Cheating death, a new chat show, Disney Parks and Top Gear USA

CHEATING death, a new chat show, Disney Parks and Top Gear USA are in reviewers' sights this week. Find out what's hot and what's not.

Zac Golebiowski

SWITCHED On's television writers critique a week's worth of television shows.

Zac Golebiowski

Wednesday, January 18
I Survived
Bio, 7.30pm
4 stars

THE Whitsundays, January, 1999, and I'm enjoying the perfect tropical holiday until an irukandji jellyfish wraps its tentacles around me.

The pain is extraordinary.

I'm airlifted to a mainland hospital, where I'm told that if not for my impressive rig and endless reserves of courage, the sting could have been fatal.

So it's with interest that I watch I Survived - a documentary series where people explain how, against unfriendly odds, they "cheated" death and lived to tell the tale.

Take Zac Golebiowski, whose surfing expedition went slightly awry when a curious sea creature OK, a great white shark decided to show him life below the surface by gently tugging on his leg. Well, it was more than a gentle tug.

"The shark took a bite and managed to rip my leg off," Zac says. "When I came to the surface, I knew it was a shark. I saw the water was red and yelled for help. I could see the thigh bone sticking out of my leg. It was at that point I knew something was wrong."

I'm beginning to concede this may be a bigger story of survival than the jellyfish sting.

Not only is the victim 80km from help, he's a Jehovah's Witness. So when he miraculously makes it to hospital, he won't take a transfusion.

"We don't take blood transfusions, blood is sacred to us," he explains. "I wrote on a piece of paper, 'I am a Jehovah's Witness and I don't want blood' throughout it. I was praying to Jehovah through the whole ordeal and I think that helped me a lot."

He later hears fishermen at the scene of the attack see his leg washed up on the beach.

"You expect it (shark) to get some kind of enjoyment and eat it at least. Spitting it back out is a bit of a slap in the face," Zac says.

- By Darren Devlyn

alan carr

Thursday, January 19
Alan Carr: Chatty Man
9.30pm, ABC2
3 stars

THE blurb on this one is a little deceptive: "Join Alan Carr for a nice natter on the sofa."

Makes you think cups of cocoa, your Snuggie, the smell of Johnson's baby powder fresh in the air after your nightly soak in the tub, no?

Wrong place, wrong guy.

Guests on this BBC chat show, which the ABC is hoping will fill the void created by the loss of Graham Norton to Ten, are welcomed on to a set that looks more like an oversize dollhouse meets disco experience. You can start by swapping the cocoa for something out of Carr's fully stocked drinks trolley used to lube up the guests into revealing something naughty.

Carr makes an awkward bartender, struggling at times to mix drinks while bantering with his guests.

The stunt turns against him tonight when he does shots of something called After Shock with the boy band, Westlife, and almost chokes himself.

Those tuning in and expecting this to have the charm of the Irish chat show host Norton will be disappointed.

That is not to say this does not have its moments, with Carr not afraid to ask the saucier questions the audience wants to know. Besides the usual celebrity plugs for new books, new music and new TV shows, he gets something extra from his stars - a swimming lesson from Little Britain star and English Channel swimmer David Walliams. In a hot tub, that is.

Like Norton, this is no reverential probe into the personal histories of the stars, a la Michael Parkinson.

Rather, it is a racier version of Rove LA. That is if Rove were a gay man, with a penchant for raspberry skinny jeans, floral shirts and punctuating his sentences with the British slang word "innit".

- By Holly Byrnes

JAPAN-QUAKE-DISASTER-DISNEY

Friday, January 20
Disney Parks
7.30pm, TLC
3 stars

I PROBABLY shouldn't admit this, but whenever I'm in Los Angeles or Paris I always head to Disneyland for a day. I don't even have any children to use as an excuse I just really, really enjoy the rides.

Sure, the whole place seems a bit hokey and artificial and there's a definite element of nostalgia for an America that never existed. And frankly, I'd like to take an axe to a few of those happy-clappy animatronic robots.

But Disney's "imagineers" go beyond the mere thrill rides of other theme parks to come up with the sort of clever and creative experiences you just can't get anywhere else.

That probably explains why Disney has the top five most popular theme parks in the world. This first episode of Disney Parks looks at Disney World in Florida, opened 16 years after the original park in Los Angeles.

During the late 1950s, Walt Disney had become dismayed with the grotty hotels and neon bars around Disneyland and decided to do the whole project again bigger and better - and a long way from anyone else. Using fake companies Disney went on a secret land-buying spree in Florida and purchased 11,000ha before anyone found out and jacked up the price.

The company even set up two fake cities and a government to administer the park. The program hints at Disney's successful strategy of building endless hotels, retail and attractions to keep guests on the property spending cash.

"Disney World is the number one destination for tourism in the entire world," a talking head tells us. Such hyperbole is typical of the program, which provides such a glowing assessment of Disney World, it could be a corporate video. But while it's not particularly insightful, that's not saying it isn't enjoyable to watch.

- By Andrew Fenton

Top Gear USA S1

Saturday, January 21
Top Gear USA
GO!, 6.30pm
3.5 stars

IT'S easy to pick fault with Top Gear USA, which is a carbon copy of the look, feel and music of the original, right down to those fish-eye lenses, filters and fast zooms they use to make everything seem flashy.

As with the Australian version, the problem is the hosts work far too hard to recreate the apparently effortless banter of the original British hosts.

Of course, anyone who's watched the original Top Gear will have worked out that many of the humorous "accidents" and incidents are staged by the producers. But Clarkson, Captain Slow and the short guy have enough charm and personality to pull it off.

But when anyone else tries the same trick, it comes off feeling forced and fake, as one of the US hosts, racing analyst Rutledge Wood, demonstrates in the first segment of tonight's program.

Reviewing a sporty looking hybrid, he complains it's not fast enough to match its looks.

"It's like being locked in a room with Eva Longoria, but the only thing you're allowed to do is watch her play Sudoku," he says.

Not only is this an unfunny, sub-Clarkson gag, but it's also untrue, because Rutledge then presses the "sport" button and the car goes very fast indeed.

Top Gear USA hits its stride when it allows the hosts to be themselves. Rutledge is joined by racing driver Tanner Foust and New York comedian Adam Ferrara.

They're challenged to buy a used car for $3000, fix it up and sell it for a profit.

In a bizarre twist that wouldn't happen on the British show, they take the challenge seriously and attempt to buy the best car possible, rather than what will get the biggest laugh. This is not only interesting, but their determination to win makes it all the more amusing when they fail.

- By Andrew Fenton

the aussie way up

Sunday, January 22
The Aussie Way Up,
Nat Geo Adventure, 7.30pm
2.5 stars

SOMETIMES I look at a TV show and think the idea must have been born in a pub.

The Aussie Way Up is one of those shows; it just feels like it all started with four mates sitting around trying to come up with some way to convince a TV network to pay for them to travel, get up to some mischief and basically have a rip-roaring time. Good luck to them.

A couple of decades back Alby Mangels did much the same thing, getting bankrolled by a network to travel around Australia and other parts with a couple of hot chicks.

The boys from National Geo Adventure's The Aussie Way Up, have been a little more creative.

Their challenge is to get from the bottom of Australia to Europe without filling up at a petrol station, using only biodiesel fuel.

When you think about it, feminists can rejoice at society's progress, Alby used girls in bikinis, the four boys use the environment.

With all that said, this show feels a little like amateur-hour.

I can only imagine the fact this has some environmental merit is the reason it's not on Channel 31. It just has that awkward, stilted, "we can't afford a director, just a cameraman" feel.

The four guys are a bit brief with what they have to say to the camera and the laconic, she'll-be-right approach wears thin after about 15 minutes.

The half-hour also features a hell of a lot of musical montages which are simply designed to fill in time. If you're into the environment and want to know what you can achieve with just biodiesel, then give the show a try. But for me, it feels a little like an extended music video clip, with the occasional comment from one of the boys.

- By Daniel Hoy

wife swap australia

Monday, January 23
Wife Swap Australia
7.30pm, Lifestyle You
3 stars

RAISING other people's children is easy. Until you have to actually walk in the other mother's shoes. In the new Australian version of the wildly-successful and hugely voyeuristic Wife Swap series, those shoes are joggers in the case of personal trainer Tracey Jackson who leaves her husband Russell and two daughters to switch with mum of eight, Janine Daley.

Jackson is like the energiser bunny, running a fitness clinic from her home between dirty weekends away with her bloke.

In her world, the kids come second to keeping the romance alive in her marriage (it's not the first time for both).

That idea brings Daley to tears, who ties her children tight with her apron strings. When she's not chaffeuring them to school, en masse in a mini van, she's making their beds and baking them brownies, muffins and anything else to keep them at the kitchen table, eating her "love".

While the wives are struggling with their Freaky Friday lives, it's the two little girls on either side of this divide you feel for most. One, left behind as her parents focus on fitness and keeping the fires of passion burning; another, bullied about her weight and desperately lonely.

It's easy to judge the Daley diet and to tut-tut at the obvious changes they need to make to their lifestyle.

To his credit, husband Shane readily accepts that home truth and supports Jackson as she challenges his children to make healthy choices. But there's nothing to be smug about when independence is so easily confused with abandonment as it is in the Jackson household.

There are no car crash moments in this episode, just small steps to remind us how precious family time is.

- By Holly Byrnes

Real Housewives

Tuesday, January 24
Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills
7.30pm, Arena
4 stars

LOOK up "crazy" in the TV dictionary and chances are there's a high-gloss, air-brushed photo of Camille Grammer.

At least, that was the picture painted of the estranged wife of Frasier star Kelsey after last year's debut season of Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills.

Before her husband pulled the imported rug from under their marriage, Mrs Grammer (his third) was more than a little frayed around the edges.

Defiant and deranged, Camille went to war with the women of this reality series, picking fights or playing victim almost every episode.

Her doe-eyed innocent act might have worked at one time, but against five other women who have scratched and fought for their place in the Hollywood pecking order, she came off second best.

When they weren't scrag-fighting each other, sisters Kyle and Kim Richards worked in tandem to attack Camille.

When she sought help in the trenches from friend and TV psychic Allison Dubois, you got the feeling even those in the spirit world were against "crazy" Camille (and her equally loopy mate).

Fast forward to this season and a humbled woman has emerged from her divorce, perhaps a little chastened by the bad reviews she got not only from her ex, but the audience who labelled her the villain.

In a turnaround (or a PR strategy), Camille is hailed the hero in this episode, honoured for her cancer charity work. She also plays the peacemaker when a games night for the women turns into the kind of ugly scene we once expected her to host.

It's left to newcomer Brandi Glanville to stir the pot, then cop the hellish return-fire from Kim and Kyle.

- By Holly Byrnes