Television
The Best of the Week
SATURDAY AUGUST 12
Deer Devils (Prime, 11.10pm).
If you didn’t catch it the first time, we recommended this local doco about the early days of the deer industry, when there were no rules and the money was big. It began with culling the introduced red deer that had become a menace by the 1950s, then morphed into venison export before “live capture” using helicopters became a thing. Throughout, shooters and pilots were making it up on the fly, so to speak, and the old hands had a saying, “Get your suit pressed”, meaning be ready for a funeral.
SUNDAY AUGUST 13
Both Worlds (Three, 10.55am). The challenges of being both young and in between two (or more) cultures are captured in this eight-part series featuring Kiwis from migrant and refugee backgrounds. The stories include the children of Chinese, South African, Iraqi, Egyptian and Japanese immigrants; today’s story features Favour Ukah, an aspiring fashion designer who wants her collection to be modern but also embrace her Congolese heritage.
Rugby (Sky Sport 1, Sky 051, 10.50pm). The Black Ferns play two pool games this week at the Rugby World Cup: against Hong Kong today, and Canada on Thursday (Sky Sport 1, 10.50pm).
The games will be played at Billings Park in Dublin, which usually has a tiny 2000 capacity. However, tickets have been in hot demand, especially for the home team’s games, so the organisers are planning to increase capacity for both Billings Park and the 3000-seat UCD Bowl.
MONDAY AUGUST 14
Tate Britain’s Great British Walks (Sky Arts, Sky 020, 8.30pm). Scenes of pastoral Britain come to life in this six-part series in which cultural historian Gus Casely-Hayford takes well-known Brits into the landscapes of their favourite painters. Amazingly, many of the locations still exist relatively untouched, such as the area around Flatford Mill where John Constable grew up then famously captured many times. As Constable is Richard E Grant’s favourite painter, he and Casely-Hayford take a stroll in the artist’s footsteps. Others doing the same are
Michael Sheen (Josef Herman), Miriam Margolyes (Alfred Wallis), Danny Baker (William Hogarth), Cerys Matthews (JMW Turner) and Simon Callow (William Powell Frith).
Hunted UK (TVNZ 1, 9.30pm). Evidently, it’s a night for British reality TV, although unlike those on Love Island (below), contestants on Hunted UK are charged with becoming invisible, to do a Jason Bourne and evade capture by surveillance experts who have, it is claimed, technologies usually available to the authorities, such as CCTV tracking and number-plate recognition.
It’s scary stuff: the team of 30 investigators is led by a past head of counterterrorism for the City of London Police and there are former spies, intelligence analysts and cybersecurity experts in the ranks. The “fugitives”, on the other hand, are ordinary people, such as a GP, a teaching assistant and a plumber. The series raises questions of surveillance versus privacy and whether it is possible to disappear. One contestant became so paranoid after 28 days on the run, she needed therapy when it was over.
Love Island (TVNZ 2, 9.30pm weeknights). Never have so many words been written, opinions shared and pontifications proffered about a reality show since Big Brother, probably. The canny will have already caught this salaciously exploitative UK show on TVNZ OnDemand and now we are to be graced with its presence every weeknight. If reviews are to be believed, it took over a Britain desperate for distraction from Brexit, Donald Trump and the election: at a luxury resort in Mallorca, thoroughly buff and overly groomed contestants must quickly couple up or be “dumped”. They share beds, and sometimes stuff happens under the covers.
It’s all filmed. In the UK, opinions ranged from “sneak porn” to “a de-stressing watch”.
American Crime (TVNZ 1, 11.10pm). In another’s hands, this anthology series could fall into didacticism, but this is 12 Years a Slave writer John Ridley, who builds his stories layer by layer. Race and prejudice are at the heart of the stories and in the third season, Ridley (who wrote the first two episodes) is tackling the exploitation of illegal immigrants and the trafficking of young women. Felicity Huffman and Dallas Roberts play the owners of a large industrial farm employing migrants, and series regulars Lili Taylor, Timothy Hutton and Regina King also star. Both Huffman and King have been nominated for this year’s Emmys – King has already won two for the series.
TUESDAY AUGUST 15
Witnesses (Rialto, Sky 039, 8.30pm). Because there just aren’t enough Scandi-noir-influenced crime shows with flawed protagonists, here’s
season two of the French series that was big in its home country and well received elsewhere. Marie Dompnier takes the lead in season two (Thierry Lhermitte from season one does not appear) in the investigation into the deaths of 15 (15!) men, found frozen on a bus. The connection seems to be a woman missing for three years (Audrey Fleurot, who was in French crime series Spiral ) who is discovered nearby in her car. L’horreur, l’horreur …
FRIDAY AUGUST 18
Location Location Location (TVNZ 1, 7.30pm). Controversial property expert and “wexiter” Kirstie Allsopp returns with a new season of house hunting. Her recent declaration
(via Twitter) that washing machines in kitchens are “disgusting” caused quite a stir, as well as accusations of snobbery and class privilege. “This is what Britain now is,” said one columnist, “an isolated island in which the biggest issue is what your washing machine says about you.”
7 Days (Three, 9.00pm). This week’s gimmick: a Bledisloe Cup-inspired show in which Kiwi comedians take on Aussies. The panel consist of Dai Henwood, Paul Ego and Bryce Casey versus Chopper, Joel Creasey and the woman they’re allowing into the clubhouse this week, Mel Buttle. The first Bledisloe Cup game, which is also the opener for the 2017 Rugby Championship series, is on August 19. British panel show QI (Prime, Tuesday, 9.45pm) sometimes lets two women appear on the show at the same time, although this week it’s just one: Sandi Toksvig, who joins Jason Manford and The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah.