Television
The Best of the Week
SATURDAY JUNE 24
Rugby (Sky Sport 1, Sky 051, 6.30pm). Finally, the first test. The ABs play the Lions at Eden Park tonight, the perfect warm-up for the Hurricanes v Lions game on Tuesday. Just kidding.
MONDAY JUNE 26
Secret Cities (Choice TV, 7.30pm). An art historian and an art critic walk into an iconic city. In this three-part series, Janina Ramirez and Alastair Sooke visit Amsterdam, St Petersburg and Barcelona but take an arty, less-touristy path. In Amsterdam, for example, there are 17th-century canal houses, the original
Dutch East India Company market and the Oude Kerk, the city’s oldest building. At the Rijksmuseum, while tourists crowd around Rembrandt’s The Night Watch, Sooke looks at the paintings of Jan Steen, known as the painter of the people. For art lovers, the series is the equivalent of having a very clever tour guide.
Game of Thrones (SoHo Popup, Sky 210, 7.30pm). The binge watch to end all binge-watches. Six seasons of Game of Thrones in six days, open to all Sky subscribers. Promotion, of course, for the imminent arrival of the seventh and final season of the epic fantasy drama. July 17 is the red-letter day, if you’re not thoroughly sick of it after watching 60 episodes in six days.
Chicago Med (Three,
9.30pm). The third spoke in the Chicago franchise wheel concludes its second season with a classic “a-ha” diagnosis, some romantic reorganisation, a party and the shooting of one of the main characters. Oh no! Tune in next season to see if he or she survives! Chicagos Med, Fire and PD have all been renewed, but producer Dick Wolf has hit a snag with his fourth franchise,
Chicago Justice, which has been cancelled. Another US spin-off returns this week: season eight of NCIS: LA (Three, Wednesday, 8.30pm) begins with the potential reorganisation of the entire department, which we think was also a plot line in The Office. On Tuesday, NCIS is having a crossover double-episode with NCIS: New Orleans (Three, 8.30pm). It begins with the theft of a so-called “terror playbook”, and in the second hour, McGee and Torres are sent to New Orleans during Mardi Gras – of course – to investigate.
Wimbledon Qualifying (TVNZ Duke, 10.25pm). The 2017 Wimbledon Championships begin on July 3, but for the first time, the qualifying competition, which runs from June 26-29 at the exclusive Bank of England Sports Centre club in Roehampton, has been opened to the public. There are 1000 tickets available at just £5, which would be an excellent day’s outing with a chance to see the world’s best. New Zealander Michael Venus and American Ryan Harrison, who won the French Open doubles, will again pair up for Wimbledon.
TUESDAY JUNE 27
Close to the Enemy (Rialto, Sky 039, 8.30pm). “Pure Poliakoff,” said the Guardian, which could mean a number of things about this seven-part drama written and directed by the master playwright. If you remember Friends and Crocodiles or Dancing on the Edge, you’ll know Stephen Poliakoff can be frustrating, free-form and obscure but nevertheless bold and challenging. Close to the Enemy is set just after World War II, when an army captain (Jim Sturgess) is tasked with persuading a captured German jet-engine scientist (August Diehl) to work for the British. Most of this persuading takes place in a commandeered hotel, which means Angela Bassett can appear as a jazz singer. Freddie Highmore, Alfred Molina, Lindsay Duncan, Alfie Allen and Phoebe Fox also star. NB: Rialto is unlocking from June 24-30 for basic Sky subscribers.
WEDNESDAY JUNE 28
One Born Every Minute (TVNZ 1, 9.45pm). How times have changed. Television depictions of birth used to feature men pacing and smoking outside a hospital room. Nowadays, the blood, the sweat, the tears and the screaming of the everyday miracle of birth are entirely commonplace. Possibly a good thing: when the offspring ask where do babies come from, a session on the couch with this UK series will do the trick – and may put them off forever.
THURSDAY JUNE 29
Young Hyacinth (UKTV, Sky 007, 8.05pm). There were special updated episodes of Are You Being Served? and Porridge and a live airing of Mrs Brown’s Boys to mark 60 years since Hancock’s Half Hour began on BBC television – and this special, set 40 years before beloved sitcom Keeping Up Appearances, featuring Kerry Howard as a young Hyacinth Walton. It’s written by Roy Clarke, who created Appearances, as well as Last of the Summer Wine and Open All Hours, and he seems to have relished the chance to give Hyacinth a basis for her later pretensions. As it turns out, she was a domestic servant who longed to escape her Northern working-class roots (alcoholic father Mark Addy and three sisters). “Charming, an affectionate coda for a
much-loved programme,” said the Telegraph.
Conviction (Prime, 9.30pm).
Is Hayley Atwell doomed to be the best thing in failing series? Her excellent turn as Peggy Carter in Agent Carter couldn’t save that series from cancellation and she repeats the pattern in this US network show, which lasted just one season. She’s a partying former first daughter, mired in scandal, who is forced into leading an Innocence Project-style unit. So it’s about her redemption as well as making her respectable for her mother’s run for the Senate. However, “it’s maddeningly dumb”, said the Hollywood Reporter, and Atwell’s talent is “wasted and unrecognisable here as she spouts terrible dialogue”.
FRIDAY JUNE 30
Valkyrien (Rialto, Sky 039, 8.30pm). Norway has been slowly joining the Scandinoir revolution, and Valkyrien comes on the heels of Eyewitness and Acquitted (available here on Netflix and Lightbox respectively), both thoroughly moody and glacial-cool. Valkyrien delves into the prepper phenomenon when a doctor (Pål Sverre Hagen) is given the use of a disused subway station to carry on his experimental research, but the price is treating criminals who want to stay off-grid for different reasons. Again, Sky Basic subscribers will have access to Rialto for a week from June 24.