Odd win, but it’s a funny old game
PICK OF THE WEEK Ted Lasso, Apple TV+
You can’t scroll far these days without coming across a TV show based on a book or a video game or a podcast or another TV show. But Apple TV+ comedy series Ted Lasso is none of the above — it’s a TV show based on an ad.
The eponymous character, played by Jason Sudeikis, originally appeared in a couple of ads for NBC Sports’ Premier League coverage as an American college football coach who’d for some reason taken over the reins at Tottenham Hotspur, despite not knowing a single thing about round-ball football. That sounds like something that definitely shouldn’t work as a TV series, but the show has been an unlikely word-ofmouth sleeper hit ever since it came out last year.
It starts by swapping out Spurs for fictional Premier League AFC Richmond, and explaining Lasso’s surprise appointment there as the result of his viral college football victory dance getting the attention of the club’s new owner, who’s inherited it in a bitter divorce from her philandering ex-husband and now wants to run it into the ground as revenge.
Enter the endlessly optimistic and big-hearted Ted Lasso. Part Ned Flanders, part Mr Rogers, he’s wholly out of place in the rough-as-guts world of English football. But he’s determined to give it the old college try, undeterred by being called a “wanker” by just about everyone he meets — from the Roy Keane-inspired midfield enforcer to the club’s unconvincingly-cast star striker, who looks like was signed on a free transfer from Hollyoaks.
Though the show’s makers appear to know little more about football than Lasso himself, it manages to defy the odds and be not only watchable but quite enjoyable. If you want a more realistic dark football comedy, watch the Netflix documentary series Sunderland ‘Til I Die. For the heartwarming and easy-towatch sitcom version, this is the one.
WORTH WATCHING Trapped TVNZ OnDemand
What’s the best thing about Nordic crime drama? Some will say “the writing” or “the acting” or even “the scenery”, but real fans know it’s the knitwear. And based on knitwear alone, Icelandic hit series Trapped gets five stars. There are knits here that look so comfy they’ll bring a tear to your eye.
The drama’s good too of course — it follows a small town police chief (Olafur Darri Olafsson) trying to solve a murder after an unidentified torso is found in a fjord, with a stranded ferryload of Danes all potential suspects. Hugely popular in Iceland and everywhere else it’s aired, both seasons of Trapped are available — and highly recommended — to New Zealand crime drama fans this week.
Informer 3838 TVNZ OnDemand
Australian defence barrister and police informant Nicola Gobbo was known as both "Informer 3838" and "Lawyer X" over the course of her career. That must have posed a tough choice when it came to naming this drama series based on her double-life among some of Melbourne’s most notorious gangland figures. Gobbo broke just about every rule in the book as she earned the trust of the gangs to represent them in court then told on them to the police and now her story makes for an intense and gritty crime drama for all the Underbelly fans out there.
Canine Intervention Netflix
By rights, New Zealand dog trainer Mark Vette should be one of the most famous men in the world.
The man has taught dogs to fly planes and drive cars, and yet he still doesn’t have a Nobel Prize? And his heartwarming series Purina Pound Pups to Dog Stars somehow isn’t a global phenomenon? It makes no sense.
Keep that in mind when you watch Canine Intervention, in which American dog guru Jas Leverette fixes extreme dog behavioral issues. He’s very good, but how many dogs has he taught to fly a plane? Exactly.
MOVIE OF THE WEEK Wild Rose Netflix
The uplifting, tear-jerking surprise hit of 2019, Wild Rose tells the story of a young Glaswegian lass with dreams of making it as a country singer. The odds are stacked against her — she’s also a single mother of two who’s just served a year in prison for attempted drug trafficking — but she’s determined to make something of her talents in spite of this and anything else life has to throw at her. Jessie Buckley rightly got all the plaudits for her performance as Rose-Lynn when the movie was doing the rounds at the cinema, and it’s just as good now it’s on the small screen.
FROM THE VAULT Bliss (1985) Amazon Prime Video)
Forget the badly reviewed 2021 sci-fi Bliss starring Owen Wilson and Salma Hayek, watch the 1985 Australian film of the same name that comes up when you search for it on Amazon Prime Video instead. Based on the 1981 Peter Carey novel, it’s a very dark comedydrama about an ad exec who comes back from a heart attack and can’t figure out if he’s either died and gone to hell or simply had his eyes opened to the grim realities of his life. Controversial at the time of its release for reasons that become very clear when you watch, this one is the better bet of the two Blisses on offer.