Television
The Best of the Week
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 9
Shark: Beneath the Surface (TVNZ 1, 7.00pm). All manner of sharks, safely contained in the television (the best kind). This BBC two-parter captures shark behaviour, from the blacktip sharks that herd fish into easily chomped-on balls to the great whites that spectacularly hunt fur seals. But they’re more than cruising sets of teeth: cameras capture shark mating behaviour, ways of bringing up their young and their prowess at navigation.
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 10
Victoria (TVNZ 1, 8.30pm). Huzzah, the second season of the life and times of Queen Victoria gets its own Dowager Countess of Grantham or, for
Game of Thrones
fans, Olenna
Tyrell. The latest addition to the royal household is Diana
Rigg, who plays the acidic and witty Mistress of the Robes. As the season begins, Victoria (Jenna Coleman) is frustrated at the medieval traditions enforced after the birth of her daughter and increasingly annoyed with Albert (Tom Hughes) and Prime Minister Robert Peel (Nigel Lindsay). Fan favourite Rupert Sewell is returning in his role as Lord Melbourne, and as the show is so popular in the UK, it has received the ultimate distinction: a Christmas special.
MONDAY SEPTEMBER 11
The Deuce (SoHo, Sky 010, 1.00pm and 8.30pm). The Wire’s David Simon turns his attention to the beginnings of the porn industry in New York in the 1970s: results are, as they say, NSFW. Simon, who is once again collaborating with crime writer George Pelecanos, typically features a wide range of characters, from prostitutes and pimps
to the cops and mafia. James Franco does double duty as twins who become involved with the industry and Maggie Gyllenhaal is a prostitute who can see the potential of a career change. The series is confronting, although Simon rejects notions of exploitation, telling IndieWire that “it would be a mistake to think that we are in any way trafficking in misogynistic imagery or objectification as one of the currencies driving the show”.
Tin Star (Three, 8.30pm). It looks as if Tim Roth has found another outlet for the nervous energy that made him so memorable in such films as Pulp Fiction and, well, just about everything. In this “British western”, he’s a retired London detective who has taken his family to the Canadian Rockies for the quiet life as a small-town police chief.
It’s not to be, of course – this isn’t Northern Exposure – and when violence is done to his family, Roth unleashes a vicious alter ego. There is also an influx of migrant workers to contend with, brought in by a new oil operation – Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks plays the corporate liaison. The 10-part Rowan Joffé-created series also stars Irish actress Genevieve O’Reilly, Ian Puleston-Davies from Coronation Street and Orphan Black’s Kevin Hanchard.
Road to 9/11 (History, Sky 073, 8.30pm). The 9/11 documentaries aren’t as numerous as they once were, but we still might like to reflect on how the world has changed since four passenger planes were hijacked and flown at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon 16 years ago. This three-part series looks back on the forces that shaped the Middle East, starting with the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I and the carving up of the region by the British and French. It also looks at the historical roots of al Qaeda and the theological and political background of Osama bin Laden.
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 12
The White Princess (Prime, 8.30pm). History, Philippa Gregory-style, and now that the Wars of the Roses are over, Richard III having been dispatched on Bosworth Field and buried in a Leicester car park, this sequel to The White Queen turns to the marriage of Elizabeth of York (Jodie Comer) to Henry VII (Jacob Collins-Levy). Naturally, the mothers are scheming – Margaret Beaufort ( Game of Thrones’ Michelle Fairley) on Henry’s side and Dowager Queen Elizabeth Woodville (Essie Davis) on Lizzie’s – and there is a historically questionable story about Lizzie’s brother Richard, having survived the Tower and planning to take the throne. It’s not a Game of Thrones- level production – nothing on television is – but as 15th-century soap operas go, it’s not bad.
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 13
SAS: Who Dares Wins (Prime, 8.30pm). A group of fit blokes attempt to become the manliest of men in the Amazon rainforest. Well, as close as the five former UK Special Forces soldiers can recreate the SAS selection process, anyway. There are combat-fitness tests, mind games, “interrogations” and … essays, because it’s the psychological test that’s really tough. Madness.
American Horror Story: Cult (SoHo, Sky 010, 8.30pm). Ryan Murphy sets the seventh season of his batshit-crazy
anthology series in the wake of last year’s US election result, but although the jumpingoff point is Donald Trump’s ascent, the season is really about how “a cult of personality can rise in a divided society”, he told Variety. Evan Peters, who has been in every season so far, will play a series of cult leaders, including Charles Manson, Jim Jones and David Koresh, and Lena Dunham guest-stars as Valerie Solanas, who attempted to murder Andy Warhol in 1968. “That episode is about the female rage then and in the country now,” says Murphy.
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 14
Broad City (Comedy Central, Sky 011, 10.00pm). The return of reprobate stoner queens Ilana and Abbi (Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson). Who knows what crazy New York adventures those gals will get up to in season four, but it has been revealed that, like Voldemort, they will never mention their new president’s name out loud. “There’s no airtime for this orange person,” Jacobson told USA Today. “We bleep his name the whole season.”
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 15
Paula (TVNZ 1, 8.30pm). The week’s second sighting of Tom Hughes, although the correct German manners of Prince Albert are gone, replaced with a more stalkery vibe. In this slightly mad three-part revenge thriller, Paula (Denise Gough) is targeted by James (Hughes) the psycho handyman, after a stupid shag at her house. “Dark, claustrophobic and menacing,” said the Guardian.