Weekend TV with Dianne Butler

DIANNE Butler reviews your evening television for this weekend and Monday.

switched three

DIANNE Butler reviews your evening television for this weekend and Monday.

Friday
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SO Russell's a trust fund kid. I didn't realise. What was all that going into the office about? Meeting girls? Probably.

Three-thirds of his out-of-pocket expenses are female related. Jeff (Patrick Warburton, the most compelling reason to put on Rules of Engagement) has run his eye over Russell's books as a favour to Timmy, the guy who last time I watched this show was Russell's much more acquiescent assistant. His role now seems to be stern nanny and administrator.

Russell (David Spade) needs it though, now more than ever. His mother's cut him loose from the family trust fund and he's reduced to living at the Plaza Hotel and is so stressed about it he's booked in for a spa morning. It's a shocking turn of events, and clearly a microcosm of what's happening to America. Such a deep show, Rules of Engagement.

As soon as Timmy finds out he's at the Plaza, that ends as well. Even though Russell's taken strict austerity measures, such as not ordering room service and only eating out of the small fridge in his room. Russell presents himself at Timmy's (somewhat smaller than the Plaza Hotel) apartment. "Sir, you are absolutely not staying here." Russell: "Oh Tim, I wish that were true."

Meanwhile, Jeff is in line for a bonus, which wife Audrey has decided to firm up by honeying up to his boss, Larry, a known womaniser who, for some reason, has a bad photo in his office of Audrey with Jeff and Larry and wife No.5.

The highlight of this episode - one of two on tonight (the second also involves Jeff at work, and it's a scenario you may well be familiar with: the office collection) - comes mid-point when Jeff (who is so great as Joe Swanson in Family Guy) takes young neighbour Adam through the stages of a woman's nightwear and their impact on outcomes in the bedroom.

Rules of Engagement
Channel 10, 7.30pm
Rating: 3 Stars.

Saturday
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Wordsmith: Stephen Ryan

WELL, blow me down. Flowers on Gardening Australia. It's a shocking development. Though I almost turned it off at the start when Stephen Ryan pronounced clivias with a short "i".

But then he said it the way you're meant to and I kept watching. He told us we'd have to stay tuned to find out which way's correct, like it's open to dispute. Please. Anyway, I'll stop talking now, Jane's on, and she's saying something important about flowers.

Statice, specifically, and how to cut it. Cut it, grow it, it's a marvellous segment, vitally crucial. Of course, she doesn't call it statice, she calls it limonium perezii, because it's not actually statice, only similar to statice. Near enough. Also perfect for a vase: roses - not telling us anything there Jane - and azaleas. And now for some flowers you can plant. This is just crazy, it's like Gardening Australia's been replaced with a useful show.

Jane says every home should have a lavender, which I agree with in principle - granny's bonnet, botanic name aquilegia vulgaris and I think that says it all.

Not everyone gets into annuals, they're labour intensive and you may only get a year out of them, but if you have that attitude, why do anything? Why eat out? Get a new dress? Boyfriend? Dog? Jane's tips: cosmos, penstemon, marigolds: "I like them," she says, in a flat tone that would indicate the opposite.

Jane dunks her punnets into a bucket of water that's got some worm castings in it. She likes to make sure the seedlings are nice and moist. Compost in the hole, sun, pinch the buds out early on, feed them every fortnight, you'll never buy flowers again.

They have other things on the show tonight. Tino's tomato yarn is worthwhile (have you seen the price of them?) and the wildflowers in Kings Park are divine.

Gardening Australia
ABC1, 6.30pm
Rating: 3 Stars.

Sunday
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Fossicker: Paul Clarke

I KNOW, on some level, a show about cars is probably going to be embraced by a lot of you. Men, maybe, more than the rest of us.

And while I also knew as I was watching the first leg of Wide Open Road that it was as comprehensive as my very expensive car insurance, I also found it about as interesting.

I knew I was wrong, though. I should've been fascinated. But it's just a history I don't care about. Maybe I'll be more into it next week, when the orange cars with black stripes get here.

But before cars there were camels. Camels and horses and steamers and trains.

"We had only a dinky rail track in each state, all with different gauges," says David Field - excellent choice to narrate, by the way - but what's he mean had? But you know how we are with phones? We were like that with cars as well.

We got on board early on - the first car looked like two bikes joined together, it says in this - and began making our own soon after.

The first one came out of South Australia and a bloke had to walk in front of it with a red flag.

I wonder if this couldn't be brought in again for some drivers now? Seems like quite a sound law.

And it was on: road trips to and from everywhere, with a riveted nation watching.

Some amazing pioneering types emerged - men and women. Motoring writer Pedr Davis says Australia was speed mad from day one, and clearly we have the records and attempts to back that up. And the road toll.

The footage is incredible. Of course it is, it's all there, it was just a matter of fossicking, which is what producer Paul Clarke did.

I think we can also thank him, a music head, for the fantastic soundtrack. Any show that includes a song by Ed Kuepper can't be that bad.

Wide Open Road - The Story of Cars in Australia
ABC1, 7.30pm
Rating: 4 Stars.

Monday
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Maine attraction: Emily Rose

W HEN you have ruled everything else out you have to accept what's left. One of the characters - an open-minded one - says this in the first episode of Haven tonight, and it's a good attitude to have going into it.

Haven is based on the Stephen King book The Colorado Kid. This will be enough to get some of you along.

Haven series two has started - a fortnight ago - on Foxtel/Austar, but I was surprised to see it turn up here on the ABC. See how you go with it. It's kind of romantic, even with all the supernatural blah blah in it. It's appealing enough, though. And loaded with those eccentric-to-the-point-of-certifiable characters for which King is known.

So this is the premise: Audrey Parker (Emily Rose), young FBI agent, gets sent to Haven, Maine, to bring back a guy who's on the run.

He winds up dead, but really, he's incidental to Audrey finding out all this other stuff about the place. Such as: one guy can't feel pain. There's a woman who can affect the weather. Man, wouldn't you have liked to have her around for the AFL Grand Final. And so on.

But the big one involves Audrey. Can't say too much.

There are some cute scenes setting it all up, like the one where Audrey meets the local cop Nathan (Lucas Bryant) on her way into town. She's just crashed her car (spooky reasons, not her fault) and he offers her a ride. "Probably friendlier than if I commandeer your vehicle, " she says back.

I'm also happy to see Eric Balfour in the show. He plays Duke, who is possibly a criminal, but a hot one.

This is shot in southern Nova Scotia, passing for wherever in Maine Haven's supposed to be. There are lovely boats and deciduous trees and houses in colours that, because of paint companies, I associate only with New England.

Haven
ABC2, 8.30pm
Rating: 3 Stars.