Television
The Best of the Week
TUESDAY NOVEMBER 26
The Abused (TVNZ 1, 8.45pm). Could be triggering, as they say in the modern parlance. A UK documentary for White Ribbon Day on November 25 featuring two women in Norfolk who were attacked by their partners in the same week. Hazel and Kelly bravely speak out about their experiences and the documentary follows police during the initial response to their calls. “An alarmingly intimate insight into what it’s really like to go through domestic abuse and then have to deal with the aftermath,” said one online reviewer. Similarly heart-wrenching is Behind Closed Doors: Through the
Eyes of the Child (CI, Sky 071, Saturday, 9.30pm), in which UK director Anna Hall follows up on her Bafta-nominated 2016 documentary, meeting four children in Oxfordshire who have witnessed family violence and exploring the ongoing effects of their experiences.
WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 27
Hamish & Andy’s Perfect Holiday (TVNZ 2, 8.30pm). More antics from those cheeky Aussie chappies Hamish Blake and Andy Lee, who were last seen annoying the world on their Gap Year. In this three-parter, they set each other activities on a trip that spans Canada to Colorado. Among the many delights are figure-8 bus racing in
Washington; an auctioneering school in Dallas; and an almost inevitable search for Bigfoot in Canada.
Hawaii Five-0 (Three, 9.35pm). The remake show gives a nod to its original when a case that John McGarrett
never solved comes back to haunt his son, Steve (Alex O’Loughlin). A hitman with dementia (Frankie Faison) wants to show Steve where all the bodies are buried. Cue flashbacks (square-jawed actor Ryan Bittle plays a young
John McGarrett) and a lot of digging. The keen-eyed may have noticed that O’Loughlin slipped into the director’s chair last week; this week, it’s the turn of Jennifer Lynch, daughter of David.
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 28
Hairy Bikers’ Chicken & Egg (Choice TV, 4.30pm). Gosh, they get around, those hairy chefs. This six-part series takes in the UK, France, Morocco, the US and Israel. Do they take their bikes with them? Do they hire some when they get there? We don’t know! David Myers and Si King explore the world’s most versatile meat and most useful ingredient, from classic roast chicken to Scotch eggs, jerk chicken, pastry, ice-cream and shakshuka. In other foodie news, Choice TV is getting in early on the Christmas-season cooking shows with Simply Nigella: Christmas Special (Sunday, 4.30pm), in which
Our Lady of the Kitchen produces black treacle ham with potato and pepper bake and sweet-and-sour vegetable slaw. She also prepares a trio of cakes that are way too difficult to make at home.
Mrs Fletcher (SoHo2, Sky 210, 8.30pm). If there’s one issue that television drama has been grappling with in the post-#metoo era it’s modern sexual mores, and this limited series, created by Tom Perrotta ( The Leftovers) from his most recent novel, explores two comings-of-age (pardon the pun). One is divorcée Eve Fletcher (the great Kathryn Hahn), facing an empty nest when her son Brendan (Jackson White) goes to college and exploring the sex life she never had in her younger days, and the other is Brendan, whose insular, privileged world is given a shake-up.
Meet the Mennonites (Sky Arts, Sky 020, 9.30pm). You might think that the small Central American country of Belize was isolated enough for the ultra-conservative Christian
communities of Mennonites who live there, but this documentary follows a breakaway group from a community known as Little Belize as they set up a new colony in the Peruvian jungle. Some members of the group are worried that their community has become tainted – they expelled their doctor for using a mobile phone – and want to remain true to their original doctrine.
Louis Theroux: Mothers on the Edge (Prime, 9.45pm). Even the usually impassive Louis Theroux is thrown by what he finds in two specialist units in the UK that treat postpartum depression and other mental illness in new mothers. It was difficult for him to believe that mums could have no feeling for their babies, telling one, “I think you do love him,” and questioning his own biases: “I wondered about my urge not to believe a woman could be indifferent to her own child.” It’s a subject that is not often explored; another valuable contribution from the immersive documentarian.
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 29
MasterChef Australia (TVNZ 1, 7.30pm). It’s the final! And we thought it went on forever. The top three are tasked with creating a three-course menu for 20 diners; the winner takes home a handy A$250,000 – nearly $280,000 in our money
– a fancy car and a column in a food magazine. Fans of the show may already know that this will be the final appearance of judges Matt Preston, Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris, who were unable to come to an agreement with Network 10 over the terms of their contracts. The new judges for season 12 next year are Jock Zonfrillo, the owner and chef of a restaurant in Adelaide; Andy Allen, who won season four of MasterChef Australia and has had much success with his own restaurants; and the series’ first female judge, Melissa Leong, who is a food writer and broadcaster.
The Feed (TVNZ OnDemand).
It sounds like Black Mirror: all of humanity is connected by technology implanted in the brain, although perhaps, as this British thriller is 10 episodes, it will be able to more deeply explore the implications of our connected world. It worked for Russell Davies’ Years and Years. The Feed is based on the novel of the same name by Nick Clark Windo and stars David Thewlis as the creator of
“the Feed”; Game of Thrones’ Michelle Fairley as his CEO wife; and Guy Burnet and Nina Toussaint-White as their son and daughter-in-law, who have been trying to live off the grid – or the Feed, as the saying goes. Incredibly, an implant in the brain may not be the next stage in human evolution and things start going horribly wrong when users become violent and murder-y. The writer, Channing Powell, worked on The Walking Dead for five seasons, which gives you an indication of where it could be going.