TV: So square it's a stars' graveyard

By TERI FITSELL

Ah, how the mighty have fallen. When Whoopi Goldberg is reduced to sitting in the giant noughts and crosses game that is Hollywood Squares (TV3 7 pm, weekdays) times must be tough.

Whoopi is an enduring figure in showbiz, despite rarely matching that first outstanding performance in Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple in 1985. Bad Oscar gigs (last year) and dates with Ted Danson notwithstanding, she had hung on to her street cred ... until this.

The series is the third United States revival of this gameshow format. Nine celebs - some of whom barely make the criteria - sit in little cubes arranged like a noughts and crosses game.

The contestants, X and O, pick a star to answer a question put to them by smiley, happy host Tom Bergeron. The contestant decides if said celeb has answered correctly or not, and wins that square. This goes on until one of the contestants has won three squares in a row.

As if that's not exciting enough, the really side-splitting part comes when, before answering the question properly, the celeb initially gives Bergeron "the funny answer."

Here's an example. Question: "McDonald's introduced a burger with a slice of pineapple on it, what was it called?"

Funny answer: "The McPooPoo Burger?"

Cue raucous canned laughter, and shots of other celebs clutching sides, falling off chairs and generally wetting themselves at the absolute hilarity of it all.

Laugh? I'd thought I'd never start.

But wait, there's less. (And I know that sounds like the old "the food in this canteen is terrible ... and the portions are too small" remark.)

But nevertheless, there is less.

Squares isn't even up to date, as evidenced by the sad fact that one of the guests this week was Florence Griffith Joyner, or Flo Jo, introduced by Bergeron as the fastest woman on Earth. Not any more she isn't. She died in September 1998. Would it not perhaps have been better to at least acknowledge her death before broadcasting?

Back to the mighty falling, however, and it's not just Whoopi's star that we've witnessed on a downward trajectory this week.

Diana Rigg is also fighting a losing battle against bad dialogue and cheesy plots in the exceedingly disappointing Mrs Bradley Mysteries (Sundays, TV One, 8.40 pm).

The series promised so much. And how could it fail with quality acting from Ms Rigg, not only a former Avenger but also the only Bond girl ever to wed 007 (in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, 1969), even if she was shot soon after?

But, after a promising opening episode, Mrs Bradley's cloche hats are looking less jaunty. That whip-cracking circus mistress last week should have been fed to the lions - if only the budget had stretched to lions.

Mighty falls were also in evidence in the films on television. Jon Voight, star of film caviar such as Midnight Cowboy and Deliverance appeared in the movie fast-food, Anaconda.

Okay, the film's almost bad enough to be a camp classic, but it's still distressing to watch Voight reduced to sporting an unplaceable accent and more facial tics than you could shake a snake at, to prove his character's a couple of cans short of a six-pack.

Finally, there was even an example of fall in progress in Sky's John Cleese-scripted double bill, A Fish Called Wanda and Fierce Creatures.

The first was a comedy classic made in 1988, which brought together a fab comic foursome in Cleese, fellow Python Michael Palin, Kevin Kline and Jamie Lee Curtis. The second, made in 1997, reunited the team, not so successfully. Showing the films back to back, really highlighted that not only was Cleese showing his age, but so were the jokes.

Sad, isn't it?