Amid the dross on TV a surprise
Think of TV dramas as recipes. You have your favourites. Often they’re meat and three veg, but you’d like a change from broccoli. TV drama is no different. It’s mostly formula.
‘‘Same old, same old’’ is like life insurance, nothing changes. Then along comes something unexpected.
Valor (TV3, Tuesdays) could be that drama. I say ‘‘could be’’ because new series are introduced with bells and whistles and sometimes they fall off by the second episode.
Valor describes a special operations unit that flies helicopters. Co-pilots Nora Madani and Leland Gallo are involved in a top-secret mission that goes wrong in Somalia.
They crash-land their chopper in a lake. Some operatives are killed and two are captured. While the mission is told in flashbacks, some of the flashes aren’t yet back.
Nora and Leland survive and a month later Nora reports back for duty. She was injured and, as a result, swallows and sniffs too many medications.
She thinks cold Turkey is what she eats the day after Thanksgiving. Nora and Leland have both agreed to sing from the same song sheet, but they’re hymnal crim’nals. Something happened that they’re not disclosing.
When the Somali captors want an exchange – 50 Isis stooges for the two prisoners – special ops goes into overdrive. They start preparing for the rescue mission. That’s the biffo, but there’s some intriguing interaction and smart dialogue between the leading characters.
Nora’s been grounded, but she wants clearance to return. Ian Porter’s her boyfriend and knows something’s wrong. Thea’s an FBI agent who’s started snooping about and Leland does a Peter Plumley Walker.
When we meet him, he’s been handcuffed to the bedhead by Anna, his girlfriend. Fortunately, she hasn’t thrown away the key.
Leland’s given a few good lines to deliver such as: ‘‘If I get bored I’ll have a handcuff break.’’ Just stay clear of Huka Falls.
The action, interaction and personalities gel and we’re left with the feeling there’s more to the failed mission we’re not told about. That’s good drama, good enough to warrant another look.
Has anyone told Wentworth (TV2, Tuesdays) it’s living on borrowed time? Bea Smith (Danielle Cormack) has been killed off and Joan (The Freak) Ferguson was buried alive last season.
The remaining interest is in Frankie Doyle, who escaped from Wentworth Correctional Facility with Joan Ferguson. Frankie has some unfinished business. So, she sleeps in a railway carriage, hides in an apartment and visits her psychiatrist.
Now, if you can break out of prison, you can break back in. I was hoping her shrink would suggest she disguises herself as a mailbag and gets posted to the prison governor, but Frankie wants to stay on the run.
Meanwhile, all sorts of mayhem goes on at Wentworth. Rita ‘‘the beater’’ Connors arrives to protect her sister, Ruby Mitchell, and takes the rap for injuring Spike Baxter in the shower.
To me, the sixth season of Wentworth is only going through the motions and Foxtel should pull the chain or bring Bea and Joan back as zombies. That’s unlikely and I can hear an oink somewhere above me.
Gordon Ramsey has been injecting new life into epic failures, sometimes in weeks, often in days. Now, he’s given himself only hours to take a wilting lettuce and turn it into a Waldorf salad. In a new series, Gordon Ramsey’s 24 Hours To Hell And Back (TV2, Mondays), he visits a family-run Italian bistro called Gianna’s.
There he meets part-owner Vinnie, a man-boy who’s so out of control he would out-tweet Donald Trump. Vinnie runs the gamut of emotions from A to Z and into a new alphabet. But, amazingly, Ramsey calms him, teaches Lou the chef how to cook and clean, and changes the oppressive atmosphere of the restaurant overnight.
He sends the diners home and invites them back the following evening. In 24 hours his team renovates the dining area, changes the de´ cor, transforms the kitchen, modifies the menu and gets rid of the vermin – except for Vinnie. Gordon would be welcome on The Block.
I’ve never enjoyed him before, but this was sheer entertainment at its best. Vinnie came direct from The Sopranos. He ranted, yelled, cried and blamed everyone other than himself.
He was Ramsey’s long-lost brother discovered via Ancestry. Yet Gordon had his measure.
Except for the occasional volcanic outburst, Vinnie became a changed man. And from the chip on his shoulder you could design and build new lounge furniture.