Free to Air Shows:
Michael Buble's Day Off
If you aren't jamming one of the various Michael Buble crooning Christmas compilations in your car, house, boat or houseboat right about now then you might want to rethink how you're living your festive life. Michael Bublé, with his big man-baby face, has taken the world (and the Christmas market) by storm. And quite rightly too. I have no shame in saying that, sitting alone at his concert earlier this year, I shed a tear when he took off his mic and crooned completely unaccompanied. It was a very pure moment, and even Mike King (sitting three rows behind me) was palpably moved by the experience. So what I'm saying is, enjoy this "unique and personal" insight into the star's Vancouver home. Don't act like you're you doing anything else at 10.30pm on a Saturday night. / AC
Where: TV1 Saturday at 10.30pm
Binge Watch:
Peep Show
This joins the ranks of The Office UK for me as not only one of the greatest British sitcoms ever, but one of the best television shows ever made. Starring David Mitchell and Simon Webb as two best friends and flatmates, each with their own unique set of ineptitudes. In a skilful technique, the audience is forced to walk in their shoes as the camera adopts their point of view. When paired with internal monologues narrating every social situation they're put in, this adds a layer of comedy and anxiety that feels far too close to home. What are the panicked thoughts that race through your head when your hand accidentally touch someone's butt? Or when you plan to do something to win over your peers at work and end up nailing a racist sausage to a door? From the awkward to the inane, join Jez and Mark as they negotiate jobs, romance, crack addicts - and each other. It's a hilarious show made for anyone who has successfully run for a bus and secretly congratulated themselves for being "lord of the bus". Aka everyone. / AC
Where: Lightbox
NZ TV:
Christmas in the Park
Creepily billed as "Coca-cola's special gift to New Zealand", Christmas in the Park celebrates its 21st this Sunday. Most 21sts involve a large portion of the crowd existing on a spectrum between 'vomiting' and 'hospitalised by alcohol poisoning', which tallies with my teenage memories of the venerable event. Extreme drunkenness is perhaps an understandable response to the content of the throwback variety show in Auckland's Domain, which mainly serves to show that in attempting to please everyone, you please only the very old. The main attraction of this year's event is that it's hosted by the distinctly AO Jono and Ben, who seem like a dangerously edgy choice with a good shot at alienating much of the core (non-teen) audience. So tune in to see if the pair can will force a mass crowd exodus before they can take in such household names as Barry Southgate, Andrew Papas and Lavina Williams. / DG
Where: TV3 at 7pm Sunday
Reality:
America's Funniest Home Videos
America's Funniest Home Videos was reality tv before we knew that reality on television invariably involved groups of 12 insane people trying to outwit or outsing or outsex each other. It seems quaint that it's still on air - a little limpet of a franchise, stubbornly ignoring the fact that YouTube rendered it redundant years ago. Or has it? Not to get all Freakanomics on you, but AFHV has thrived against the odds over the last decade. Two elements are in its favour. Firstly, it pays cold hard cash without having to wait for YouTube's preroll dollars to trickle in. Secondly, where back in the day only weddings and puppies were ever filmed (hence the disproportionate amount of groom-falls-over or puppy-bites-testicles clips), nowadays every idiot has a video camera in their pocket. Hence an also-ran actually runs harder now than it ever has before. / DG
Where: The Box at 4pm Friday
Sky:
Eaten Alive
If you have been living under a giant anaconda for the past few weeks or so, you might not know about all this snake hullabaloo. Basically, snake expert and conservationist Paul Rosalie donned a snake proof suit covered in cameras (aka a Daft Punk costume), bathed in pigs blood and threw himself at an anaconda. All in the name of science, or conservation, or something. The Discovery stunt special garnered a lot of controversy in the lead-up to it's airing. And rightly so: the aim is for the anaconda to eat him alive, and then for him to somehow bungee cord back out like some snake-based AJ Hackett. You're right to question the ethics of it all. But, you know, it's already aired in the States so we're probably good to go. If you don't know the outcome, hedge your bets now. Just bear in mind that he is a stupid Daft Punk idiot and the snake is a lethal jungle mastermind. / AC
Where: Discovery Channel at 8.30pm Friday
Sport:
The U Part 2
For ESPN's 30th anniversary the channel did something expensive and counterintuitive. Instead of having a party in a neighbouring car park (s/o to TV3), they commissioned a series of 30 feature length documentaries, many of which would figure prominently in any list of the best sports movies ever made. The U was one of the first, and finest. It covered the early '80s recruiting of tough black football players, from largely poor areas, to a near-all white college and enervating chaos that resulted. It's energetic and stylish, and set to a popping score by 2 Live Crew's Luther Campbell - himself a controversial figure within the film thanks to his paying players to pulverise opponents. The team would go on to become the best and baddest in the nation, before being beset by scandal. The U Part 2 tells the story of the similarly chaotic years which followed, and promises to be equally kinetic viewing. / DG
Where: ESPN at 10pm Sunday
More Spinoff:
• It's been 'Street Week' on The Spinoff - a whole week dedicated to Shortland Street
• The main event is 'Real Talk', David Farrier's series of video interviews with the uniquely weird Ben Mitchell and his good friend Cam Jones.
• Alex Casey recounted the rare joys of a visit to the Shortland Street set.
• Duncan Greive makes the case for Shortland Street as a cultural icon we should treasure like Lorde and Peter Jackson.
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