What to watch on Sky and free-to-air TV this week
British dramas old and new abound, and there are plenty of treats in store for Anzac weekend, writes Alex Behan.
Injecting acerbic Aussie humour into a drama about facing death with dignity, The End (Thursday, TVNZ OnDemand) focuses on three generations of wha¯ nau. While juggling her career and supporting her teenage trans son, palliative care specialist Dr Kate Brennan discovers her own mother is trying to find a way to end it all. As she moves her to a retirement home on the Gold Coast, these three stories intertwine, while orbiting the contentious issue of euthanasia.
Call The Midwife
(Saturday, 8.30pm, TVNZ1) was described by Radio Times as ‘‘the torchbearer of feminism on television’’. One of BBC’s most successful properties, as season 10 premieres, season 11 has begun filming and the show has already been commissioned for three more after that. Truly epic.
Anzac Day gets impressive, all-day coverage at Ma¯ ori TV, starting with Auckland’s Dawn Service (Sunday, 5.40am, Ma¯ ori TV) and ending with the movie 25 April
(7.30pm), which animates letters and diaries from six New Zealanders who witnessed horrors at Gallipoli in 1915. Paradise Soldiers
(9am) examines the overlooked contribution of Cook Island soldiers, and Children of Gallipoli brings descendants of Turkish and Kiwi soldiers face-to-face at the scene of the battle to meet and share their common history. The 1949 release of Blue Smoke, the first record wholly produced in Aotearoa is the subject of Pixie (11am) and is followed by Brian Cox’s portrayal of Churchill
(midday). Possibly the most exciting part of the day will be
Te Rongo Toa (5.30pm), a music special, featuring songs of war, presented by the affable Francis Tipene.
Restoring 100-year-old footage with astounding attention to detail and unprecedented technical finesse, They Shall Not Grow Old (Monday, April 26, 8.30pm, TVNZ1) offers World War I as never seen before. Peter Jackson’s team scoured through 100 hours of footage from London’s Imperial War Museum, colourised it, smoothed it out and used lipsync experts to recreate dialogue. It sheds new light and renewed humanity on the sacrifice these soldiers made.
You can get dolled up for the Oscars 2021 (Monday, April 26, from midday, TVNZ2), but pyjamas are also acceptable. The Oscars haven’t had a host since 2018, but are determined to have an inperson ceremony this year, rather than run the show via Zoom. Nomadland is coming in hot after its huge successes at the Baftas, but no-one knows for sure yet whether Anthony Hopkins will be there to collect his best actor gong for The Father.
Tea With The Dames (Monday, April 26, 8.30pm, Ma¯ ori TV) is that game where you can choose to share an afternoon with any living actors and you choose dames Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Eileen Atkins and Joan Plowright. These legends of stage and screen sip Champagne and reminisce about careers and husbands and directors and auditions and laugh and laugh and laugh again.
An investigation into the conservatorship given to her father after she was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital in 2008, Framing Britney Spears
(Monday, April 26, 9pm, Three) also confronts the extreme objectification she endured as she rocketed to the top of the pop charts.
Incessant questions about her breasts and an ongoing obsession with her virginity were just some of the gruesome things she was subjected to by media and this New York Times documentary raises questions about how complicit we, the consumers, are in fuelling destructive behaviour from the press.