PICKS OF THE WEEK
Game of Thrones (Season five) M-Net Edge, Channel 102, Thursday, 21:00
Every journalist and their dog will surely be writing about the highly anticipated upcoming season of
Game of Thrones — so one more can’t hurt, can it? Here we go.
Just a fair warning: this is going to be a recap writeup and therefore heavy on the spoilers. M-Net Edge is running marathons in several slots this month, if you want to catch up.
What I most want to know is what is going to happen to Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage)? I think most fans felt some small relief when he escaped his execution, but he’s literally set sail to lands unknown where he can’t rely on his family name and wealth.
Then there’s Arya Stark (Maisie Williams), who has also set sail for a foreign land, Bravos, where she’ll presumably attempt to gain training as an assassin so she can eventually take revenge on the people she never shuts up about — if any of them are still alive by the time she’s trained, that is.
And then there’s the ever more challenging reign of Daenerys Targareyn (Emilia Clarke), who is learning about the hardships of being a ruler. Especially after her pet dragons have become a lethal menace to her people and she’s had to dismiss her apparently loyal right hand, Sir Jorah (Iain Glen).
There are many other smaller story arcs to bring up, but this has gone on long enough already — so I’ll bring up this final point. You don’t have to wait until after the Yanks have seen each episode to watch it. M-Net Edge will be broadcasting each new episode in the series at the exact same time as the US, meaning Monday 13 at 3am, Monday 20 at 3am, Monday 27 at 3am, and so on.
I’m already a night owl, so I think I can manage this, but if you’re not willing to suffer sleep deprivation, you can catch the prime-time show each Thursday.
Empire Fox Crime, Channel 125, Wednesday, 21:00
In this music industry-themed drama, the head of a hip-hop empire named Lucious Lyon (Terrence Howard) learns he’s going to be incapacitated by illness in about three years, meaning he has to groom one of this sons, Andre (Trai Byers), Jamal (Jussie Smollet) or Hakeem (Bryshere Y Gray) to take over. In his past, Lyon was a street thug, and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree — so naturally his three sons quickly become engaged in a power struggle.
If you enjoy this, you can look forward to another season, probably next year.
Killer Kids Special Crime and Investigation, Channel 170, Monday, 21:00
This month, Crime and Investigation brings us a special marathon of the Killer Kids documentary series. If you’ve never seen it, the title says it all. It tells us stories about kids who kill. The teasers list reasons like gang initiations, occult rituals and hate crimes. What? No mention of videogames? They must have just forgotten.
Japan’s Wild Year Nat Geo Wild, Channel 182, Today, 19:00 While I think Australia still takes the cake when it comes to having the weirdest wildlife you could make a documentary about, Japan has a few oddities of its own. In this documentary series you’ll get to see some of them, including the fluffy, sub-arctic snow monkeys (left), bears, giant hornets and a weird goat-antelope type of thing called a serow. All of these creatures are quite at home in Japan’s very mountainous wilderness, which has extreme ranges in temperature and weather from season to season and region to region.