Television
The Best of the Week
SATURDAY JULY 1
Emerald City (TV2, 8.40pm).
A reimagining of The Wizard of Oz that is neither fish nor fowl: too dark for kids, but too silly for adults. US network NBC seemed to be trying to capture the Game of Thrones/Once Upon a Time audience and brought on board Mirror Mirror director Tarsem Singh, but ended up with a joyless mess. Adria Arjona is Dorothy, a nurse, who is transported to Oz in a police car, apparently for the sole purpose of accidentally running down the
Wicked Witch of the East.
She helps a crucified man cov- ered in straw, and gets involved in a fight between witches (including Joely Richardson as Glinda) and the Wizard (Vincent D’Onofrio in an outrageous beard), who prefers science to magic.
SUNDAY JULY 2
Survivor New Zealand (TVNZ 2, 7.00pm, and Monday-Wednesday, 7.30pm). Finals week, which sounds like exams, but is actually the end of Survivor New Zealand, for this year anyway. On Wednesday, TVNZ is going all-out with a two-hour live event from the Civic Theatre in Auckland, where there will be plenty of chat with
the 16 Survivors before the winner is announced. The prize is $100,000.
MONDAY JULY 3
Moonlighting (Jones! too, Sky 208, 8.30pm weeknights). Jones! nostalgia cup runneth over: a second channel, Jones! too, launches on July 1 and will be available as part of the basic subscription. Moonlighting, often considered to be the original dramedy, runs weeknights and is followed by another American classic, The Golden Girls. Moonlighting did many things that we wouldn’t blink at today: it broke the fourth wall; it made film and television references; and it featured fantasy sequences, such as in The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice, in which both Bruce
Willis and Cybill Shepherd sing in a 1940s nightclub.
Alan Bennett’s Diaries (Sky Arts, Sky 020, 8.30pm). The week’s third octogenarian: the wonderfully wry playwright and author, whose body of work stretches from the 1960s to today, is captured at home and abroad in this BBC documentary. Over the course of a year, there’s a visit to New York and to his community library in Primrose Hill, the barber and his home in Yorkshire. There are reflections on his background, poverty, trains, Brexit and the politics of modern Britain and he discusses family photographs and reads from pieces of paper he keeps as a diary, which are heroically interpreted by a typist named Sue.
Blue Bloods (Three, 9.25pm). The Hollywood Reporter might have thought that Blue Bloods was an allegory for the Bush dynasty “and its tangled web of fathers and sons”, but it was the only one ascribing any higher themes to what is essentially an old-fashioned procedural cop show crossed with a family saga. It really is like turning back the clock, and perhaps the family name gives us a clue to when: the crime-fighting Reagans, who include Henry (Len Cariou), who was once police commissioner; Frank (Tom Selleck), who is currently police commissioner; and Frank’s kids, Jamie, Erin and Danny, who are, respectively, a rookie cop, a lawyer and a detective. It’s undoubtedly popular in the US, possibly in the red states; here’s the fifth of seven seasons.
Wimbledon 2017 (TVNZ 1, 11.00pm). Insomniacs and night owls rejoice: the Wimbledon Championships are live overnight on TVNZ 1 and TVNZ Duke from tonight. Preggers Serena Williams will not be playing, leaving the women’s field open; defending champion Andy Murray will be looking for a second successive win.
TUESDAY JULY 4
Brexit Stage Left (Viceland, Sky 013, 8.30pm). Finally, something funny about
Brexit. Four young British comedians (Jamali Maddix, Fern Brady, Alfie Brown and Sean McLoughlin) pop across to Europe to gauge the response. They visit Dublin, Berlin, Copenhagen and Amsterdam. Incredibly, no one’s that bothered. “The Dutch didn’t seem to care much about anything,” McLoughlin says in an online interview. If anything, the European perception of Britain has improved. “The British have always been viewed as boorish ingrates. Now we are boorish ingrates with a certain get-up-and-go.”
THURSDAY JULY 6
The Wizard of Lies (SoHo, Sky 010, 8.30pm). Even Robert De Niro does television now: in this HBO drama, he portrays Bernie Madoff, the perpetrator of the largest Ponzi scheme in US history. Rather than detail the intricacies of Madoff’s perfidy, director Barry Levinson focuses on the Madoff family as the edifice begins to crumble. De Niro is quietly intense, with moments of brutishness, and although his Madoff is rather opaque, his lack of remorse is chilling. Another screen great, Michelle Pfeiffer, plays Ruth Madoff, whose exclusive moneyed world disintegrates in the wake of the scandal (her hairdresser won’t
make house calls!), and Hank Azaria plays Madoff’s partner in crime Frank DiPascali, who knew the extent of the bookcooking and did it anyway.
FRIDAY JULY 7
Murdoch Mysteries (Vibe, Sky 006, 7.30pm). A mystery and a history lesson in one: the Canadian series features real historical references or events – at the beginning of season
10, it’s the Great Fire of 1904, which destroyed a large section of downtown Toronto.
The show, which features the adventures of Detective William Murdoch (Yannick Bisson), has also fictionalised Mark Twain (played by William Shatner), Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison and Winston Churchill, among others, and the former Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, has guest-starred. No wonder it’s been renewed for an 11th season.
Bones (Prime, 8.30pm). So far is Bones off the radar, we were under the impression it was all over, but no – here’s the 12th and final season. It’s going to be a nostalgia trip for fans, with guest appearances (Stephen Fry, Betty White, Ed Asner and Hal Holbrook) and a focus on Booth’s military past. “We have opened up the past and hopefully resolved huge issues for the characters,” executive producer Jonathan Collier told TV Guide. Emily Deschanel (Brennan) and David Boreanaz (Booth) direct the first and last episodes respectively; although there were hints that this might not be the final season, Boreanaz has another gig – on upcoming military drama SEAL Team.