TELEVISION
Our Picks of the Week
MONDAY MAY 29 MARRIED TO A PSYCHOPATH
On the trail of a monster
Screening: TVNZ 1, 8.30pm
Streaming: TVNZ+
A two-part Channel 4 truecrime documentary about English nurse Malcolm Webster, the monster who wooed women for their money. He killed his first wife Claire Morris in 1994 and attempted to murder his second wife, New Zealander Felicity Drumm, when they were living in Auckland in the late 1990s, while also committing acts of arson. He was convicted in Scotland in 2011 of murder and attempted murder, in what became the longest trial of a single accused in the country’s history. The court was presented with nearly 1000 witness statements taken by police in Scotland, New Zealand and several other countries. Webster was also found guilty of theft, fraud and attempted bigamy, committed over a span of 14 years, and was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 30 years. The documentary focuses on the complex investigation that led to the charges. The case has already been adapted as a crime drama, The Widower, in 2016.
BEYOND PARADISE
Crimes on the coast of Devon Screening: BBC UKTV, 8.35pm
A spin-off of the long-running – 2011 and still going – Death in Paradise. It features the characters of DI Humphrey Goodman (Kris Marshall) and his fiancée Martha Lloyd (Sally Bretton), who sealed their love and decamped from the Caribbean to London in the original series. The story picks up with the pair moving to the fictional Shipton Abbott, Martha’s hometown in Devonshire, which proves to be the archetypal sleepy TV village with an appalling murder rate. It’s not all killings, though: in his new job with the local police force, Humphrey must also get to the bottom of art theft and arson mysteries. The cast also features Dylan Llewellyn ( Derry Girls), Felicity Montagu ( Bridget Jones’s Diary), Zahra Ahmadi ( The Bay), and Barbara Flynn ( Cracker). Reviews have been mixed, but you know what you’re getting with a weekly whodunnit.
SUCCESSION
Is an heir apparent?
Screening: SoHo, 8.30pm
Streaming: Neon
It’s the last-ever show in the series, which in four seasons has done for the 1% in its own way what The Sopranos did for the Mafia. It’s done that while being a black comedy as well as a business dynasty drama with real-world parallels with the American political-media landscape and having echoes of such clans as the Trumps, the Redstones and the Murdochs. Fans probably shouldn’t expect a big sentimental finale or seeing the warring Roy siblings Kendall, Shiv and Roman in a group hug at the conclusion. The episode is titled “With Open Eyes” and follows the penultimate instalment “Church and State”, which was shaping up to be the funeral of patriarch Logan Roy, who’s been on ice since his surprise demise in the devastating third episode of this series. Like The Sopranos, Succession really hits its stride in its third and fourth season. Come Emmy Award time, this last chapter is likely to sweep the drama categories like it did last year. If you are late to the party, all four seasons will be available on Neon.
WEDNESDAY MAY 31 SCHOOL SPIRITS
Like, totally dead
Streaming: TVNZ+
Maddie is a 16-year-old high school student who unexpectedly finds herself dead. She’s trapped in an afterlife limbo, watching her former classmates, with only every other student who has died at the school over the past century for company. But what she needs to know is who killed her. So it’s basically
The Lovely Bones crossed with
Ghosts. The show has been well received since its debut this year on Paramount+, with
particular praise for Peyton List ( Cobra Kai) in the lead role.
RACE ACROSS THE WORLD
Not The Amazing Race, the other one
Screening: TVNZ 1, 8.15pm There’s some sense of diminishing returns from the BBC’s reality TV competition, but perhaps that’s inevitable when you win a Bafta with your first season. In this third season, five teams of two race 16,000km across Canada, through the wilderness, ocean to ocean. As ever, they must do so without the assistance of air travel, credit cards or mobile phones, sustained only by a cash payment equivalent to the cost of a one-way flight – and their wits. This year’s teams include two father and daughter duos, a pair of brothers, a husband and wife and two women who are just really good friends. The season recently concluded in Britain amid social media controversy and claims of a “fix”.
THURSDAY JUNE 1 TED LASSO
The final whistle
Streaming: Apple TV+
And just as we bid farewell to Succession, time is also up for Ted Lasso as the acclaimed English football comedy comes to the end – barring as-yet unannounced future revivals – of its third and final season. Among the possible scenarios for a big finish are AFC Richmond in a Premier League showdown with rivals West Ham. After all, when the dangerously chipper American coach Ted Lasso ( Jason Sudeikis) got his ailing team back into the Premier League, he did say that AFC Richmond was going to shock the world and “win the whole f---ing thing”. There’s also a fair few character storylines to wrap up too, but hopefully football will be the winner on the day. ▮