Television
The Best of the Week
SATURDAY JULY 21
The Cul De Sac (TVNZ 2, 6.00pm). It’s full-on dystopia in local teen series The Cul De Sac, which began with the disappearance of all the adults – and technology – in the world. Rose (Greta Gregory) has tried to keep her siblings safe throughout, facing mysterious “waves”, monsters, gangs, zombies and annoying boys. At the end of last season, she and her family and friends were on a farm, but clearly that won’t last in the upcoming season three.
SUNDAY JULY 22
Sunday Theatre: In Dark Places (TVNZ 1, 8.30pm). Film-maker Michael Bennett’s crusade to bring to light all the details of an infamous miscarriage of justice may finally have reached completion. Bennett
has written an award-winning book, directed a
documentary ( The Confessions of Prisoner
T) and now directed and co-written this week’s Sunday Theatre docudrama about the wrongful conviction of Teina Pora in 1992. As a result of the work of private investigator Tim McKinnel and a number of investigative journalists, it is now known that Pora was wrongly convicted for the rape and murder of Susan Burdett. But it was a very long road, and In Dark Places, named after Bennett’s 2016 book, tells the story of Pora (played by newcomer Richard Te Are) and McKinnel (Craig Hall) and the fight to clear Pora’s name. Also featured are the likely suspect, serial rapist Malcolm Rewa (Calvin Tuteao), and Pora’s lawyers Jonathan Krebs (Cameron Rhodes) and Ingrid Squire (Aidee Walker).
MONDAY JULY 23
Gordon Ramsay’s 24 Hrs to Hell and Back (TVNZ 2, 8.30pm). A kind of jazzedup Kitchen Nightmares, in which Sweary McSwearyface travels around in a mobile kitchen, rescuing US restaurants in “just 24 hours”. Apparently, Americans enjoy this sort of thing, because Fox has renewed it for a second season. Another Briton on the road is design guru Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, although we suspect the name came before the show. Laurence of Suburbia (Choice TV, Tuesday, 7.30pm) features the posh designer transforming a room in someone’s suburban home. Programme-makers can’t resist punning with Laurence: in 2007, his family were the subject of a series called To the Manor Bowen.
Westside (Three, 8.30pm). More of the Wests’ history clicks into place: tonight, Wolf and Cheryl are having a little trip away to Tutaekuri Bay, the scene of many a Christmas disaster in
Outrageous Fortune. What do you expect with a name like that?
TUESDAY JULY 24
Animal Kingdom (SoHo, Sky 010, 8.30pm). Surprisingly, the TV series based on the Australian film that was based on a Melbourne crime family has succeeded where other US adaptations have failed. As it goes into its third season, it has already been renewed for a fourth, but first, fans will want to know if Baz (Scott Speedman) survived being shot at
the end of season two. With Smurf Cody (the great Ellen Barkin) in the clink, this could be the disintegration of the wild Codys once and for all. The first episode of the season is written and directed by TV veteran John Wells, who is an executive producer.
Valor (Three, 9.25pm). One of several attempts to appeal to Trump’s America, according to the Hollywood Reporter, along with SEAL Team (which screened on Prime), The Brave and Six (available on Lightbox). Military-themed shows are a risky strategy, however: networks may be alienating half their audience (or possibly more, given that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in the 2016 election) and US jingoism and flag-flying make them a hard sell overseas.
Valor screened on youngerskewing US network the CW and one point of difference is that it has a young woman in the lead. It is a serialised mystery involving a mission that Nora (Christina Ochoa) flew in Somalia that went – we think this is the military term – fubar. Sadly, it wasn’t an interesting enough mystery to sustain beyond one season.
WEDNESDAY JULY 25
School of Hard Knocks (TVNZ Duke, 8.30pm). Better living through rugby: cameras follow Sir John Kirwan and attendees at the School of Hard Knocks charity, which aims to turn around the lives of disadvantaged young people. It’s a learning curve for him as well, says Kirwan, as the participants
may have multiple issues. “I used to think that if you just get stuck in and work hard, everything will be okay. But it’s much more complex than that,” he told the NZ Herald.
Joseph Parker: Metamorphosis (Prime, 8.30pm). With a new heavyweight bout looming for New Zealand boxer Joseph Parker, Prime screens this doco that follows the lead-up to his fight in March against Brit Anthony Joshua. What a story if Parker had won; however, after that 12-round defeat, Parker is now on the comeback trail and will face another Brit, Dillian Whyte, at O2 Arena in London on July 29
(as usual, that’s a pay-per-view affair on Sky Arena).
THURSDAY JULY 26
Howards End (SoHo, Sky
010, 8.30pm). A rather less sumptuous and more uncomfortable version of EM Forster’s 1910 novel than the gold-standard 1992 IvoryMerchant film. It is allowed to unfold over four episodes (written by Oscar-winning US screenwriter Kenneth Lonergan) and makes sharp the difference between the conservative Wilcoxes, owners of the titular country house; the intellectually curious Schlegels; and the working-class Basts. An excellent cast carry this story of Edwardian manners and mores: Hayley Atwell is Margaret Schlegel, Matthew Macfadyen is Henry Wilcox, Tracey Ullman is Aunt Juley and Julia Ormond is the dying Ruth Wilcox. A racially diverse cast brings the story into the present, along with the realisation that Leonard Bast (Joseph Quinn) is in as precarious a financial situation as anyone on a zero-hour contract in Britain today.
Greyzone (TVNZ OnDemand).
It seems Scandi TV is getting over its “noir” phase: no more moody detectives in fair-isle jumpers, here’s a glossy thriller starring gorgeous Birgitte Hjort Sørensen, who will be known to Borgen fans as TV journalist Katrine Fønsmark. She plays a drone engineer who is taken hostage in her own home and has to play a double game with her captor and the security services.