Watch, listen and be inspired by Calum Henderson's definitive list of what's hot right now and from the vault.
Maid (Netflix)
If you thought Squid Game's inhumane series of life or death scenarios were stressful to watch, they've got nothing on Netflix's new series Maid. Based on Stephanie Land's bestselling memoir (Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive), it offers a more realistic depiction of life below the poverty line in America, navigating a social services system far more labyrinthine and frustrating than that pastel MC Escher house.
It starts with young mum Alex (Margaret Qualley) and her sleeping toddler leaving her violent partner in the middle of the night. She has $18 in her wallet – a figure that pops up on screen and ticks closer and closer to zero each time she spends money in the first episode – and nowhere to go, making the stakes immediately and unavoidably high from the start.
Reporting to social services the next morning Alex experiences for the first time the seemingly endless spool of red tape that now lies in front of her. But also kindness in the face of it all from the social worker, who refers her to a minimum wage cleaning company where the boss' lack of empathy is rivalled only by that of her clients.
Alex leaves her daughter with her eccentric and extremely unreliable mum (Andie MacDowell, Qualley's real-life mother) to go to her first cleaning gig. But every step forward seems to open up countless terrifying new ways for things to slide back to square one again, and the first episode lurches from one stomach-dropping moment to the next.
These are balanced, thankfully, with the kind of lightness and humour that can come only from someone who's lived through it all. Even if it never quite reaches those Ken Loach levels of stark social realism, this adaptation of Land's memoir certainly does justice to her story.
Angela Black (TVNZ OnDemand, from Monday)
On the surface, Angela Black (Downton Abbey's Joanne Frogatt) leads an idyllic life, living in central London with her family and volunteering at a local dog shelter. Beneath the surface, however, she's hiding years of domestic abuse from her husband Olivier (Game of Thrones' Michiel Huisman). When a private investigator turns up out of the blue with some quite eye-opening new info on Olivier one day, Angela's whole world begins to unravel – in the way it tends to do for characters in these kinds of intense British dramas – something she must contend with in order to start rebuilding her life.
Inked (SkyGO and Neon)
Breaking it to your parents that you want to become a professional tattoo artist is probably not an easy conversation for many young people, but it's especially tricky for 1.5 generation Chinese New Zealander Jiayue (Lisa Zhang) in new bilingual drama series Inked. But, forced by a combination of Life Events to move back in with her dad, she has to confront the fact the med degree he chose for her probably isn't the life she wants. The first New Zealand series of its kind, it's a well-observed story about navigating familial expectations and loyalty while staying true to one's own dreams.
Growing Dope (SkyGO and Neon)
Do you ever stop and think how weird it is that vast swathes of the conservative old United States have legalised weed and we voted not to? Possibly something the staff of Rua Bioscience think about from time to time while they go about their days growing and manufacturing medicinal cannabis. New Prime documentary series (also available on SkyGO and Neon) Growing Dope follows the Ruatoria-based company as it blazes new trails for the industry in New Zealand, offering a fly-on-the-wall look at how the company runs and the important part the local community has played in getting it off the ground.
Movie of the Week: Woodstock '99: Peace, Love and Rage (SoHo, 9:30pm Monday; Neon from Friday)
If you think a documentary about the disastrous attempt to recreate Woodstock three decades later might be a bit of a laugh, like the Fyre Fest doco, think again. This one plays out more like a horror movie – punters flock to an air force base in the middle of nowhere with very little shelter or water, where things gradually escalate to a riot of violence and sexual assault. As a study of a cultural moment it's an effective documentary, but don't expect to feel too comfortable watching it.
From the Vault: Maid in Manhattan (2002) (Netflix)
Yes, being a maid is a backbreaking and often precarious working situation – but sometimes you do end up falling in love with Ralph Fiennes. This is the message of hope in Maid in Manhattan, which was based on a story by John Hughes of every-teen-movie-from-the-80s fame. Jennifer Lopez is the maid, a single mother working at an expensive New York hotel, where Fiennes, a big-time political candidate, is a guest. A modern fairytale, 2002 edition.
Podcast of the Week: The 11th
There are all sorts of subscription services these days where you get a different thing sent to you in the mail each month – a new item of men's linen, or a box of exciting new craft beers (are the main two being marketed to me at the moment). The 11th is the same type of deal but in podcast form (and, importantly, free).
On the 11th (more like the 12th in New Zealand) day of each month, a different new podcast pops up in the feed – could be a single episode, could be a little miniseries, could be anything. So far, two months in, there's been a thought-provoking This American Life type miniseries called The Inbox, which is kind of like a real-life (and less funny) version of Sandra Oh's Netflix series The Chair, followed last month by a two-part personal essay about The Fugees' album The Score from acclaimed podcasting poet and music critic Hanif Abdurraqib (Lost Notes).
The idea is to give a home to the more experimental or uncategorisable odds and ends in a podcast world that sometimes feels like the same five series over and over again, and so far it's two from two – let's see what this month brings.
