WHAT TO WATCH

Grand Designs New Zealand

TV3 Sunday, 8.30pm Season two premiere Last year, New Zealand watched with concern as our own Chris Moller took on the local version of the job made famous internationally by Kevin McCloud, and tried to get us interested in our own architecture. By the end of the first episode, in which Moller used his insider knowledge and folksy charms to extract the wildly enjoyable insights of Catlins farmer/bachelor Lachlan McDonald, we were hooked, and eight episodes later, by the end of season one, we were ready to accept him as part of our lives. He’s back and, presumably, even better.

The Case Of: JonBenet Ramsey

Prime Sunday, 8.30pm In the information economy in which we live, international event television like this really needs to be simulcast. And if you haven’t had a smeak peek at the revelations (it aired a week ago in the US) this blockbuster docu-series about the 1996 murder case at its centre — one of the most genuinely sensational cases in decades, will be gripping.

Transparent

Lightbox Season three available now The hyper-reality of the first two seasons of

Transparent was sometimes quite unsettling and often very funny. In wrestling with the messy topic of a family wrestling with a transgender dad, it felt like a brand new genre that didn’t care what anybody thought. Jeffrey Tambor, who plays the titular dad this week won his second Emmy for the role.

Scream Queens

Lightbox Season two available now In many ways, Ryan Murphy, the man behind Glee and American Horror Story, is modern television. The first season of his newish show Scream Queens took some elements of both those well-known shows — horror and young people — and mixed them together in a spoof that was well-enough received that it is now ready for round two. Spoofs, particularly horror spoofs, make for difficult TV because there’s only so much fun you can make of genre conventions before you run out of genre conventions to make fun of, but if anybody can squeeze a second season out of them, it’s probably Murphy.

Funny Girls

TV3 Friday, 10pm The second season of the best local sketch comedy series in years is scheduled at 10pm, but don’t panic, you’ll probably also be able to watch it on TV3’s under-promoted on-demand service 3Now. Rose Matafeo and Laura Daniel bring back characters from the first season and will probably introduce others. Greg Bruce