My Love: Six Stories of True Love (Netflix)
What's the secret to a long, successful marriage? According to David and Ginger, the American couple celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary in the first episode of Netflix documentary series My Love, it's having as little to do with each other as possible.
For much of their six decades together, David was busy running the family farm while Ginger was busy looking after the kids. "We both led different lives," she reflects. "I think when we could get together, it was really special."
My Love is what you might call a hidden gem of the Netflix library, another reminder not to judge a show by its thumbnail. This is a series of almost impossibly tender portraits of couples around the world, all of whom have been together for a very, very long time.
This quiet, observational series is based on My Love, Don't Cross That River, a 2014 documentary directed by Jin Mo-young, which followed an elderly couple until the final moments of their 76-year marriage. The Netflix series – or the first episode, at least – isn't quite that emotionally devastating, though it's probably best to keep the tissues handy.
Each episode – the others take place in Spain, Brazil, Japan, South Korea and India – follows its couple over the course of a year. In David and Ginger's case, that means you see them walking in the winter snow around their picturesque Vermont farm, enjoying the fireworks on the 4th of July, then chopping down a tree for Christmas. In between times, they're busy making arrangements for funerals and wills, approaching end of life with the same pragmatism that got them this far.
Just about every shot looks like it could be an oil painting. The real beauty, though, is in all the small moments captured, and in the careful way they're all put together.
Teine Sā – The Ancient Ones (Prime, 9:30pm Thursday)
You might not have seen them on the screen before, but the Pacific Islands have some pretty intense supernatural legends. New series Teine Sā – The Ancient Ones takes six from across the Pacific and brings them into the modern day, full of influencers and online dating. In the first one, a young artist (Frankie Adams) opens a portal to the spirit world when she tramples an ancient heirloom; in another, a bullied teenager evokes an ancient Solomon Islands guardian spirit. There's a cannibal in one of them, and some sort of shapeshifting reptilian lizard – but it's unlikely any of it is quite like anything you've seen before.
Jupiter's Legacy (Netflix)
For a young athlete or musician, following in the footsteps of a famous parent can seem like a bit of a poisoned chalice – who's to say it's any different for the children of actual superheroes? Jupiter's Legacy, based on the popular comic book series, follows a group of supercharged youngsters struggling to live up to the expectations set by the legendary feats of their parents. They were called The Union, and were classical superheroes who used their powers for the good of all mankind. The comics got into big intergenerational themes around socio-economics and capitalism and all that – so, not exactly your typical superhero series.
The Apprentice Aotearoa (TVNZ 1, 8:30pm Monday)
There has never been a funnier episode of New Zealand reality TV than the first episode of the Terry Serepisos series of The Apprentice NZ, where the teams of aspiring capitalists had to organise a sausage sizzle. Happily, the first episode of all-new Mike Pero-led The Apprentice Aotearoa captures the exact same vibe as the teams full of marketing types climb over each other to create a new kids' popcorn flavour, coming up with ad concepts on the fly and pitching their products to the supermarkets. It looks and feels straight out of 2004, in the best possible way.
Movie of the Week: Nomadland (Disney Plus)
It used to be you had to leave the house if you wanted to see the year's Academy Award-winning best movie, but not this year. Nomadland, in which Frances McDormand's character leaves her hometown after her husband dies and the last factory closes to live a nomadic life out of her van, is available now on Disney Plus, Sky Movies Premiere and Sky Go from May 12 and on Neon from May 16. If it is screening at your local cinema, though, it'll definitely be better that way.
From the Vault: 13 Going on 30 (2004) (Neon)
Anyone who was 13 when 13 Going on 30 was first released, is turning the big 3-0 this year. Congratulations, time to rewatch from the other end of the looking glass and have a long, hard think about your life, reflect on the unstoppable passage of time and consider whether or not 30 is as good as Jennifer Garner made you think it would be. It's also just a nice funny movie if that's what you're after.
Podcast of the Week: Pseudocide
Most true crime podcasts can be easily placed into one of two subcategories: murders or scams. Pseudocide, the new series from the makers of popular true crime (murder) series Casefile, exists right in the middle of that hypothetical Venn diagram – it's a podcast about people who've faked their own death.
The nine stories here range in date from 1318, when an English nun faked her own death to escape the convent, to 2018, when an Irish football club announced on Facebook that their star Spanish left back had died in a motorcycle accident so they wouldn't have to default on an important match.
Needless to say, every episode is an absolute yarn. If you want a good one to start with, episode two, Living Colors, takes us back to the innocent, pre-Facebook days of the internet, and the death of a popular teenage blogger Kaycee Nicole, which turned out to be potentially the first recorded case of Munchausen by internet. Hearing from her online friends – and the online sleuth who raised the alarm when she checked the metadata – gives a fascinating window into an internet that's almost completely unrecognisable to the snakepit we all hang out in today.
