Documentaries
My Year With Helen (Three, Thursday, 9.30pm) documents what might have been the beginning of a remarkable new chapter for Helen Clark – her campaign to become the United Nations’ first female Secretary-General. She didn’t get the job, but director Gaylene Preston’s absorbing, slightly uneven film has become entwined with Clark’s new life as a roving commentator and activist for Things That Need Doing – a kind of feminist conversation-starter at every screening she attends with Preston.
The Fast and Furious film franchise has become a byword
for compulsive sequel production, but the death of original star Paul Walker in 2013 provoked a public response that suggested a real attachment to the films. The featurelength I Am Paul Walker (Three, Monday, 8.30pm) depicts a compassionate, thoughtful man who used his share of the films’ multibillion-dollar box office to help environmental and humanitarian causes.
The franchise is due to wrap
in 2021, two decades after it began, with a 10th and final film, but don’t fret: there are several spin-offs in development, including an animated series for Netflix.
Some days, pictures of cute baby animals are all that make the internet bearable. The Animal Babies series (Prime, Saturday, 7.30pm) brings the love to TV. First up, it’s the baby elephants, cheetahs and zebras of the African savannah.