In Weekend Watch, New Zealand TV blog The Spinoff takes the stress out of your time with the remote, pointing out the five best places to rest your eyes on your days off. Selected by staff writer Alex Casey (AC) or editor Duncan Greive (DG).
Broadchurch, Sunday TV1 at 8.35pm
Last Sunday's episode ended in agony, the credits rolling with the jury's forewoman a breath away from announcing their verdict in the trial of Joe Miller for the murder of Danny Latimer.
In truth the trial has been more notable for its casting (females fill the roles of judge, and three of the four lawyers) than for driving the narrative. The courtroom scenes have been brief and taut, but spinning them out over eight episodes has felt rather gratuitous. It's the secondary storyline which has provided the hook in this second season.
Olivia Colman and David Tennant star in Broadchurch.
The Sandbrook murders, which chased obsessive Detective Alec Hardy to this backwater in season one, have seeped up through the soil to infect the town, and we enter the finale with at least five plausible suspects and any number of enigmatic clues sparkling just out of reach. After starting a little creakily Broadchurch's second season has roared into life, and while the last episode closed on a predictable, even cynical cliffhanger, I'm still counting down the hours. / DG
The Strangers, Monday TV2 at 12.00am
I know it's technically not even on the weekend, but this film makes the cut because seeing it in a cinema scared the absolute living crap out of me. That doesn't happen incredibly often (I am incredibly tough), so any chance I get to promote this terror-fest, I take (partially because I truly believe that the fictional murderers are watching my every move and will kill me if I don't).
The premise is skin-crawlingly simple: a couple go and stay out in a lovely secluded gottage in the woods, and start slowly but painfully being terrorised by axe-wielding creeps wearing plastic masks. "But Alex", you cry, "isn't that every horror movie in the history of ever?" Yes, dearly esteemed NZ Herald reader, yes it is.
A scene from the movie The Strangers.
Where this film differs is in the excruciating slow burning build up, and the motive-less masked villains, whose only initial purpose is to slowly walk around in the background of shots (unbeknownst to our lovebirds). If there's a more petrifying reply to "why are you doing this to us?!" than "because you were home," give me a bloody bell. I'll be locked in the safe house. / AC
The Nation, Saturday TV3 at 9.30am on TV3 and Q&A, Sunday TV1 at 9am
The first two months of any year are pretty sleepy politically, particularly so in the year following an election. So you can forgive The Nation and Q&A for taking their sweet time to return. But any thoughts of cruising back in with a few gags about Cunliffe's cellphone style and JK's pubes would have been banished when we went marching off to war earlier this week.
Expect lots of amped up rhetoric from both sides, the gutless battling the anti-democratic to an exhausted draw. The Nation stays with its terrific tandem of Lisa Owen and Paddy "it's the f***in' news" Gower - both will be pigs in shit dealing with the theatre of this episode.
A day later on One Simon Dallow slides into Susan Wood's heels while she recovers from a serious head injury (get well soon Suse!). It'll be interesting to see how his more genial demeanour handles the obstreperous pols and obsequious panelists. Either way, it's good to have these shows back, just in the nick of time. / DG
Dog the Bounty Hunter, Lightbox
Crime and punishment is a bit of hot topic this week, with our own X Factor killer going global and raising some questions about the way his dark past was dealt with on the show, or if he should had even been allowed to audition at all.
Someone who would be sure to take a stance on this, if he would just answer our incessant phone calls, is Duane 'Dog' Chapman aka the star of Dog the Bounty Hunter. An ex-crim turned freelance bounty hunter, Dog found television fame not unlike Shae Brider himself, by taking part in a reality series about people with extraordinary jobs. From there, he was offered his own show - and the rest is history.
Duane 'Dog' Chapman stars in the TV show Dog The Bounty Hunter.
Dog the Bounty Hunter follows Dog and his enormous family of fellow vigilantes, who spend each episode hellbent on cuffing the latest crim who had skipped bail. What makes the show so exciting to watch? The characters. First of all, Dog himself is a treasure beyond measure. With the rusty Hawaiian skin of a dried mango, the luscious straw hair of an old Barbie doll and the leather clothes of Morpheus in The Matrix, he's unlike anything I've ever seen before on television.
Joining him is his wife Beth, a manicured buxom sidekick who can kick serious ass. and his various sons - all sporting various kinds of exciting haircuts. The almost-caricature cast make it feel like a scripted fantasy, until they close in and you realise just how dangerous their day jobs really are. There's nothing fake about it (apart from Beth's hair). / AC
Geordie Shore, Sunday MTV at 2.06pm
The impressive thing about Geordie Shore is that, love it or hate it, you can turn your telly on at any given hour of the day and it will never be more than six minutes away. It seems fitting for an insane reality show like this to have the nonsensical airtime of 2.06pm, but just know that you can really tune in any time.
As a newcomer to Geordie Shore within the past few weeks (in preparation for an interview with the show's star Charlotte - link below), I must admit that it has done... something... to me. I'm still not sure if I love it or hate it, I just know that it's a great way to live vicariously through some 20-somethings whose sole purpose in life is to get absolutely hammered and say deeply funny things about fannies.
Following a group of strategically-picked Newcastle pals all forced to live under one roof, it may well be trash TV but I found myself laughing hysterically and crying endlessly within the space of one episode (the one where Vicky comes back in the last season, in case you were wondering). Whatever the heck this show even is, it's a useful outlet to experience the pitfalls of binge drinking, sleeping around and experimenting with bad hair extensions without actually having to do any of it. / AC
