As one drama ends . .
TV Guide’s Keith Sharp picks out the best on the box for the week ahead.
Tiger, tiger
Here’s a documentary guaranteed to have that ‘‘aaahhh’’ factor. Tigers About The House is a fourpart, BBC production following Australian zookeeper Giles Clark, who makes a habit of fostering the zoo’s big cats at home – before they get too big, that is. This time, he’s looking after two rare and endangered Sumatran Tiger cubs by giving up the family room and treating them the way he would human babies: night feeds, nappy changing, bathing and bottle sterilising. And the cubs’ names? Stripe. . .and Spot. Poor Spot – he’ll never get the joke.
Prime, Wednesday, 7.30pm
My word, it’s Jaquie Brown
TV quiz and game shows seem to be making a bit of comeback, thanks in part to shows like QI and Would I Lie To You?, so TVNZ has jumped on the bandwagon with a new one, entitled Word Up. Jaquie Brown is the host of the show, which features a variety of comedians, celebrity guests and even members of the public, who must score points in games based around a single word of the week. Jaquie at least scores a first in this one, by being New Zealand TV’s first female quiz show host!
TV One, Thursday, 9pm
A plague on Poldark’s house
Well, it’s all on for the final episode of this series of Poldark (yes, there will be another one) as yet another disaster strikes angry, brooding Ross and his long-suffering villagers. Verily, ‘tis plague, pestilence, storms and evil, conniving villains that fall upon the house of Poldark, bringing death and misery to all around. On the plus side, a few of the villains get their comeuppance, but it all comes at a heavy price for Ross and Demelza. And there’s something called putrid throat – which you really don’t want to get.
Prime, Wednesday, 8.30pm
Going for an Indian
Considering that India has recently suffered one of its worstever heatwaves, a new BBC drama titled Indian Summers might seem a little ironic. However, this one is set in the 1930s, during the last years of the British Raj, and in the Himalayan foothills, where the rich and privileged went annually to escape the stifling heat of summer in Delhi. Imagined by some as a kind of Jewel In The Crown- meets- Downton Abbey affair, it should be a crowd-pleaser to those who love British period drama. The scenery will play a big role! TV One, Sunday, 8.30pm
Grow a spine!
Just when you thought that the great Sir David Attenborough couldn’t possibly come up with another idea for a natural history series, he does. This time, it’s all about vertebrates – that’s animals with a spine, in case you were wondering – and how they (and we) grew to dominate the planet. Well, maybe that’s a matter of opinion in the insect kingdom, but it can’t be denied that growing a spine was the way to go if you wanted to get on in the world. It’s been a 500 million-year journey to the top.
TV One, Saturday, 7.30pm. A winning formula of smart direction (from documentarian James Marsh), clever pacing and terrific central performances, Kiwi screenwriter Anthony McCarten’s adaptation of Jane Wilde’s (Stephen Hawking’s first wife) 2008 memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen charts the ups and downs of their relationship from university-meets-cute (despite her Sunday church-going and his ‘‘slight problem with the whole celestial dictator thing’’) to their gradual estrangement as his success, fame and the advance of his motor neurone disease took him away from her.
This progression, of course, allows young British actor Eddie Redmayne the opportunity to showcase some seriously impressive physicality.