Te Awa-Bird sisters take flight Keith
TV Guide’s
picks out the best on the box for the week ahead.
Diplomatic mission
If winning the MasterChef New Zealand title doesn’t guarantee you a job in a restaurant, there’s always the possibility of a TV career, as 2014 MasterChef winners, Karena and Kasey Te Awa-Bird, are proving with their new series Karena and Kasey’s Kitchen Diplomacy, starting this week. Not only that, it’s a job with a lot of overseas travel, as the sisters drop in on various New Zealand ambassadors in foreign climes to be handed exotic cuisine challenges in those countries. Nice work if you can get it. And they did!
TV One, Sunday, 8pm
A Happy Brown New Year
If you thought that the Mrs Brown’s Boys craze had run its course, think again. The most outrageous family in Dublin is back for a spot of out-of-season festive cheer with Mrs Brown’s Boys: Mammy’s Punch this week. As usual, chaos and colourful language reigns in the Brown household, as Mark and Betty are at each other’s throats and Buster is installing an unusual Christmas tree.
TV One, Sunday, 8.30pm
A star fades
Glen Campbell burst on to the airwaves in the 1970s and earned a huge international following with memorable songs such as Rhinestone Cowboy and Galveston, and kept a devoted following for four decades. But a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease in 2011 came as a shock and threatened to end his career. Undeterred, Campbell set out on an unprecedented farewell tour of the US that lasted 18 months and 151 sold-out shows. The Prime Rocks doco, Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me, is the story of that now-legendary tour.
Prime, Tuesday, 8.30pm
Hawaii Five-Over-80s
Series five of Hawaii Five-O has gone for a bit of veteran star power in its debut episode this week, with Carol Burnett returning as Steve McGarret’s Aunt Deb. Not only that, Deb has a new beau in tow, in the form of none other than Four Seasons’ lead singer, Frankie Valli, who plays Deb’s new fiance, Leonard Cassano. We feel a song coming on. With those two, how could they not?
TV3, Wednesday, 9.30pm
Singin’ Cyndi
There’s a blast from the past on this week’s Tonight At The London Palladium, with 1980s pop superstar Cyndi Lauper taking the stage, along with Ronan Keating, and dance troupe Diversity – winners of Britain’s Got Talent in 2009. It was Diversity that pipped Susan Boyle for the BGT title that year and, if you haven’t seen them since, they’ve grown up a bit. As for Cyndi – well, at 63, the girl’s still having fun!
TV One, Saturday, 7.30pm.