Television
The Best of the Week
SATURDAY OCTOBER 7
The Barefoot Bandits (TVNZ 2, 6.00pm). The cute kids’ series created by Auckland’s Mukpuddy Animation returns for a second season: Tammy Davis, Josh Thomson and Laura Daniel voice the three main characters (three kids who live on an island called Ngaro), and Rhys Darby, Temuera Morrison, Leigh Hart, Jemaine Clement, Teuila Blakely, Lucy Lawless, Cohen Holloway, Jason Hoyte, Rima Te Wiata and John RhysDavies have stepped up to the microphone, too.
Moving Out with Tamati
(TVNZ 1, 7.00pm). That would be Tamati Coffey, MP for Waiariki, although he was just an ordinary TV presenter when this show about city dwellers moving to the regions was made. Doesn’t seem like a good way to solve the housing crisis, however.
Rugby (Sky Sport 1, Sky 051, 3.30am Sunday). Can the South Africans salvage some pride at this game in Cape Town against the All Blacks? They have plenty to play for after their 57-0 loss to the ABs in September, and a home crowd may spur them on. It will be the All Blacks’ and Boks’ final game of the Rugby Championship. However, the ABs face Australia in the final Bledisloe Test in Brisbane on October 21 before heading off on their northern-hemisphere tour.
Cold Feet (TVNZ 1, 9.35pm). Clearly, the revival did the trick, because here’s a new season (seven) of the beloved British drama series. It was
a willingness to tackle serious issues that elevated the reboot, in particular Pete’s depression, and as the season starts, he is much happier and working as a chauffeur. Meanwhile, Adam (James Nesbitt) is living with his lovely landlady (Leanne Best) and Karen (Hermione Norris) has started her new publishing venture.
TUESDAY OCTOBER 10
Grand Designs New Zealand (Three, 7.30pm). If you thought holidaymakers in camper vans held up the traffic, how about an attempt to move a mansion from Christchurch to Queenstown? Tonight’s grand designers went to buy a staircase from a villa tagged for demolition, but they liked
it so much, they bought the whole house.
The Great British Bake Off
(Prime, 7.30pm). The final season of Bake Off to be broadcast by the BBC, so the last chance to see presenters Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc and judge Mary Berry. So affronted were they that this British institution was going to Channel 4, they quit, although Paul Hollywood was not so loyal. Season seven begins, as all things should, with cake. The bakers include an aerospace engineer, a physical education teacher, a pastor, a nurse and a hairdresser.
Aber Bergen (Rialto, Sky 039, 8.30pm). At last, a Nordic drama series that isn’t about a troubled detective who has lost a child. Or their partner. Or sister. Or cat. This Norwegian series, from the same team who created family drama Mammon, is about a separated couple (Ellen Dorrit Petersen and Odd Magnus Williamson) who continue to run their legal practice in Bergen, Norway’s second-largest city. Some of their cases are serious, but there is a much lighter tone because of their nowcomplicated relationship.
WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 11
800 Words (TVNZ 1, 8.30pm). The low-key Kiwi charmer returns or, as they say over the Ditch, Australia’s favourite family is back. As usual, there are hatches, matches and dispatches: in the seasonthree opener, Weld mounts a search for Ike, Zac and Steve after their disappearance on a fishing trip, and Jan goes into labour.
THURSDAY OCTOBER 12
Jono & Ben (Three, 7.30pm). Jono, Ben, Laura and Guy join the ranks of the unemployed after this week’s final episode. Still, they’ll be able to get their Christmas shopping done early. They end the season with an interview with Jack Black as well as the usual jolly japery.
Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders (TVNZ 1, 8.30pm). For a while, it seemed that high-profile murder trials were as American as apple pie: Erik and Lyle Menendez became a sensation on Court TV in 1993 and their legal battles were ongoing when OJ Simpson’s trial began the following year. However, this eight-part series has none of the panache of American Crime Story: The People vs OJ Simpson, which so cleverly placed the trial in context, then drew modern parallels. Dick Wolf, climbing on the anthology bandwagon, has been making procedural television too long to be subtle, although he has assembled a great cast to tell the story of the brothers’ murder of their parents and their subsequent convictions. Edie Falco plays flamboyant lawyer Leslie Abramson and Josh Charles, Heather Graham, Anthony Edwards and Elizabeth Reaser also star.
Elementary (Prime, 8.30pm). Sometimes an undemanding network show is exactly what we need on a Thursday night, and the Sherlock Holmesinspired Elementary is one of the better diversions, thanks to the excellent Jonny Lee Miller. Without ceremony, it was snuck back into the schedule last week and we’re now in the early stages of season five. This week, Holmes and Watson investigate a case of poisoned sausage and, in a nod to the books, Holmes plays a violin.
FRIDAY OCTOBER 13
The Shannara Chronicles (The Box, Sky 005, 8.30pm). It was touch-and-go whether this fantasy series would be renewed, but, thankfully, its New Zealand production crews aren’t out of a job yet. The teen series, based on the books by Terry Brooks, makes ample use of its New Zealand locations – and seems to have had a root around in the Lord of the Rings cupboard for some of its leftover costumes and effects, too. This is not a bad thing. The stars are young actors Austin Butler, Poppy Drayton and Ivana Baquero (who was little Ofelia in Pan’s Labyrinth) and Kiwi Manu Bennett is the teetotal druid Allanon. There are plenty of smaller parts for other local actors, too.
Hitler’s England (History,
Sky 073, 8.30pm). John
Nettles turns his hand to documentary-making in this series about the only British territories to be occupied by the Germans during World
War II. Nettles’s connection is, of course, TV’s Bergerac, the cop show in which he starred for 10 years, which was filmed on Jersey. The Germans occupied the islands for nearly all of the war and there are many stories, from the 6000 slave workers who were brought in to build fortifications, to the three Jewish women who were removed from Guernsey and sent to Auschwitz.