The price of failure can be brutal and expensive in commercial TV. And
no-one knows that better than those with a vested interest in The Alice – the
Nine Network has now well and truly buried the telemovie spin-off.

With no hope of a second season, there’s the detritus of the
production to get rid of, and in an effort to recoup a few dollars,
producers Southern Star are selling a few bits and pieces in an auction
that starts today. Here’s the website
with some of the prized artefacts that will go under
the auctioneer’s hammer – including an oil drum seat and flying kangaroo sculpture.

Meanwhile, the Northern Territory might want to get its hands on some of
the money: after all, the NT Government was convinced to put in around $330,000 into the production on the
basis of the “tourism” benefits the series would bring to the far
north.

It all began so well – a slap up launch party with all sorts of stars and network heavies, not to
mention NT chief minister Clare Martin and more champers than
necessary.

Eleven
weeks later, it’s as good as dead and buried, yanked and killed off to save money by a
network that has known considerable failure in drama in the past, but not the
crippling financial pain it’s going through at the
moment.

After
yanking The Alice from Monday night prime time at 7.30pm, it will return next Monday night at 10:30pm. Hopefully it
will do a bit better than a program normally would in that graveyard
timeslot.