Television
The Best of the Week
SATURDAY APRIL 4
The Queen’s Green Planet (Prime, 6.00pm). Simpler times; and they were only last year. A repeat of the programme in which HM and Sir David Attenborough toddle around the garden at Buckingham Palace and discuss her initiative to create a network of protected forests across the Commonwealth. Meanwhile, Prince Harry – remember him? – is seen on a visit to a project in the Caribbean. “It’s what our family does,” he says. “We travel the world planting trees.” Billy Connolly may be exploring the Scots’ trail in the US over on TVNZ 1 (Thursday, 8.45pm), but Billy Connolly: Made in Scotland (also repeating on Prime,
Saturday, 8.30pm) is lovely and elegiac.
SUNDAY APRIL 5
Charles: 50 Years as a Prince (Living, Sky 017, 7.35pm).
That’s quite a sad title, although the documentary purports to be a celebration of the half-century Charles has been Prince of Wales. We do get to see Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall on their annual Welsh tour
and at their secluded home of Llwynywermod, just outside Brecon Beacons National Park in Carmarthenshire, south-west Wales.
MONDAY APRIL 6
Dog Squad (TVNZ 1, 8.00pm). How much do we like dogs on TV? That’s rhetorical. Season 10 of Dog Squad will again feature Delta team’s
Stu and Dakota and Paul and Falon – and newbies Dan and Kong.
TUESDAY APRIL 7
The Great British Bake Off (Prime, 7.30pm). Now we know why New Zealanders are buying up all the flour; not some misguided notion about baking our own bread,
but in readiness for the new season of Bake Off. Season 10 begins, quite rightly, with cake – fruit cake, angel cakes and the birthday cake that the bakers always dreamed of as a child. Enjoy co-host Sandi Toksvig, as this will be her last season; she is being replaced by Matt Lucas. Noel Fielding, Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith remain. Perhaps in a similar let’s-all-stay-in-and-bake spirit, three new cooking shows launch on Choice TV: in Ainsley’s Caribbean Kitchen (Saturday, 4.30pm), Ainsley Harriott explores his roots in the Caribbean and the wonderful food found there;
Rachel Allen: All Things Sweet (Monday, 5.00pm) features the Irish chef whipping up treats in her home in County Cork; and Canadian chef Jessica McGovern goes big on the retro styling in her baking series Flour Power (Wednesday, 5.00pm). But wait, there’s more things that are terribly bad for us: Extreme Chocolate Makers Easter Special (TVNZ 1, Good Friday, 7.00pm) features more chocolate than it should be legal to have in one place.
Twin (Rialto, Sky 039, 8.30pm). If you enjoyed Wildlings leader Tormund Giantsbane in Game
of Thrones, how about two of him? Kristofer Hivju and his magnificent beard are back in their native Norway to play twins in this identity-swap drama series – although it’s not a spoiler to reveal that the successful twin is knocked off in the first episode and the loser surfer twin takes over his life. The scenery is spectacular and the New York Times called Twin one of the “50 shows you need to watch this winter”.
WEDNESDAY APRIL 8
Liar (TVNZ OnDemand). Ioan Gruffudd’s nasty Andrew is gone but not forgotten in
the second season of Liar, which focuses on the investigation into his murder. If you watched the first season, you’ll know that Andrew was a wrong ’un after all, and he was last seen face up in a salt marsh with his throat cut. But now Laura (Joanne Froggatt), who accused him of rape in the first season, is a suspect, although there are plenty of people – men and women – on that list. Creators Harry and Jack Williams ( The Missing and Rellik) skip around the timeline in the three weeks before the discovery of Andrew’s body, which allows screentime for Gruffudd despite his character’s demise. Some UK critics found the whodunit nature of this second season less than compelling, however.
Flights from Hell (Prime, 8.30pm). Ha, ha! We don’t care!
THURSDAY APRIL 9
America’s Opioid-fuelled Epidemic (Vice, Sky 013, 7.30pm). This confronting Vice documentary focuses on the poor town of Huntington, West Virginia, which has a hepatitis C infection rate five times higher than the national average – caused by sharing dirty needles or blood-to-blood contact.
The state is also in economic decline and its medical services are under severe strain. Did they vote for Donald Trump in 2016? Yes, they did.
GOOD FRIDAY
Go Further South (Prime, 7.30am). When we say that it’s an epic journey, it’s not
hyperbole. The 12-hour
“slow TV” show Go South was so popular last year, that the creators are setting out again from where they left off last time, Bluff. The trip encompasses Stewart Island, subantarctic Snares, Auckland and Campbell islands and crosses the Southern Ocean into the Ross Sea. Producer Spencer Stoner says there were many spectacular sights, including albatrosses, a pod of orca whales, penguins, historic huts and even the occasional human.
Noughts + Crosses (TVNZ OnDemand). The influence of Malorie Blackman’s reverseracism series on a generation of British youth may be difficult to gauge, but British rapper Stormzy called them his favourite books of all time and just last year, the BBC included the first book, Noughts & Crosses, in its 100 Most Inspiring Novels. That novel appeared in 2001, so there may well be an adult audience for this BBC adaptation, although the Romeo and Juliet of the story are in their teens. Callum (Jack Rowan) a Nought and Sephy (Masali Baduza) is a Cross in a world where the colonisers are from Africa and there are Jim Crow-style rules to keep the races apart. Their illicit relationship puts both of them in danger, especially as Callum’s family are part of a Nought paramilitary group.
Restoration Workshop (Choice TV, 6.30pm). Not unlike The Repair Shop on TVNZ 1 (Friday, 7.30pm), but with an added pecuniary element. Antiques dealer Gary Wallis and team fix up objects in a workshop in Henley on Thames, turning them into works of art for the high-end interiors market.