Actor testing the boundaraies
PICKOFTHEWEEK Theduchess, Netflix
Is there a limit tohow unlikeable a comedian can maketheirowncharacter before people start putting their footdownand refusing to watch their show?
Katherine Ryan seems to be testing the boundaries in her newnetflix series The Duchess, but luckily she’s funny enough to get awaywith it.
Bestknownfor her two Netflix stand-up specials (In Trouble and Glitterroom) and appearances on various
British panel shows, Ryan plays a version of herself that could loosely be described as Evil Lorelai Gilmore. That is, a free-spirited singlemum whosebest friend is, slightly unhealthily, her precocious 9-year-old daughter Olive (Katy Byrne).
Her other best friend is her business partner, and probably the show’s funniest character, Bev (Michelle de Swarte), withwhomshe shares a boutique ceramic business that seems to exclusively produce vases with boobs. Throwolive’s dad, Shep (Rory Keenan), into the mix, an exboy bandmemberwholives on ahouseboat and looks like if Gary Barlow wasinthe cast of Trainspotting, andhernew man, the extremely lovely dentist Evan (Australian comedian Steen Raskopoulos), whoshe insists on keeping at arm’s length despitehimbeing the perfect boyfriend, andwe can fit the show’s core cast into a single car.
Katherine wants another baby. She could always commit to lovely Evan and start a family with him, but instead decides to pursue every single other avenue available, and ultimately chooses the worst possible option— to have another child with her ex, whoshe absolutely hates. The easy-to watch six-episode series (still the optimal series length, and one of The Duchess’ biggest selling points) follows her on that ill-advised and selfdestructive journey. She might be hard to like a lot of the time, but it’s also hard not to laugh.
WORTHWATCHING Pen15, Neon
They say if you want a job done right you’ve got to do it yourself, a philosophy Pen15 creatorsannakonkle and Mayaerskine embraced wholeheartedlywhenthey decided to play their tweenage selves in their semiautobiographical early-2000s setcomedyseries.
They embodied their ungainly characters so well it madewhat could potentially have been aweird and distracting gimmick into one of the show’s strongest selling points. Season one wasone of the bestnewcomedies in ages, and season two, which just arrived onneon hot off the Hulu servers on Friday, looks just as good.
Inside, Prime, 8.30pm Thursday
Originally scheduled to screen theweekauckland returned to alert level 3, and pushed back a fewweeks for obvious reasons, newlocal series Inside is set in the middle of a second waveof a deadly virus. Tech expert Rose (Morgana O’reilly) has her reclusive lockdown world of careful hygiene practices rockedwhenshe accidentallybumpsinto her former school bully (Sam
Snedden) over a newrival to Zoom. He seems remorseful, but things soon start to get a little unnerving, and the all too realistic pandemic backdrop only adds to the sense of paranoia.
MOVIEOFTHEWEEK Myoctopusteacher, Netflix
About 10 years ago film-maker Craig Foster wasburned out and needed a change of pace. So hemovedhis family back
to where he grew up, by the ocean at the tip of South Africa, and took updiving. That’s where he met andbefriended an octopus.
Myoctopus Teacher is a beautiful, gentle, moving documentary about that remarkable relationship between aman and the octopus that seemed to genuinely enjoy hanging out withhimin the kelp forests.
FROMTHEVAULT Romancingthe Stone (1984), TVNZDUKE, 9pmtuesday
Michael Douglas is one of those actorswhoseems like they’ve been old forever.
But checkhim out in 1984’s Romancing the Stone— relatively young, surprisingly handsome. He plays a rugged and adventurous bird hunter (!) whocomes to the rescue of a romancenovelist (Kathleen Turner) whenshe gets into somestrife in Colombia. Good old-fashioned romantic, adventurous fun.