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6:05pm – Thursday, July 30 on ABC1

This episode features a tiny 1920s bungalow in Venice Beach, California, that has been revamped with a sleek new addition and the latest in modern design and green features, including solar panels that provide 70 percent of the home’s energy needs.

A former South London milk depot features garden walls made of old milk bottles, and a translucent wall that turns the entire house into a lantern at night and traps heat to save energy.

Taking urban wind power to an all-new level, a stunning home in San Francisco’s Mission District features lavish appointments and a striking design that stands out from the crowd.

Nestled among the traditional homes in West Sussex, an unconventional green property built around the trees has all the locals talking.

Last night, the Australian premiere of the critically acclaimed comedy/drama series United States of Tara, rounded out a strong night of viewing on ABC1.

It was a great night of entertainment overall with the ever popular music quiz show Spicks and Specks, kicking off the night with nearly 1.5 million viewers.  The audience stayed on to say goodbye to The Chaser, in the final episode of The Chaser’s War on Everything.

Over 1.2 million viewers were then treated to Toni Collette’s brilliant performance as ordinary suburban mum Tara Gregson, suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly known as multiple personalities), in United States of Tara.

All three programs won their timeslots across the five cities combined and in every city.

Total metro audience figures across the three programs:

8.30-9pm Spicks and Specks 1.47 million
9-9.30pm The Chaser’s War on Everything 1.46 million
9.30-10pm United States of Tara 1.24 million

At 10pm, the audience for At the Movies was 70% up on the previous year-to-date average, with a metro audience of 625,000 people watching. 

In case you missed the last episode of The Chaser’s War on Everything and the first episode of United States of Tara, both available on ABC iView – abc.net.au/iview.

9:30pm – Wednesday, July 29 on ABC1

Executive produced by Steven Spielberg, written by Diablo Cody (Juno) and starring Australia’s own Toni Collette, don’t miss the refreshingly original 12-part comedy/drama series United States of Tara, screening Wednesday 29 July at 9.30pm on ABC1.

“Mum’s just not herself today…” How many times have kids the world over heard that? But, in Tara Gregson’s (Toni Collette) case, it’s true literally. Tara a seemingly ordinary suburban housewife and mother, has dissociative identity disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder).

Tara can appear as anyone from herself to ‘T’, a provocative teenager who flits around in midriffs and low slung jeans; to ‘Buck’, a beer-swilling, trucker-hat wearing Vietnam vet who is prone to violence when (easily) provoked; to ‘Alice’, a 1950s Betty Crocker housewife who bakes pies, wearing her heels and without a meticulously hair-sprayed curl out of place.

John Corbett (Sex and the City) plays Max, her loving and supportive husband of almost 20 years who works hard to keep up with Tara’s alters, while maintaining some sense of normalcy for their teenage children; sarcastic and rebellious daughter, Kate (Brie Larson), and tender-hearted, bookworm son, Marshall (Keir Gilchrist). Although they’re typical teens, they’ve learned to cope with their mother’s unpredictable personalities, in their own way.

The only sticking point to their all living in oblivion is Tara’s insecure sister, Charmaine, played by Rosemarie DeWitt (Mad Men) who cannot accept Tara’s condition and is envious of the attention her sister has received from it.

It’s never a dull moment in the Gregson household as the various identities may appear on any given day at any time. Tara, with the support of her family, has gone off her medication, in the hope that the cause of her disorder will reveal itself and that her alters will integrate.

Kicking off the first episode, T appears to help Tara deal with the news of daughter Kate’s sexual adventures. While she’s around, T also flirts outrageously with Max. Feeling out of control of the situation with Kate, Buck appears to help Tara deal with Kate’s unsuspecting boyfriend.

United States Of Tara will be repeated on ABC2 – Thursday, July 30 at 9:30pm

8:00pm – Wednesday, July 29 on ABC1

Hosted by James O’Loghlin, The New Inventors is bursting with the innovative and the imaginative, the unique and the unusual, the fantastic and the fascinating. Deciding the winner of these three inventions are: engineer James Bradfield Moody, designer Alison Page, and woodworker and teacher Richard Vaughan.

Inventions featured on the program:

BAMBOO DE-BRANCHER – by inventor Alya Manzart from VIC.

Bamboo is a sustainable resource that is vital for millions of people around the world. Over the last 20 years, bamboo has become a very valuable and often superior substitute for wood, used as a major construction material in many countries. Bamboo is the fastest growing plant in the world, and has great potential in an emissions trading future as a strong sequester of carbon emissions. Despite bamboo’s resurgence in modern applications, the methods and tools used to harvest it are stuck far in the past. Current techniques exclusively involve the use of hand tools, in a labour-intensive process that tends to damage the surface of the bamboo. It is also dangerous to use such sharp tools for long working days, requiring great skill and concentration from the harvester to work unharmed. Alya Manzart is a 20-year-old dance student at Victorian College of the Arts, and is a finalist in INNOVIC’s International Next Big Thing Award 2009. While on school holidays, he worked at his aunt’s farm harvesting bamboo and was inspired to invent a better tool for the job. The Bamboo De-brancher is a power tool that quickly and safely cuts the sideways branches from bamboo in addition to cutting it at its base. The device does not damage the stem, making the wood suitable for high-grade flooring and furniture. This invention, the first power tool ever created for bamboo harvesting, is used out in the plantation field, reducing the number of steps in the harvesting process. In a videotape presentation featuring Sathi the red panda from Melbourne Zoo, Alya Manzart demonstrates his invention, showing how at 20 years of age, he may have revolutionised a growing industry around the world.

STREET SWAG – by inventor Jean Madden from QLD.

On the last census night, 105,000 Australians were homeless, and 15,000 were sleeping rough on the streets. Street Swags are a durable, comfortable, discreet, and water proof bedding for the homeless, which also converts into a bag that can carry their extra belongings. 27-year-old inventor Jean has given away over 11,000 Street Swags to the homeless through a network of charitable groups. They were also able to provide hundreds more to the Victorian bushfire victims within hours of them becoming homeless.

CHEK-WAY ELIMINATOR – by inventor Roger Sack from QLD.

Australia’s freight deliveries are set to double by 2015. This means we can either double the number of trucks on our roads, or increase the allowable loads on the trucks we have. These vehicles will need to be monitored by GPS to ensure that they stay on roads capable of accommodating heavier loads. Chek-Way Eliminator monitors pressure in the air springs or airbags and converts this reading into kilograms, displayed on an LCD meter inside the vehicle. The invention is also able to monitor spikes in the roads’ roughness, and send this data back to the office via email. This will enable the authorities to monitor road quality and respond more quickly to any road degradation in need of repair.

The New Inventors will be repeated on ABC2 – Friday, July 31 at 4:30pm

10:00pm – Tuesday, July 28 on ABC1

Artscape: Landscape of the Wynne transports you into the studios of four very different contemporary Australian painters – Geoff Dyer, Graham Fransella, Ben McKeown and Kate Shaw. Watch as they each try to win the oldest and most prestigious gong given for Australian landscape painting – the Wynne Prize.

The Wynne is Australia’s oldest art prize and in the eyes of many artists – a true ‘artist’s prize’. Every year, it encourages artists to tackle the power of landscape.

Strictly speaking, the Wynne Prize must be awarded to ‘the best landscape painting of Australian scenery in oils or watercolours, or, for the best example of figure sculpture by an Australian artist.’ But as Edmund Capon the Director of the Art Gallery of NSW (AGNSW) points out, these days landscape can mean many things, “today, a landscape can be a seascape, cityscape, skyscape – even a mindscape!” Rules, it seems, are made to be interpreted and as Landscape of the Wynne reveals – the topic of landscape painting is a minefield of passions and prejudice. What makes a great landscape painting? How to win over the judges.

The tension builds as the paintings by Dyer, Fransella, McKeown and Shaw join the throng of 800 or so other paintings delivered to the AGNSW. As the moment of truth approaches, the 2009 prize does not disappoint as surprises and controversies emerge in the Landscape of the Wynne.

Artscape: Landscape Of The Wynne will be repeated on ABC2 – Sunday, August 02 at 7:00pm

9:25pm – Tuesday, July 28 on ABC1

The second season of Tracey Ullman’s State Of The Union continues to showcase her vast array of original characters and impersonations in a wide collection of irreverent and hilarious skits, that range from sardonic parody to social satire.

This season, Ullman introduces an entire new line-up of original characters and celebrity impersonations, including Laura Bush, Celine Dion, Heather Mills-McCartney, Jodie Foster, J.K. Rowling, Silda Spitzer, Tom Brokaw and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, as well as original characters Leslie Katz-Coen, publicist for the Dalai Lama, Wendy Trenton, world-champion hog caller and Jillian Smart, an overzealous soccer mom, to name just a few.

Some memorable characters from last season, including Dina Lohan, Renée Zellweger, Tony Sirico and Padma Perkesh, the Bollywood-musical pharmacist, will make their return in season two as Ullman’s uproarious cavalcade of caricatures illustrate her unique comedic interpretations of modern American life.

8:30pm – Tuesday, July 28 on ABC1

Mimi d’Costa and her husband Andre have moved to the Kent countryside to bring up their two young sons, Sean and Ty. Mimi and Andre have bought a large plot of land and want to build a home on it that is functional enough to serve their young family but that will also blend beautifully into the landscape. They settle on a simple modular home using state of the art materials and technologies.

Every element of this house is being constructed off site by many different contractors. The shell of the house is made of engineered timber panels from Germany, and the very high-tech glass that acts as radiators is from Belgium.

In order to save money, Mimi decides to project manage the build herself, despite never having done it before. She naively thinks the entire project will take her just four months, but not all the elements slot together as neatly as she had hoped. Six months later there’s still no staircase, no electricity and Mimi’s coming to the end of her budget.

Tuesday July 28 8pm ABC1

The Uighurs. Who are they and why is the Chinese government flattening vast tracts of their magnificent cultural capital Kashgar?

Is it for safety or to secure against separatists and potential terrorism?

Kashgar stands at the very western edge of China – an oasis city that has long provided relief for travellers on the ancient Silk Road.

Parts of the city have stood for more than 2000 years and within its labyrinth, Uighur traditions have played largely unchanged over time. It’s a living history attracting hordes of tourists every year.

But Beijing is bringing in the bulldozers – knocking down great swaths of the old town– because it says there is an increasing risk of devastation from earthquake. Officials say they’re worried about the safety of the people who live there.

The Uighurs though are a Muslim majority in the city and the region and many residents suspect other motives. They believe Beijing’s agenda is to push the Uighurs out of the alley ways and corners of old Kashgar and into more manageable and uniform accommodation where they can be monitored and better kept in check.

China correspondent Stephen McDonell has managed to gain extraordinary access to Kashgar, its residents and local leadership to assess the motives behind the demolition program and to explore more broadly the strategic security problems Beijing is trying to contain and cauterise.

McDonell manages to gain entry to a highly sensitive security zone outside Kashgar for a bigger picture. Across the mountains in one direction Pakistan is locked in battle with the Taliban in another Afghanistan is facing the same extremist threat. The Chinese government holds grave concerns that Muslim terrorism could find fertile ground here. The Foreign Correspondent team happens upon a full scale anti-terror exercise and films from a distance.

McDonell’s story provides important context and a timely assessment of The Uighur Dilemma.

July 28 at 9.05am, ABC1

Episode 17 – “New Friends”

Jack Black arrives in Gabbaland riding a mini dirt bike.  He’s lost and scared, but soon makes friends with the Gabba gang and they help him find his way back home.  Featured songs include:  “Don’t Get Lost,” “Friend Song” and “Goodbye Song.”

Also in the episode; Yo Dazzlers perform “Can’t Always Get What you Want”, Jack McBrayer and Paul Scheer perform Knock Knock Joke

9:35pm – Monday, July 27 on ABC1

In episode seven, news that a Sugarhorse (MI5′s top-secret operation with a long-term strategy to destabilise Russia’s nuclear capability) asset has been found dead reaches Harry. He knows that Britain is caught in the middle of what could be a nuclear showdown as the US plans to place missile defence shields in former Soviet countries.

To add to his troubles, Harry discovers that he has been framed as a Russian mole and that his arrest is imminent. He quickly takes pre-emptive action by asking Lucas to travel to Moscow to meet with an asset who can gather key intelligence to save Britain – and Harry. Lucas agrees and leaves for Russia, just as Harry’s house is stormed and he is arrested by MI5 for treason. Under interrogation, Harry refuses to disclose the names of his Sugarhorse assets to protect the operation. He explains that he has been set up by an ex-MI5 officer, now Russian double agent, and reluctantly the DG of MI5 agrees to investigate.

In Russia, Lucas manages to collect the intelligence required from MI5′s new asset, and as the FSB close in on him he discovers that Connie is indeed the Sugarhorse mole. Meanwhile, Ros takes over as head of Harry’s team and Ben finds himself in extreme danger as Lucas confides in him that Connie is the traitor they’ve been hunting for. She will do anything to keep him quiet, and she does. In a brief meeting with Ros in detention, Harry manages to pass her an encoded message that Connie is the mole. Ros manages to prove to Harry’s interrogators that he has been framed, and he is released. Connie is taken away but the team have no time to grieve Ben’s murder before discovering a message that the Sugarhorse asset sent before he was murdered: ‘Tiresias awakes at 3pm tomorrow’. What does it mean?