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Sydney Morning Herald

Monday January 5, 2009

Conrad Walters

Rex In Rome

SBS, 7.35pm

Here at Guide Gardens our holiday workload recently included revealing our porn-star nom de plumes (first pet and first street you lived in). The outright winner was Bunny Mona but even my own, Blitz Mattison, made colleagues question whether I had pursued the wrong career.

The original Blitz could collect the morning newspaper, which is how Rex opens tonight's episode, and occasionally barked at the primary school warlord who lived next door.

Alas, valiant Blitz never solved any murders involving art critics who have been suffocated. Nor did he help clear the name of a too-obvious suspect accused of such a crime. Moreover it's true that he didn't locate the evidence that would convict the true killer. But he could have.

Everest ER

ABC1, 8pm

The opening minutes of this show about the world's highest hospital set the stakes: one in 15 climbers who attempts Everest will die. Doctor Who's David Tennant has taken a break from thwarting Daleks to narrate. The script dispenses adjectives at a rate of one for every metre of elevation, which wouldn't be bad on the flatlands but the summit of Everest is 8848 metres above sea level.

Most of the action occurs at the famed Base Camp where a stream of walking wounded passes through with all manner of potentially fatal ailments. The remainder includes time with a former Sydney specialist, Dr Anne Watson, who works in a Nepalese clinic in the valley below.

As a first outing for this BBC series, Everest ER is full of life-and-death stuff and the aluminium step ladders that span the odd crevasse leave you wondering how anyone survives the energy-sapping trek.

The Waiting Room

Nine, 8pm

Ever sat in a waiting room and felt like asking your fellow patients why they're there? No, me neither. I welcome any station's efforts to meet its legislated quota for developing local content in exchange for the right to operate a money-printing business and host Dr Andrew Rochford has the perfect bedside manner for approaching strangers for a chat and drawing them out. These meetings, however, are television's version of casual sex: too brief and too shallow.

© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald

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