TELEVISION
Our Picks of the Week
SATURDAY APRIL 1
THE POWER
Girls behaving shockingly Streaming: Amazon Prime Video Suddenly and without warning, teenage girls develop the ability to discharge bolts of electricity from their hands – meaning, among other things, that they can electrocute anyone at will. They literally have the power and, in the words of one of the characters, “We got it because we needed it.” That shift of power changes everything, from London to Seattle, Nigeria to Eastern Europe. It’s based on the novel of the same name by British speculative fiction writer Naomi Alderman. The nonadolescents in the cast include Toni Collette as the mayor of Seattle, John Leguizamo as her husband, Eddie Marsan, Rob Delaney and Toheeb Jimoh (Sam from Ted Lasso).
PARTY DOWN
For those who wait Streaming: TVNZ+ Party Down’s two seasons in 2009 and 2010 charmed the critics with its funny-becauseit’s-true story of a group of Hollywood dreamers working at a terrible LA catering company while waiting for their big break – but it didn’t really find an audience. Two members of the ensemble cast, Adam Scott and Jane Lynch, wandered off, to Parks and Recreation and Glee, respectively, after one season. But the gang is back – and circumstances mean they’re working for Party Down catering again after all these years. Scott and Lynch return, along with original cast members and newbies Jennifer Garner and James Marsden. But the premise remains the same
– a different weird LA party every week.
TUESDAY APRIL 4
THE LAST OF US
The fungus zombies run free Screening: Prime, 9.45pm The Last of Us has changed the idea of what a video game adaptation can do and be – and now, with its first season concluded on Sky, it’s available on free-to-air TV. A virulent fungal infection, which subsumes and controls its human hosts, has all but destroyed human civilisation. Joel (Pedro Pascal, The Mandalorian), one of a band of survivors, is hired to smuggle 14-year-old Ellie (Bella Ramsey, Game of Thrones) out of a quarantine zone. It turns out it’s about more than the fee for the job – Ellie has a secret that could turn back the apocalypse.
WEDNESDAY APRIL 5
AFTERTASTE
Still no peace for the chef Screening: Rialto, 8.30pm
The second season of the Australian comedy-drama about a chef who flees to his home town in the Adelaide Hills finds Easton (Erik Thomson) settling into his new life of obscurity and feeling pretty zen about things, but that’s shattered when his niece, Diana (Natalie Abbott), turns up from London with her boyfriend in tow. The spiky relationship between the pair is further tested when another figure from the past unexpectedly appears – Easton’s long-lost mother, June.
THURSDAY APRIL 6 GREASE: RISE OF THE PINK LADIES
“Tell me more, tell me more …” Screening: TVNZ 2, 9.50pm Streaming: TVNZ+
This Grease spin-off is set four years before the events of the original musical – and about six decades later in terms of social culture. It’s an origin story for the Pink Ladies, Rydell High’s feisty girl gang, who scandalise the school, spark a moral panic and, according to Ari Notartomaso, who plays Cynthia, learn how their experiences “overlap with others with a marginalised identity.” There are also 31 new songs, overseen by songwriter (for Justin Bieber and
Lady Gaga, among others) and queer activist Justin Tranter, and choreography by RuPaul’s Drag Race regular Jamal Sims. Previous attempts to generate a screen franchise out of the 1979 film haven’t fared well, but if this one founders, it won’t be for want of song-anddance firepower.
DREAMLAND
Sisters struggling by the seaside Streaming: Neon/Sky Go
Based on Morgana Robinson’s Summer, the Bafta-winning short film created by Sharon Horgan for Sky UK in 2017, this six-part comedy series gives pop singer Lily Allen her first major screen role, after her widely praised West End theatre debut last year. Allen plays Mel, the oldest of a group of sisters, whose unexpected visit to the British seaside town of Margate creates havoc in the family. The cast also includes Freema Agyeman ( Doctor Who), Kiell Smith-Bynoe ( Ghosts), Aimee-Ffion Edwards ( Peaky Blinders) and Sheila Reid ( Benidorm). It’s all women behind the camera, too, with Horgan’s company, Merman, producing. It looks fun.
GOOD FRIDAY APRIL 7
TINY, BEAUTIFUL THINGS
Coming-of-middle-age dramedy Streaming: Disney+
Clare (Kathryn Hahn, WandaVision) is a writer and a mum and her life is falling apart. Her career and her marriage are both on life support and she feels increasingly distant from her teenage daughter. So, of course, the logical next step is to reluctantly take a gig as an advice columnist. But becoming the voice of Dear Sugar does change Clare’s life, summoning back pivotal moments and perhaps beginning to heal her wounds. It’s not as sorrowful as it sounds – there are some good jokes in the trailer. It’s based on a book of the same name by Cheryl Strayed, a collection of advice columns she wrote for an online literary magazine that has already been a podcast and a play.
TRANSATLANTIC
Saving artists from the Nazis Streaming: Netflix
“Inspired” by the true story of the Emergency Rescue Committee – via Julie Orringer’s novel The Flight Portfolio – this seven-part limited series follows efforts by a group of young idealists to smuggle refugees out of occupied France during World War II. Cory Michael Smith (the Riddler in Gotham) plays Varian Fry, the American journalist who led the effort to save some of Europe’s leading artists and intellectuals – including André Breton, Hannah Arendt, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst and Marc Chagall – from the Nazis. Gillian Jacobs ( Community) is Mary Jayne Gold, the heiress who financed the operation. In their way are antagonists such as the chief of police in Marseille, where they are based, and the US consul, who regards artists and intellectuals as undesirable. The mortal peril of the group’s work has some unexpected results, from love affairs to artistic breakthroughs. ▮