Anzac Day brings out best in John Key and telly

John Key gave a moving address at Gallipoli. Photo / Alan Gibson

Paul Casserly reflects on Anzac Day coverage and other bloody battles on TV this week.

What with the 100th anniversary and all, Anzac Day 2015 was always going to be a big one. The coverage across TV One, TV3 and Maori TV was wall-to-bloody wall, generally impressive and often very moving.

When our TV overlords put their minds to it they can make us proud, something that is easy to forget during the 364 days that are not Anzac Day. The images of dawn services resplendent with weeping descendants wearing medals or holding photographs will always move me. The well-chosen words and sonorous tones of Ian Johnstone at the national service made me feel comforted, despite the grim reality of the slaughter.

Then there was the PM. On Twitter, he was the new Jimmy Savile, (thanks to his follicle harassment of a Parnell hospitality worker), but somehow there in Anzac Cove, John Key was almost heroic, delivering an impressive speech with humility as he considered how the Turks must have felt when all the Anzacs turned up to kill them 100 years ago.

"If for a moment we imagined the situation reversed," he said, with words that were way more thoughtful and less hawkish than Tony Abbott's. "A hundred years ago both sides thought what they were doing was right," said Key, in rare moment of clarity amongst the usual: "they died for our freedom" blather. As the last surviving Anzac, Alec Campbell said in 2002, "for god's sake, don't glorify Gallipoli - it was a terrible fiasco, total failure, best forgotten."

But we can't get enough of the bloody past. Well I can't. On the show Vikings, an offering from both Netflix and Lightbox, (although only the latter has the new series) the rapers and pillagers of Scandinavia are glorified and wage wars that often resemble fiascoes.

The cast of Vikings

Made by the History Channel, but looking more like an HBO production, the series follows Ragnar Lothbrok, a famous raider, explorer and rooter. The drama is loosely historical. This is very much "based on a true story" territory and will appeal to anyone keen on non-fiction and who perhaps enjoyed Game of Thrones, up to a point.

There are plenty of battles, sex scenes and strange mythological Nordic ramblings, but thankfully there are no dragons. But there are many of things that makes GOT so enjoyable, like the masterly performances of some serious actors, in this case Gabriel Byrne as Viking chieftain Earl Haraldson.

Where the show really shines is that the characters actually look dirty and smelly in a way that seems authentic, and that few big budget shows ever pull off. Even in Hell on Wheels, set in the dirty Wild West, you suspect that a hairdresser is always hovering just off screen.

That said, the lead in Vikings is one Travis Fimmel (as Ragnar Lothbrok). Fimmel was once a Calvin Klein model, and some of his acting is a little bit of the 'blue steel' variety. Now into series 3, Vikings is surprisingly addictive, slightly pornographic, often shocking and vaguely educational. What more could you want?

I suspect the Vikings would have made very good Anzacs, but I dread to think what would happen to John Key should he be tempted to play with Ragnar's wife's impressive blond ponytail. He'd probably taste the back of an axe.

The Lizzie Borden Chronicles also dredges up the historical past and takes all sorts of liberties with it. The real Lizzie Borden was an American woman who was famously acquitted of the axe murders of her father and stepmother in 1892.

In the new series (also on Lightbox) Lizzie, played by Christina Ricci, is more a serial killer/vigilante with come-to-bed eyes. Ricci is pitch-perfect as the bad penny hounded by a public not convinced of her innocence.

The opening scenes are all slow-motion blood splatter, squealing schoolgirls, period costumes, and modern music. A gaggle of girls sing Lizzie Borden-themed nursery rhymes, and run screaming when they see her.

"I'm not afraid of you", says one girl defiantly to Lizzie, who replies, with a knowing grin: "Then you haven't been paying attention."

Fans of Penny Dreadful and American Horror Story should apply within.