TELEVISION
The Best of the Week
MONDAY AUGUST 23
SCI- FI: BRAVE NEW WORLD
(TVNZ OnDemand). When it comes to dystopian classics, it has been argued that the world has turned out more like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World from 1932 than George Orwell’s 1984 from 1949, despite the bump in sales the latter got during the Trump era. After all, Huxley wrote about a revolution in attitudes to sex and reproduction. His idea that everything about everyone should be shared anticipated Facebook and a World State built on insidious totalitarianism is the sort of thing that animates online conspiracy nuts. A world of genetically engineered people kept happy on the drug “soma” was a decent guess at a heavily medicated future.
All of which might make a television show loosely based on the book at least feel relevant – if it wasn’t for all the previous BNW- influenced books, movies and television shows, such as Logan’s Run, Gattaca and Westworld. The latest, a nine-episode series originally made for NBC streaming service Peacock, retains most of Huxley’s main characters and its “New London” setting. There, after her monogamous sex life becomes a problem, Lenina Crowne ( Jessica Brown Findlay, Downton Abbey) is sent to counsellor Bernard Marx ( Harry Lloyd, Game of Thrones) for a stern talking to. They bond and soon they’re on a trip to a theme park somewhere in the old United States, populated by “Savages” – the native American reservation of the book is now white folk re-enacting the rituals of uncivilised 21st-century life. Among them are John (Alden Ehrenreich) and his mother (Demi Moore). US and UK reviewers were impressed by how it all looked – and by the levels of gratuitous nudity – but found it a muddle and derivative of Westworld. It hasn’t been renewed.
Meanwhile, TVNZ OnDemand is launching a new section titled “District” for a place to find sci-fi and fantasy shows, many of them noughties remakes of 1970s efforts such as Battlestar Galactica, Bionic Woman and The Andromeda Strain.
THURSDAY AUGUST 26
REALITY: THE GREAT CELEBRITY BAKE OFF
(Prime, 7.30pm). Another fresh batch of British celebrities – and veteran American actor Richard Dreyfuss – line up to, um, raise some dough for charity by putting their baking skills to the test. Among the names we recognise are comedian Russell Howard, singer James Blunt, actress Caroline Quentin and someone you’d least expect to be on a reality show, Louis Theroux. “I’m doing it for three reasons,” he says. “One reason is because I’ve got a book out, and I’ve positioned it in the kitchen, and I’m holding it and using it to help me knead the dough and to prop up saucepans. I’m trying to get it into shot as much as possible.” As for Dreyfuss, he famously got creative with those mashed spuds in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Should serve him well on the shepherd’s pie round.
DRAMEDY: BETTY (SoHo, 8.00pm).
Last year’s first season of this street-level show about a diverse group of young female skateboarders in New York City won much acclaim. Creator Crystal Moselle, a documentary maker best known for The Wolfpack, spun off her 2018 film Skate Kitchen and its cast of nonprofessional actors into the HBO series. The second season was filmed when the city was largely shut down as a result of the pandemic, leaving more space to skate. But life during Covid makes it even more complicated for the five main characters as they face various challenges in their lives. Both seasons are available to stream on Neon.
DOCUMENTARY: A LIFE IN TEN PICTURES (Prime, 8.45pm).
This BBC series looks back at six great figures by using 10 photographs – a mix of private snaps or iconic photos – to discuss the moments they capture in the subjects’ lives with the recollections of those who were there at the time, including, in some cases, those who actually took the photo. Plenty of biographers and family members also appear to help join the dots. The first is on the life of Muhammad Ali, with future episodes pondering Freddie Mercury, Amy Winehouse, Elizabeth Taylor, John Lennon and Tupac Shakur. Given how much those lives have been canvassed before, new insights are hardly likely, but a preview of the Ali episode delivers an entertaining collection of anecdotes by those who knew him, were related to him or were inspired by him. l