SEAVIEW had one thing going for it, and one thing alone, and that was the fact that it was set in the popular British seaside resort of Blackpool, and if you were a youngster like I was at the time, you'd watch it just to see the shots of the Pleasure Beach fun fair, the Tower, the three piers and the Golden Mile that popped up in just about every episode, either to remind you of your last holiday there or to get you in the mood for a holiday to come. Aside from the travelogue angle though, SEAVIEW was truly rank. One episode I remember was based entirely around the fad for arcade machines (and was already years out of date) - the owners of the Seaview hotel thought a Space Invaders console in the foyer would be a nice money-spinner, so what does their annoying son do? He rings up the supplier, gets them to deliver several of the things and invites all his friends around to play on them. Even as a not-too-cynical nine-year-old, I got the mental image of some smug, slicked-back junior producer at the BBC smirking to himself over the prospect of this jaw-droppingly dismal attempt at childhood wish-fulfilment humour, thinking he'd strike a chord with kids everywhere. It didn't. Most of us just wished the parents would clobber the kid and make way for more of those mouth-watering shots of the cheerfully gaudy resort we knew and loved. Another episode had the standard-issue "we're forming a rock band" scenario. Dear God...
