Fictional cops back in vogue too
TV Guide’s picks out the best on the box for the week ahead.
Duchovny does the 60s thing
It was the dawning of the Age Of Aquarius, or so the 1967 hit song from the musical Hair claimed at the time. But for some folk, the coming time of ‘‘harmony and understanding’’ was anything but – especially the cult leader Charles Manson, whose crimes in the ‘‘flower power’’ years form the basis of Aquarius, the new US cop drama starring David Duchovny. Dave isn’t the bad guy in this, however. He’s the cop who is on Manson’s case four years before the infamous Tate-LaBianca murders. Look out for some serious ’60s fashion and music.
TV One, Tuesday, 9.30pm
Not so great expectations
If you think you are a victim of the rampant Auckland housing market, you may want to take a look at a new reality series called House Hunt, which looks at some of the folk desperately trying to get a foot on the property ladder in some of New Zealand’s pricier markets. And it’s not only the Queen City that is proving difficult. Other cities, like Wellington and Queenstown, are proving out of reach for many. Is the Kiwi dream of home ownership becoming a nightmare?
TV One, Sunday, 8pm
Going Mental
After seven seasons and 150 episodes, Simon Baker is finally hanging up his waistcoat and saying goodbye to The Mentalist, Patrick Jane. Baker jokes in a TV Guide interview that the series should have ended after series three, but the concept proved so popular that the network wouldn’t let it go. So series seven begins with Jane and his working partner, Lisbon, finally coming to grips with their simmering new relationship and trying to keep it a secret. Yeah – fat chance!
TV One, Tuesday, 8.30pm
Copping it as a WPC
Nostalgia seems to be back in fashion with British dramas these days, and one of the more recent bobby-on-the-beat shows takes a different viewpoint of the job of a copper – by focusing on a 1950s female police constable. Claudia Jessie takes over the lead role in series three of WPC 56, playing Annie Taylor, who decides that a dark blue uniform is the life for her. But this is the 1950s and, for many of her male colleagues, a WPC’s job is still to make the tea and comfort grieving relatives. Not this one, fellas.
Vibe, Monday, 8.30pm
Meet the Fulfords
So, you want to know how the other half really lives? A new British reality series titled Life Is Toff may just put you off being an aristocrat for life. Dubbed ‘‘the Osbournes in tweed’’, the series follows the eccentric and aristocratic Fulford family at home on their 800-year-old country estate, as the badly-behaved children grapple with coming of age under the watchful eye of short–tempered dad Francis. With an ancient manor house to maintain, it seems that being born in to the landed gentry isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Downton Abbey, it ain’t.
Prime TV, Wednesday, 9pm. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Oscar-winning black comedy is a searing satire and superb showcase for one of the forgotten men of Hollywood – Michael Keaton.
In a barely disguised nod to his own costumed career, Keaton plays Riggan Thomson, the former Birdman of the title. Evoking memories of the likes of last year’s Chef (with its rants against modern ‘‘social media’’), 1990s entertainment satires The Player and Waiting for Guffman and even Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Birdman is a fast-paced, high-wire act that entertains and engrosses from start to finish.
The impressive supporting cast includes Edward Norton, Emma Stone and Naomi Watts.