Groundbreaking Canadian TV-Series from the late Eighties
I remember waking up one sunday morning in 1989 with a terrible hangover after another youthful late night stint in a club with my friends. Sleep was out of the question as my head was just too painful to put it back on the pillow, so I switched on the TV and expected the usual crap: Transformers or even the flipping Power Rangers. But something else appeared: TV 101. This looked different: It had unusual camerawork (at least for 1989), an ethnically diverse cast full of interesting young actors (and not you usual 30 year olds playing teenagers) and a strong story full of technical references that satisfied both geeks and the rest of the audience.
The story is quicky told: "TV 101" is a highschool course run by an enthusiastic young ex-journalist (Sam Robards) trying to teach a heterogenous bunch of kids the intricacies of videojournalism by supplying them with a portable videocamera each and getting them to produce a weekly TV show for the school. The actors playing those kids were an interesting bunch, with the highlights being Matt LeBlanc, Teri Polo and one of the most interesting contemporary black actors, Alex Désert. The soundtrack was composed by The Police's Stewart Copeland
Contrary to shows like Beverly Hills 90210, these were real kids with problems that actually mattered to teenagers in the eighties.
Of course this was far too revolutionary and edgy for mainstream TV, and the show was cancelled after 13 shows. Nevertheless one of the few highlights of a rather drab decade for television.
Damn.
Source:
http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/ShowMainServlet/showid-512
http://www.retro-tv.net/tv-kult/index.php?tvdbid=3278&m=ST
http://imdb.com/title/tt0094561/combined
http://www.kabel1.de/serienlexikon/ergebnis.php?action=exact&id=4392