What's Dan Watching - Airways

There's a general consensus that Australian's are not exactly the most creative of folk. Ofcourse, this is rubbish, but only up to a point. Frankly, we tend to pick and choose the best facets of overseas culture and adopt it as part of our own. Oh yes, there have been ingenious Australian inventions exported (think rotary clothes lines, wine casks, and dual flush toilets), but they hardly represent enlightened turning points in human civilisation. So it's a relief that Channel 7 has decided to not "rock the boat" by unleashing "Airways" onto the Australian television viewing public.

Based on the successful "Airline" and "Airport" format from the UK (ableit 10 years or so after they had exploited the concept, Australian television executives are not terribly progressive thinkers), Channel 7 has managed to produce quite a vile little product with minimal expenditure (Let's face it, it's a camera crew spending a day at an airport!) and even less originality while knocking together something that helps them meet their minimum quota of locally produced material to keep their broadcasters licence. Bravo! Narrated, yes thats right, narrated by Corinne Grant (comedienne....apparently) in a voice that suggests she's either high on smack or simply a pain in the arse, the show concerns itself with the airport operations of Tiger Airways (one of our new "spam in a can" airlines) and their customers (let's just refer to them as "bogan's" for the sake of argument). If you enjoy laughing at stupid people, you've come to the right place.

Essentially, said bogan's have discovered that for the price of a slab of beer they can get flown in an aero-plane (say it slowly, a-e-r-o p-l-a-n-e) to the Gold Coast to get pissed. Little do they realise that unfortunately the world does indeed not revolve around them, and the other 150 bogan's on the plane have little interest in delaying their debauchery for the occasional "Super Bogan" that decides to rock up late for their flight. And this, this is where the hilarity begins as we see combinations of tears, anger, and laments. Oh, to be in attendance at the airport at these moments, to point and laugh and harangue. The only thing more interesting is to catch a glimpse of the faces of the airline staff. They look restrained, but it's clear they are thinking "If I was to jump over this counter and punch this person in the face, would the world judge me harshly?". God, what I'd give to see that.

Speaking of punches in the face, one should be reserved for the sound editor who for reasons that can only possibly be because Channel 7 has some sweetheart deal with the bastard record companies, insists on innappropriately dropping in too many snippets of top 40 pop music at full volume. It's not even decent music either, it's that shite where some daft talentless tart sings a lament about how her boyfriend won't pay her mobile phone bill or some such tripe.

It certainly isn't the most God-awful piece of Australian made television, I believe Neighbours and Home & Away are still battling it out for that title bless 'em, but frankly they could have done this without Corinne Grant (many things could be done successfully without Corinne Grant me thinks), without the turgid music, and without a fancy camera crew. Give a few travellers a handycam and you've got a show!

Now boarding on Channel 7 at 8PM Sundays.