Television
The Best of the Week
SATURDAY OCTOBER 29
Around the World with Manu Feildel (TVNZ 1, 8.30pm). The My Kitchen Rules FrenchAustralian host eats his way around the world in this series, in a journey echoing Jules Verne’s novel. To spice it up, he has a A$20,000 budget and can earn extra money by washing dishes, cooking or busking.
SUNDAY OCTOBER 30
The Brokenwood Mysteries (Prime, 8.30pm). The new season of Murder Most Silly in rural New Zealand begins with the death of the wife of a “Lord of the Ringz” tour operator in “Mirklewood”. “In New Zealand, the use of a zed is commonplace,” Ray (Jason Hoyte) tells a complaining tourist. Heh. Brokenwood’s finest, DSS Mike Shepherd (Neill Rea) and Detective
Kristin Sims (Fern
Sutherland), are on the case, aided, mostly, by Detective Constable Sam Breen (Nic Sampson). “It is ridiculous there is a town and everyone is dropping like flies, but the show has so much heart,” says Sutherland. “There’s a kind of smugness about those American shows with the test tubes and the ultraviolet
light. This is low-fi and I like that it doesn’t take itself too seriously.” In the grand tradition of Sunday night whodunnits, there is a retinue of guests coming up in the season, including Theresa Healey, Amanda Billings and Ido Drent.
MONDAY OCTOBER 31
Humans (TV3, 8.35pm). Westworld may have the
$140 million budget and Anthony Hopkins, but this taut sci-fi series from the UK has just as much to say about the human condition, and in season two, the problems with playing God are going to intensify. Synths are beginning to malfunction or, as they would say,