater, responsible for the transportation from West Africa to Maryland, USA of
one hundred and seventy captured slaves. It was a brave ploy by the producers
of "Roots" – magnify the brutality and repugnance of slavery throughout Alex
Haley's African-American ancestral saga by casting previously family-friendly
TV stars like Waite, Robert 'Mike Brady' Reed and Lorne "Bonanza" Greene as
white slave masters. It's a long way from the Walton's Mountain lumber mill for
Waite, and there are no cheery chorused goodnights from John-Boy, Mary Ellen
and Grandpa Zeb aboard the slave ship the Lord Ligonier.