Your guide to the week’s best on Sky and free-to-air TV

Erotic Stories (8.30pm, Wednesday from March 6, Rialto)

Danielle Cormack, Frances O’Connor, Dominic Ona-Ariki and Crystal Nguyen are among the eclectic ensemble assembled for this eight-part Australian anthology series that promises to take a provocative, fresh look at “the complexity and chaos of lust and longing”.

It also aims to highlight characters who are queer, gender-diverse, middle-aged, people of colour and living with disabilities. “Sharply written, sensitively directed … and generously performed by a starstud cast,” wrote ScreenHub Australia’s Mel Campbell.

James Must-A-Pic His Mum A Man (9.30pm, Thursdays from March 7, TVNZ 2)

Comedian and Celebrity Treasure Island 2023 winner James Mustapic wants a father figure in his life – so he’s on a mission to find his mum, Janet, the perfect man, in this six-part reality series.

His plan involves setting Janet up with myriad potential suitors, while coaching her through the hurdles of modern dating. Can Janet meet her match and find a new dad for James? Does she even want a man?

The New Boy (8.30pm, Saturday, March 9, Sky Movies Premiere)

Australian director Warwick Thornton’s 1940s-set, 2023 drama is the story of a 9-year-old orphaned Aboriginal boy taken in at a remote monastery run by a renegade nun.

Shot in South Australia, the cast includes Cate Blanchett, Deborah Mailman, Wayne Blair and newcomer Aswan Reid.

Like Samson & Delilah and Sweet Country before it, Thornton’s latest is an evocative, provocative tale where the landscape is as much a character as the compelling human ones.

Troll Hunter (8.40pm, Saturday, March 9, Whakaata Māori)

Norway’s 2010 entry in the “found footage” horror genre, this features a group of Vold College students whose tracking of a poacher turns into something far more terrifying.

Genuinely shocking in places, this boasts some nice Henson-esque creatures and a clever coda which gives the whole tale far more heft.

“It's wry, spectacular fun,” wrote Empire magazine’s Kim Newman.

The Staircase (9.30pm, Saturdays from March 9, Sky Open)

Free-to-air debut for this eight-part, 2022 true-crime drama which focuses on the 16-year court battle that resulted from crime novelist Michael Peterson being accused of bludgeoning his wife Kathleen to death, after she is found dead at the bottom of a staircase in their home.

The impressive cast includes Toni Collette, Colin Firth, Sophie Turner, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Dane DeHaan, Olivia DeJonge and Michael Stuhlbarg.

“The linchpin of this delicate portrayal is Firth’s performance as Michael. Best known for playing romantic leads and other charismatic types, he disappears, here, into a far murkier character,” wrote Time magazine’s Judy Berman.

.Honeyland (8.30pm, Monday, March 11, Whakaata Māori)

When co-directors Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov began this 2019 project, it was a government-funded short about Macedonia's Bregalnica River. That was before they met Hatidže Muratova.

The first film to be nominated for both Best Documentary Feature and Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards, Honeyland looks at the life of Turkishborn 50-something Muratova – a woman billed as Europe’s last wild bee hunter.

Distilled from more than 400 hours of footage, Kotevska and Stefanov have created a masterclass of tension, building a heart-wrenching portrait of hardscrabble existence and a terrific allegory for our sometimes callous treatment of Mother Earth.

Trigger Point (10.25pm, Saturdays from March 9, TVNZ 1)

One of the best British dramas of 2022 is back, again focusing on the exploits of the Metropolitan Police’s bomb disposal officer Lana Washington (Vicky McClure).

As this six-part season opens, Lana is giving a routine talk to security officers when an explosion rocks London.

“McClure remains one of the most watchable actors working in British TV ... and is well served by some superb, suspenseful initial plotting,” wrote the London Evening Standard’s Hamish McBain.