Television
A sibling to interact
Wendy Cope
Ann and Stuart in LA Law (ITV, 9 p.m. Thursday) have been trying to adopt a baby. Their colleague Arnie put them in touch with a lawyer, who undertook to help them find a suitable 'birth mother'. Eventually a young girl rang up and arranged to meet and interview them, to see if they were the adoptive parents she wanted to choose for her baby.
Coincidentally, the episode in which the interview took place was broadcast at the same time as a documentary about this new American method of adoption. The 40 Minutes film 'Who'll Win Jeanette?' (BBC 2) followed 17-year-old Liz's search for the 'right' people to bring up her unborn child. Three well-heeled couples — all just about old enough to be the baby's grandparents — did their best to make a good impress- ion. 'Our lives have been filled with many varied experiences,' claimed a sad-looking suburban husband. 'We want a sibling to interact with Megan,' explained another. Liz enjoyed her power over these people while it lasted. Once she'd selected a couple, she formed a very close rela- tionship with the wife and asked her to be present at the birth. Two days later she had to say goodbye to her baby and her new mother-figure. You felt that the only humane solution would be for the couple to adopt Liz too.
In Britain social workers and other professionals make the decisions about adoption. Liz's way — accomplished with the help of a non-profit-making organisa- tion called Friends of Adoption — would be illegal. The programme didn't attempt to make judgments. It just showed you what happened, and did it very well.
In LA Law the teenage mother thought Ann and Stuart would make a lovely Mom and Dad. Here, too, I found myself hoping that they would all decide to live together
but, of course, they didn't. In the end the lawyers lost out to an even richer couple, who owned some horses. Perhaps the scriptwriters will let Ann get pregnant before she has to go through all that again.
Those of you who don't read the TV Times may be interested to learn that the actors who play Ann and Stuart are mar- ried to each other in real life. And that Ken Olin, who plays Michael in thirtysome- thing (Channel 4, 10 p.m., Tuesday) is really married to Patricia Wettig, who plays Nancy. The new series of this prog- ramme is proving something of a dis- appointment. Criticised for being too yup- pie and uncaring, it now focuses on the depressing side of life. Those of you who don't watch The Channe1.4 Daily may not know that you are supposed to floss your teeth after you brush them. No one had ever explained this to me before and I am suitably grateful to 'Streetwise' (8.04 a.m. and 9.02 a.m. every weekday), a cornucopia of useful informa- tion. I quite like the idea of being street- wise but I hadn't realised that it had anything to do with cleaning your teeth properly. Another valuable piece of information, garnered from the same programme, con- cerns the correct height for desks and office chairs. If you work at a keyboard, your forearms should be parallel to the floor. If the arm slopes upwards or down- wards from the elbow, your posture is incorrect and you could be doing yourself some damage. Strad's keyboard now stands on a pile of old magazines. It does rather spoil the high-tech look of the study but I'm glad I found out in time.
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