Stuff to Watch on Sky and free-to-air TV this week
Australia’s favourite hornbags are back for a special celebration, and Anna Paquin plays an inspirational NFL quarterback’s tenacious wife, writes James Croot.
Kath & Kim: Our Effluent Life
(8.55pm, Monday, TVNZ 2) Australia’s Kath and Kim are back celebrating 20 years of being classy. The hour-long special brings together Jane Turner and Gina Riley’s comedy creations with their husbands Kel (Glenn Robbins) and Brett (Peter Rowsthorn) and Kim’s unlucky-in-love second best friend Sharon (Magda Szubanski) for some new scenes. There are also never-before-seen moments from the original series and many bloopers and blunders. The festivities continue on Tuesday with 20 Preposterous Years (9.05pm), when the pair will be joined by a host of reminiscing celebrity guests and fans, including Kylie Minogue, Michael Buble, Adam Gilchrist, Ricky Ponting, Carson Kressley, Eric Bana, Matt Lucas, Richard E Grant and Barry Humphries.
Trading Places
(7.30pm, Friday, Bravo) Originally pitched as a project for Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder, Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd star in this 1983 comedy about a snobbish investor and a wily street conartist who find their positions reversed as part of a bet by two millionaires. It is praised for being a revival of the socially conscious screwball comedy of the late 1930s and a showcase for the brilliance of Murphy.
American Underdog
(8.30pm, Friday, Sky Movies Premiere)
Zachary Levi, Dennis Quaid and our own Anna Paquin combine for this 1990s and noughties-set 2021 biopic of Kurt Warner, a man who overcame years of challenges and setbacks to become a twotime NFL MVP, Super Bowl champion and Hall of Fame quarterback.
The Dry
(8.30pm, Saturday, Eden) Eric Bana stars in this bigscreen 2020 adaptation of Jane Harper’s critically acclaimed novel about a federal agent who returns to his hometown to attend a funeral, only to find himself trying to solve the mysteries surrounding two crimes that took place decades part. ‘‘An engrossing, smartly written and nicely paced thriller on a low burn,’’ wrote Stuff to Watch’s Graeme Tuckett.
Battle of Britain (8.30pm, Saturday, Whakaata Māori)
Laurence Olivier, Christopher Plummer, Michael Caine, Trevor Howard and Ian McShane headline this 1969 dramatisation of the British Royal Air Force’s desperate 1940 bid to prevent Germany’s Luftwaffe from gaining air superiority over the English Channel. ‘‘Succeeds in giving the general impression of a pivotal historical moment, and excels in crafting some of the most astonishing aerialwarfare sequences ever put on film,’’ wrote Groucho Reviews’ Peter Canavese.
The Long Call (9.45pm, Saturdays, TVNZ 1)
In this four-part British crimedrama, Detective Inspector Matthew Venn (Ben Aldridge) returns to his small North Devon hometown to lead an investigation into a shocking murder. It’s a case that casts a shadow across the whole community, and brings Venn’s own troubled past into focus. Pearl Mackie and Juliet Stevenson also star.
Hostages (10.30pm, Sundays, SoHo)
On November 4, 1979, Iranian student activists stormed the US Embassy in Tehran, taking 60 hostages. Intending to stage a 48-hour sit in to protest American imperialism, it spiralled into an international crisis that lasted 444 days. Featuring never-before-seen archival footage and revelatory new interviews with those on both sides, this four-part docu-series promises to explore what led to the event and the political fallout that still reverberates today.