TV HIGHLIGHTS
NO ACTIVITY Lightbox, season two available now The first season of this Aussie original, based around two cops sitting in a car at night, waiting for something to happen, was extremely funny and — contrary to the experience of its central characters — exciting. It delivered fresh-feeling television comedy in an extremely unlikely setting. Much of the first season’s joy revolves around the semi-improvised riff/jam sessions between the two lead actors and the second season promises more of the same. Arguably the best thing to come out of Australia since Crowded House. DARRYL. AN OUTWARD BOUND STORY TVNZ On Demand, available from Monday We can only imagine what New Zealand’s television comedy scene would be like had some reasonably lucid person been in charge of commissioning at TVNZ at the time a young Jemaine Clement and Bret Mckenzie pitched them a series. Would its success have led executives to commission a stream of original young comedians to follow in their footsteps? Almost certainly not — the mind of a television commissioner by necessity bends away from creativity. So this new comedy
This new comedy, starring Millen Baird, goes straight to On Demand, where nobody’s career relies on its success.
series, starring Millen Baird as a guy on an Outward Bound course, goes straight to On Demand, where nobody’s career relies on its success. I AM INNOCENT TVNZ 1, Tuesday, 8.30pm Box set available now on TVNZ On Demand. Few subjects are as endlessly fascinating to us as prison: how we end up there, what happens to us once in there, and so forth. And few things in life are as dreadful as the possibility of being imprisoned for no good reason. And so it is that we come to season two of this local series that follows individuals who claim to have been wrongfully imprisoned, and who still carry with them the scars. THE MISSING TVNZ 1, Tuesday, 9.30pm The first season of The Missing was one of the most critically praised crime series of the modern televisual age, compared to such superbly scripted, compelling, atmospheric series as Top of the Lake and Broadchurch. And for this second season, which began airing internationally last month, the reviewers have been even more frothily laudatory. Its first episode is the jewel in TVNZ’s weekend line-up and the best reason to look forward to Sunday night. 13 REASONS WHY Netflix, Available Friday Based on the best-selling young adult fiction title of the same name, and produced by Selena Gomez, this new series starts with the suicide of a teenage girl, then follows a classmate who discovers a bunch of tapes explaining the why and the who of how she came to take her own life. Gomez has described the show as a “passion project” for her. Its subject matter, so dark, and so frequently taboo, now comes into the light.