... Down Where The Buffalo Go BBC 1 A NEW season of one-off plays on BBC 1 is reason enough to rejoice, but Peter McDougall's opener was dark and dreary enough to dampen anyone's enthusiasm. McDougall set this slice-of-life drama on his home beat of Clydcsidc, where Carl (Harvey Kcitel), an American soldier at the Polaris missile base, is in deep shock because his Scottish wife (Stella Gonet) ...

... Small World GRANADA A SIX-PART dramatisation of David Lodge's comic novel, Small World presents an unexpected slant on academic life. It centres on the unlikely adventures of Persse McGarrigle, a young lecturer who finds himself on the academic conference circuit, the only innocent among a band of cynical professors on an endless round of three-day confer ences and one-night stands. The first ...

... Finding their true location By MOIRA PETTY HOW is it that when selecting somewhere in the back of beyond in which to film, several TV productions end up in the same bit of the back of beyond? So on Wednesday night, continuing his Pole To Pole excursions for BBC 1 Michael Palin was escorted by aid workers through post-Menghistu Ethiopia. We saw child soldiers, bib- lical-like Christian services ...

... Having a Washington with plenty of soap Nick Smurthwaite on history swamped by synthetic effects BBC-2 George Washington ANY SO-CALLED serious drama from America is inevitably tainted by the soap factor. Perfect looks, clock-work emotions, one damp-eyed climax after another. George Washington, architect of j the New World, has not escaped its synthetic excesses. Here he is, tall j dark and ...

... Kit Curran CHANNEL 4 THE APPEAL of Denis Lawson seems to know no bounds. Whether he is playing the low-life anti-hero of BBC2's Dead Head or camping it up in the West End musical Lend Me A Tenor, the one thing that is certain is his ability to attract an audience. And by resurrecting that supreme egotist Kit Curran for a second series from Thames, Channel 4 is obviously hoping that his charms ...

... No Crying He Makes TVS THE 1987 season of Ruth Rendall mysteries concluded this Christmas with an adaptation of her short story Ginger and the Kingsmarkham Chalk Circle, which found Detective Chief Inspector Wexford (George Baker) all set to eniov a very 'nappy' Christmas! The poignant little tale concerned Pippa Bond (Jane Horrocks) a young mother who comes out of the local stationers' to ...

... Spread a Little Happiness HTV WHAT WITH the recent long-running revival of Mr Cinders and last year's less successful reincarnation of Bless the Bride, no one can say that Vivian Ellis' time has not come again. And in this HTV special he appears to be enjoying every minute, whether showing off the blooms in the lovely garden of the Somerset house he shares with his devoted sister Hcrmione, ...

... Best Of British BBC-1 WHETHER all the nostalgia TV has been gratefully wallowing in is a comment on the poor standard of contemporary entertainment and artists, or evidence of insufficient ideas and talent to feed four networks non-stop, is a matter of opinion. But for a cheap, boring, and inept programme, this second series, picking out clips from films produced at Rank Studios during the ...

... East Enders Against the Grain CHANNEL 4 FROM what smacked of a good idea, this programme sadly ended up on screen as a visual non-entity, taking neither the form of an informative documentary, nor an entertaining observation of how EastEnders are depicted by the media. Even the presence of Warren Mitch ell, put there to spout the words of writer director Adam Kossoff, could not save this ...

... New consortium lines up for C5 bid INCREASED programme spend could form part of new plans for Channel 5 drawn up by a new consortium led by media organisations MAI, Pearson and Time Warner. MAI, which holds a majority stake in Meridian Broadcasting, the ITV contractor for the South and South East of England, Pearson, which owns Thames Television and stakes in Yorkshire-Tyne Tees and British ...

... C4 stuck in finance tangle By ANGUS TOWLER CHANNEL 4 this week signalled that it may push for an amendment to the 1990 Broadcasting Act in order to redefine its funding relationship with ITV after it emerged that existing legislation will require the channel to pay the regional contractors £38.2 lion. Until December 1992, C4 was funded by a subscription from the ITV companies, in return for ...

... Politics on the line BBCl is to shift the focus of its award- winning police series Between The Lines, in order to make it more political. The third series, which is scheduled for transmission this autumn, will drop the police internal complaints format which characterised the first two seasons of the show in favour of what creator JC Wilsher described as a more political direction. Gerry ...