Television
The Best of the Week
SATURDAY AUGUST 19
Wild Alaska: Earth’s Frozen Kingdom (TVNZ 1, 7.00pm). More BBC Natural World magic: a year covering one of the most inhospitable areas on Earth, where temperatures range from 90°C to -80°C and there is 24-hour darkness for 65 days a year. The three-parter covers spring, summer and winter; spectacular footage ensues. Dougray Scott, who can be seen in
The Replacement (Sunday), narrates. In other nature-porn news, Planet Earth II (Prime, Sunday, 7.30pm) finishes with a making-of special.
Rugby (Sky Sport 1, Sky 051, 9.30pm). The first game of the 2017 Rugby Championship is also a Bledisloe Cup match: the ABs meet Australia at ANZ Stadium in Sydney. Sonny
Bill Williams is back, after a surprisingly successful appeal over his four-game ban. The second round-one game is overnight in Port Elizabeth, where South Africa host Argentina (Sky Sport 1, 2.55am, Sunday).
SUNDAY AUGUST 20
The Replacement (TVNZ 1, 8.30pm). It’s like going back to the days when Sunday nights were always British psychological thriller night: this three-parter plays on pregnancy fears of alien takeover, with Line of Duty’s Vicky McClure the cuckoo in Morven Christie’s nest. Christie is an architect going on maternity leave and not only does McClure start taking over her job, but she also seems to have designs on her friends, colleagues and psychiatrist husband (Richard Rankin). “I like Hitchcock and stories of paranoia,” says writerdirector Joe Ahearne. Bonus: the series showcases some of the best bits of Glasgow.
Prime Suspect: Tennison (TVNZ 1, 9.45pm). The British trend for reviving vintage dramas with younger versions of the characters has so far yielded just one success – the excellent Endeavour, the prequel to Inspector Morse, which has run to four seasons, with a fifth on the way. A lot of its success is down to a soulful performance by Shaun Evans as the young Endeavour Morse; sadly, the same can’t be said of Stefanie Martini as the young Jane Tennison, although if she were called Petunia and the show was
about a WPC beginning her career at the Hackney cop shop in 1973, it might have worked better. Of course, there’s the weapons-grade sexism of a nearly all-male workplace, but sensibly, not all her colleagues are awful misogynists, in particular the detective (Australian Sam Reid) in charge of the case of a murdered prostitute. Alun Armstrong and Geraldine Somerville also star.
TUESDAY AUGUST 22
American Gothic (Sky Box Sets, Sky 009, 7.30pm). US network CBS was perhaps going for an American Horror Story- lite tale of a wealthy family with a serial killer in their midst; what it got was a less-than-thrilling murder-mystery given a lukewarm reception by reviewers. The cast, however, is good, including New Zealander Antony Starr, who plays the brooding black-sheep brother back after 14 years, coincidentally the same period of time since the last “Silver Bells” killing. Is it him? Too easy, surely. The whole 13-part season screens on Box Sets; there isn’t going to be a season two.
Get Shorty (SoHo, Sky 010, 9.30pm). The same, but different from the 1995 movie and the 1990 novel by Elmore Leonard. Irishman Chris O’Dowd, who usually plays the comedy boyfriend, gets a big break as a mob enforcer who is inspired by a wannabe screenwriter to give Hollywood a shot. Black comedy beatings, bodies and blackmail ensue; whether this genre is tapped out will depend on the skills of creator Davey Holmes, who has done sterling work in the past on the likes of Shameless and Damages. Ray Romano plays a vein-popping studio producer and Rectify’s Sean Bridgers plays O’Dowd’s fellow mob muscle.
WEDNESDAY AUGUST 23
HOMEmade (TVNZ 1, 7.30pm). Now that MasterChef Australia has finished, Wednesday night is makeover night: Rachel Hunter deals with body and soul at 8.00pm, and Goran Paladin, Melissa Greenough, Dan Mackay and Dion South are doing a dwelling refurb for one lucky (?) family beforehand. The quartet have 48 hours to renovate one room and one garden area before the family are brought back to express their surprise and/or shock at what these strangers have done to their home. In other house-porn news, new series Unreal Estate (TVNZ 1, Tuesday, 7.30pm) pokes around lavish Australian homes and their owners.
Rachel Hunter’s Tour of Beauty (TVNZ 1, 8.00pm). Hah, we see what they did there. Tour of Beauty, we get it. It’s her duty to bring us beauty! Good to see unemployed solo mum Rachel Hunter getting out of the house for another season
of her health and well-being series. Last season, she was searching for health and beauty treatments in places as diverse as Fiji and Morocco – perhaps there’s not enough “beauty” in New Zealand. This season, it’s the Americas and the Caribbean, from Miami to Machu Picchu.
Back Benches (Prime, 9.30pm). Like it or lump it, Auckland cannot be ignored, as recent transport policy announcements have demonstrated. Back Benches’ annual Auckland special comes from the Britomart Country Club (not really a country club) and features Judith “Crusher” Collins, Jacinda “Personality” Ardern, Julie Anne “Carpool” Genter and Shane “Second Chance” Taurima, with Mayor Phil Goff fronting up too.
FRIDAY AUGUST 25
Berlin Station (SoHo, Sky 010, 8.30pm). The HBO effect continues: another US cable channel is testing the waters of scripted drama. Berlin Station comes from Epix, a channel you’ve never heard of but which also produced the Nick Nolte drama Graves (available on TVNZ OnDemand).
It’s created by espionage novelist Olen Steinhauer, who once told the New York Times Book Review that his favourite spy novel is John le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Consequently, it features a leak in – you guessed it – the CIA’s office in Berlin. Richard Armitage is dispatched to winkle out the whistleblower, who is sending information to an Edward Snowden-type figure. The landscape is populated with some interesting characters, including Rhys Ifans’ louche agent, Michelle Forbes’ tough office administrator and Richard Jenkins’ embattled station chief.
Bonus: the series showcases Berlin.