1997

Compiled by Steve Williams, Ian Jones and Jack Kibble-White

First published November 2002

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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