What to watch on Sky and free-to-air TV this week
Suranne Jones is back with more Gentleman Jack, and a new reality show features master carpenters, writes Alex Behan.
Long-awaited season two of Gentleman Jack (Tuesdays from tonight, 8.30pm, SoHo), Suranne Jones (A Touch of Cloth, Doctor Foster) returns as provocative landowner Miss Anne Lister. The people of Halifax, Yorkshire, in 1832 aren’t ready for Lister’s confrontational spirit and unconventional love life, but she rubs it in their faces anyway. However, an old flame threatens to disrupt a newfound infatuation and uncover her well-meaning half-truths, as she settles into her new life in a new home.
A three-episode drama based on real events, The Pembrokeshire Murders (Sundays, 9.30pm, TVNZ 1) hunts for the killer of Peter and Gwenda Dixon who were robbed and shot dead while walking a coastal path in 1989. The unsolved case is picked up by Detective Steve Wilkins (Luke Evans) in 2006, who suspects they were victims of a serial killer already serving time. But he’ll be released if new evidence isn’t found in time. Also starring Caroline Berry and Keith Allen.
Stand up special James Roque: Boy Mestizo (Thursday, 8.30pm, Three) sees the Kiwi comic recount his ‘‘Eat, Pray, Love’’ journey back to the whā nau in the Philippines. A show about knowing your history, loving who you are and growing up in Aotearoa as someone not born here. Unafraid to push a sensitive button, this (mostly) reaffirming comedy confronts the racism endured by many Asian New Zealanders.
A new reality show featuring master carpenters creating extraordinary (but functional) pieces for welldeserving people, Kings of the Wood (tomorrow, 7pm, Eden) is feel-good television that hopes to inspire. Tonight, Ella makes a birdbath engraved with the names of foster children raised by a lovely couple. Meanwhile, Saf makes a drinks cabinet and Alex creates a personalised tool box.
There are touching moments when artists meet the recipients to present them with gifts and, despite the title, there are plenty of Queens of the Wood featured also.
The most ridiculous in a trilogy of ridiculous films, Bad Boys For Life (Sunday, 8.30pm, Three) is a late-in-thegame money grab that sadly isn’t directed by Michael Bay. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence star as the buddy cop duo drawn once again to an underworld of drugs and crime, seemingly just to give their boss (Joe Pantoliano) something to swear about. The body count is just as high, the explosions just as huge and they think of themselves as ageing, but still raging.
A two-part adaptation of Sebastian Faulks’ (Charlotte Gray) novel, Birdsong (Tuesdays from tonight, 8.30pm, Vibe) starts in flashbacks, as Stephen Wraysford (Eddie Redmayne) recalls falling in love with Isabelle (Clemence Poesy) before World War I sent him to the Battle of the Somme. When he meets her again, circumstances have changed, but he must face the consequences of their affair.
Little Fish (Saturday, 8.30pm, Rialto) stars Jack O’Connell and Olivia Cooke as a husband and wife dealing with a condition that causes people’s memory to disappear. Endemic around the globe, the virus is leading pilots to forget
how to fly mid-air and sailors attempting to swim to shore because they’ve forgotten what to do. Written by Mattson Tomlin, this is romance with a science-fiction twist.
A film by prominent actor and model Deana Uppal, India’s Forgotten People (Sunday, 7.30pm, Mā ori TV) looks at the disparity between rich and poor in Mumbai and focuses on the Gadia Lohar community who have lived nomadically for generations. A former Miss India, Uppal is totally out of place with the poorest of the poor, but that helps ground this documentary that shows an entire people fighting for rights and freedoms many Indians take for granted.