MTV aired three specials on Pink Floyd between 1988 and 1994, and 'Over The Wall' is by far the best, mostly by virtue of program length and overall scope more than anything else.

To start off, those of you hoping to land an in-depth history of the band by acquiring this are advised heartily to look elsewhere, as MTVeffectively smashes the entire oral history of the band into no more than five minutes of screen time. As seen through the hyper- caffeinated camera eye of MTV, the Pink Floyd story started with Syd Barrett, leaped forward to 'The Dark Side Of The Moon,' and culminated in 'The Wall,' with only a veiled passing reference to Roger Waters during a discussion of the 'Wall' movie - and the "discussions" of those topics are dealt with in such a Ritalin-deprived fashion that one has no time whatsoever to savor any of the visuals, musical passages or even the largely banal interview footage (which is never more than 30 seconds at a time) we are presented with here.

While we're on the subject of interviews, this is the Nick Mason and David Gilmour show all the way through. Don't look for Roger Waters himself anywhere but in the archival footage, as he is curiously left out of the loop for commentary here. Fancy that. Otherwise, ferret-like Rick Wright puts in about a paragraph's worth of insight here and there, while a single sentence is all you're gonna hear from the likes of Scott Page, Margaret Taylor, Durga McBroom, Marc Brickman, Robbie Williams, and sundry other faceless 'Momentary Lapse' tour management/production personnel.

If it weren't for the eight "themed" subsections that divide this program into discussion topics, 'Over The Wall' would be damn near incoherent, so finely pureed are the ingredients of the finished product. Using these sections as a crude topical map, one can at least get an idea what all of the constantly machine-gunned sound-bites are pertaining to, whether it's the mounting of the 1988 shows, a recap of the band's early days, the eighty-billionth discussion of the rampant popularity and lasting effect on the band's career incurred by the release of 'The Dark Side Of The Moon' (ya gotta love MTV briefly turning David Gilmour into Max Headroom as he talks about "Life, death and madnessmadnessmadness"), the backing players, Mr. Pig, influences, Syd Barrett, how much videos can suck for music (heh heh), etc.

Truthfully, the only reason I can think of to seek out this hour-long snip-fest is in the area of visuals, whether we're talking top-shelf versions of the "Welcome To The Machine" and "Brain Damage / Eclipse" films (which appear here in *far* clearer quality than any video compilation currently making the rounds on VHS), or the dozens of behind-the-scenes glimpses at the band's tech-crew setting up the massive edifice and wheeling Mr. Bed into place at the other end of the venue. We also get a few teaser pieces of the Canada rehearsal footage in stunning quality, and a bit of unidentified older film footage that I'd guess dates from one of the 1974 films (most likely "On The Run").

I'll finish here by restating that as lame as this program was, MTV only went downhill from here (as we'll see in due time) ...

Mark Goodman

Nick Mason & David Gilmour

Guy Pratt