New to view this weekend
Good Omens
Upstairs, downstairs
The amusing double act that Michael Sheen and David Tennant brought to pandemic lockdown zoom-camera comedy Staged, in which they played themselves, actually started in 2019 on Good Omens. The occult comedy series was based on a bestseller co-written by Neil Gaiman and the late Terry Pratchett. The second season goes beyond the book and returns the immortal angel and demon mates to their lives among London’s mortals in contemporary Soho where the fussy Aziraphale (Sheen) runs a rare-books shop and Crowley (Tennant) hangs out with his only friend. Having ended with the pair preventing the end of days in the previous season, the new series – co-written by Gaiman – begins with Archangel Gabriel (Jon Hamm) turning up at the shop suffering from amnesia. The duo must hide him from their former employers in heaven and hell and try to avert another war between them.
Streaming: Amazon Prime from Friday July 28
Superpowered: The DC Story
Heroes & villains
The history of DC, the original comic-book superpower, gets a three-part television documentary treatment with 60 or so interviewees helping chart the brand’s roller-coaster ride through pop culture, publishing and screen production over the best part of a century. It has the feel of an officially sanctioned history and one that is pointedly reclaiming some kudos from rivals Marvel. The now-ubiquitous “multiverse” thing in mainly Marvel movies? DC invented that so long ago it killed it off and started again. Many of DC’s creative geniuses are long gone, but ample time is still given to many – and to the controversies over credit for who created what, something given short shrift in the recent Disney+ doco about Marvel figurehead Stan Lee. The second episode also reminds us that Christopher Reeve will always be the best screen Superman too.
Streaming: Neon/Sky Go from July 27
Twisted Metal
Freaky future fender benders
We’ve had videogame-based television shows of Halo and The Last of Us and now it’s the turn of Twisted Metal, the post-apocalyptic demolition derby that first appeared on
PlayStation way back in 1995 with a last update arriving in 2012. It was basically Mad Max given the arcade treatment. A planned movie fell apart a few years ago but Sony has produced a series for US streamer Peacock starring Anthony Mackie (The Falcon and The Winter Soldier), Neve Campbell and Thomas Haden Church. The game’s clown-masked trademark villain Sweet Tooth (he drives an ice-cream truck) is a combination of wrestler Samoa Joe with the voice of Lego Batman himself Will Arnett. The trailer suggests it has a sense of humour – violent slapstick with plenty of quips – akin to Deadpool or Peacemaker. It’s aimed at a demographic who grew up on the game and may have wondered who the heck was driving those other missile-armed cars.
Streaming: TVNZ+ from July 27
From earlier this month
Justified: City Primeval
Raylan rides again
Bringing back not-long-gone television shows for another rodeo is now a fixture of the streaming age. But Justified had kind of a precedent. The 2010-15 Kentucky crime drama was based on a short story by the great US crime writer Elmore Leonard, and the main character of US Marshal Raylan Givens had appeared in a few earlier books. He’s already been through a few iterations. Inspired by the early success of the show, Leonard finally made him the star of his 2012 book Raylan, some of which was adapted for series three.
While sporting Raylan’s stetson, Timothy Olyphant made him America’s coolest TV cop in the original show (which is available on Disney+). And now he’s back in an eight-part series that is also based on the Leonard book City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit, just not a Raylan one. The geography change also means only Olyphant seems to have returned from the original series, one that had plenty of memorable supporting cast figures such as Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins).
Still, the early episodes have Raylan making plenty of interesting new acquaintances in the Motor City as he gets involved in the hunt for Clement Mansell, aka “The Oklahoma Wildman”, a violent sociopath with a formidable lawyer in the form of Carolyn Wilder (Aunjanue Ellis, Lovecraft Country).
These days, Marshal Givens is a single dad to 15-year-old Willa, played by Olyphant’s own daughter, Vivian. That he’s brought her along for the ride from Florida might be the show’s weak link – not helped by the fact she has one of those voices that sounds 10 years younger than she is. But having Raylan as a white cop facing a black lawyer before a black judge in a 75% black city shows some gumption from the makers of a show, which, in its earlier incarnation, made lovable villains out of Nazi rednecks. Recommended. – Russell Baillie
Streaming: Disney+ from July 19
The Bear
And some days it eats you
The first season of The Bear became one of the breakthrough shows of 2022, care of its nerve-racking dramedy set mostly in the kitchen of a Windy City diner named The Beef of Chicagoland. Top chef Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) had returned to save the ailing family business he’d inherited after the suicide of his brother Michael. Actually, not just save it, but execute a plan turn it into The Bear, a place more fitting for his culinary skills than a hot sandwich shop. He essentially wants to do for this neighbourhood joint what Ted Lasso did for Richmond AFC.
In season two, those frantic half-hour episodes return, complete with a soundtrack that suggests the 1990s were formative years for the show’s makers. Season two isn’t quite as focused on Carmy, with episodes following the rest of his kitchen staff family as they head into the outside world to extend their skills. One follows pastry chef Marcus (Lionel Boyce) to Copenhagen, where he interns at a high-end temple of designer cuisine. Another follows Carmy’s temperamental cousin Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), who is learning fine-dining etiquette by waiting at a posh Chicago restaurant – the show’s Lasso equivalent of Roy Kent coaching a kids’ team. The season comes with a major buffet of cameos: Jamie Lee Curtis plays Carmy and Michael’s mother; Sarah Paulson is their cousin, Bob Odenkirk is an uncle, and Olivia Colman is a former chef mentor of Carmy’s.
Streaming: Disney+ from July 19
Totally Completely Fine
Look before you leap
Thomasin McKenzie’s career takes another intriguing swerve with her lead role in this six-part Australian black comedy. She’s troubled twenty-something Vivian, who has just inherited her grandad’s house. The clifftop place has quite the sea view, but it’s also neighbouring a notorious suicide spot. Which means Vivian – who’s not feeling too good about life herself, having just destroyed her brother’s foodtruck, among other troubles – has also inherited Grandad’s job of keeping an eye on folks turning up and contemplating a high-dive. Despite being ill-prepared for dealing with other people’s crises, she develops a knack for bringing them back from the brink. It was made for Oz streaming service Stan and its darkly quirky delivery won decent reviews across the Tasman since it debuted there in April. Creator Gretel Vella has said the production had mental-health experts consult on the script.
Streaming: TVNZ+ from July 20
The Brokenwood Mysteries
Return to village of the damned
We return for a ninth time to the leafy but lethal hamlet of Brokenwood, the semi-rural NZ town where regular violent deaths are a fact of life. The first of six feature-length episodes involves the local repertory company staging a musical about Brokenwood’s history, one made a little more colourful by a local composer who is under the illusion he has written the next Hamilton. Other cases that local detectives Mike Shepherd (Neill Rea) and Kristin Sims (Fern Sutherland) face this series include a dead nun in a convent where the sisters have taken a vow of silence; a veterinary nurse who has been put to sleep; the arrival of an all-female motorcycle gang (which is clearly a nod to the movies of Russ Meyer, not a previous Brokenwood influence) and an episode involving Mike’s estranged wife, played by Rebecca Gibney.
Screening: TVNZ1, from 8.30pm Sunday July 23. Streaming: TVNZ+ from July 23
The Summit
Cold hard cash grab
First there was Vinnie Jones hosting Tracked, a show about people from around the world scarpering through the Southern Alps while being chased by experts. Now it’s a bunch of Aussie contestants in another snow-capped reality show chasing each other. In this one they are out to climb every mountain and ford every stream and follow every rainbow, well figuratively speaking, until they find their dream, a share of a million dollars. The 14 contestants each have a portion of the loot in their backpacks. And if they get eliminated the money goes from the prize pool. Or they can steal from each other in certain events and supposedly the game involves the notion that one should be kind to the people on your way up, because you never know who you might meet on the way down. Well, one of the contestants is a former Olympic ski-jumper, so you hope she doesn’t meet anyone on the way down.
Other contestants include a fitness coach, a personal trainer, a former AFL player, a former world champ boxer, a dance teacher and at least one mum-of-three with a positive attitude. The contenders must endure 14 days in the Southern Alps (from the trailer it looks to be Mt Aspiring National Park) and get challenges like ladders across crevasses and rope traverses over canyons while ultimately heading for the top of a local peak. Former Aussie Hollywood-next-big-thing Jai Courtney looks to be giving Vinnie a run for his money as the hard taskmaster presenter. He was last in New Zealand starring in Spartacus. He wears clothes in this one. And look out for an upcoming episode of Border Patrol where Queenstown customs officers are grilling 14 Aussie backpackers about the million bucks of Australian currency in their carry-ons.
Screening: Monday to Wednesday from July 24, TVNZ2, 7.30pm
Streaming: TVNZ+ from July 24
Futurama
Matt Groening’s side project returns
Sci-fi comedy Futurama has had a chequered history of cancellations and reboots and there have been four series finales (so far). Now, after 10 years, US streamer Hulu has brought it back. Topics in season eight reportedly include vaccines, cancel culture and the contents of Nibbler’s litter box.
Streaming: Disney+ from July 24
Safe Home
Home is where the hurt is
A compelling Australian drama series that weaves together narratives that highlight what is described as that country’s “domestic abuse epidemic”, which means it will have resonance everywhere. Creator Anna Barnes had been primarily known as a playwright, but has lately turned her attention to television and based the four-part series on her experiences working in a family legal centre. The story follows a number of women, including a communications specialist (Aisha Dee), who starts working at such a centre and comes into contact with a number of women struggling in abusive relationships. The cast includes Kiwis Mark Mitchinson and Antonia Prebble.
Streaming: ThreeNow from July 13
Creamerie
Second season of the seminal local action comedy
The outlandish local dystopian black comedy returns for a second season with the lead trio of Alex (Ally Xue), Jaime (JJ Fong) and Pip (Perlina Lau) battling to undo the Wellness cult, which has taken over after a virus rendered the world almost man-free. Pip sacrifices herself so the other two and Jay Ryan’s Bobby can escape Wellness’ underground man-milking facility and head off on a road trip that goes to some very strange places, including a co-operative sanctuary hidden behind a waterfall and Government House like you’ve never seen it. The first episodes suggest director-writer Roseanne Liang is doubling down on the show’s nastier, violent side – especially in the first episode – while the show’s mean-girls, like evil Wellness leader Lane (Tandi Wright), are getting even meaner.
Screening: TVNZ 2, 10.00pm, from Saturday, July 15. Streaming: TVNZ+ from July 15
Foundation
Return to deep space
The second season of Apple’s epic if increasingly loose adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series ups its story more than 100 years after the events of season one – and there were a lot of them. This time – deep breath – the Foundation has entered its religious phase, promulgating the Church of Seldon throughout the Outer Reach and inciting the Second Crisis: War with Empire. The Cleons are unravelling and a newly discovered colony of Mentalics possesses psionic abilities that threaten to alter psychohistory itself. Crazy, right? A crop of new cast members includes Rachel House in her second launch for this month (she returns for the second season of Creamerie, too) as the Mentalics’ mysterious leader, which sounds like a promotion from her previous sci-fi outing as second banana to Jeff Goldblum in the Thor films.
Streaming: Apple TV+ from Saturday, July 15
Full Circle
One to hold you captive
A miniseries produced for HBO Max whose story unfolds from the investigation of a botched kidnapping. Steven Soderbergh directs a script by Ed Solomon (the two first worked together on the widely praised 2021 film No Sudden Move), and the ensemble cast includes Claire Danes, Timothy Olyphant as the well-off New York daughter and son-in-law of Dennis Quaid’s celebrity chef, as well as Zazie Beetz (Atlanta) and CCH Pounder. It’s a connect-the-dots-thriller involving a seemingly disparate group of New Yorkers who are linked to the crime, which, judging by a previewed first episode, comes with heck of a twist. Soderbergh has done the mosaic story thing successfully before in such movies as Contagion and Traffic, though this feels closer to thrillers with various levels of Big Apple social strata in collision like The Night Of or The Undoing.
Streaming: Neon from Saturday, July 15. Screening: SoHo, 8.30pm, Mondays from July 31
You’ve Been Scammed, By Nigel Latta
Psychologist tackles immaculate deceptions
Way back in April 2020, when we were all huddled in our houses sheltering from the biological storm, Nigel Latta posted a series of tweets about how he’d amused himself stringing along one of those phone scammers who claim to be from your internet company. Now, here he is with a four-part show about the psychology behind common scams – and advice on how to make yourself invulnerable to them. He’s joined by magician and mentalist Brendan Dooley, and the pair conduct various social experiments to explain the ways our good nature can be exploited.
Screening: TVNZ 1, 8.00pm, Mondays from July 3
Streaming: on TVNZ+ from July 3
Read Latta’s Listener feature on the psychology of scamming.
Endangered Species Aotearoa with WWF
Conservation is no laughing matter, except …
Forest & Bird boss Nicola Toki and comedian Pax Assadi buddy up to find the stories behind some of our most threatened fauna and the efforts being made to stop them from becoming extinct. Assadi may be the comic city boy out of his comfort zone and Toki the expert in her natural habitat, but she’s as quick-witted as her fellow bird-spotter and tuatara tracker. And it’s a show that sure doesn’t lack for nice scenery.
Screening: TVNZ 1, 8.30pm, Mondays from July 3. Streaming: TVNZ+
Read the Listener’s interview with Nicola Toki.
Hijack
High anxiety
British star Idris Elba has inked a deal with Apple TV+, and this seven-part thriller is the first off the block (or should that be chocks?). Elba is a business negotiator on a seven-hour Dubai-London flight (see what they did there? The drama unfolds “in real time”) who becomes involved when the plane is hijacked. On the ground is counterterrorism officer Archie Panjabi, and the cast includes Max Beesley, Eve Myles and Ben Miles. The early episodes we’ve seen, which are arriving weekly, suggest it’s quite the suspense-fest and not a show you’re ever likely to see offered on inflight entertainment.
Streaming: Apple TV+
Unforgotten
Bring up the bodies
Having screened on Sky’s Vibe channel in 2021, the fourth season of Unforgotten is being streamed by TVNZ+. But there’s good news for fans of the UK cold-case crime series built on the partnership of Nicola Walker and Sanjeev Bhaskar as DCI Cassie Stuart and DI Sunny Khan: the fifth season, which has just screened in the UK, is arriving at the same time. As those who have seen the earlier of the two seasons know, there is a significant change between them as a result of events at the end of season four. Those six episodes began with the discovery of a headless and handless corpse in a freezer dumped at a scrapyard. A football-club tattoo links the body to a young man who went missing 30 years ago, shortly after encountering five new police recruits out celebrating the end of training. The fifth season starts with human remains found during renovations on a period property in Hammersmith, London. A murder mystery and a house-reno show? No wonder it rated through the roof in the UK.
Streaming: TVNZ+
The Mormons Are Coming
On yer bike, son
That Salt Lake City, Utah, is the home base of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is common knowledge. Fewer of us will know that the church has another base in the town of Chorley, Lancashire, where about 800 young Mormons go every year to train for their part in the largest global missionary force of any church. This documentary follows three aspiring missionaries and looks at the challenges of preaching the word in an increasingly secular world. The church granted the film-makers broad access and was rewarded with a sympathetic depiction of the missionaries and their families, who may or may not be on board with the mission. The Guardian found it both “lovely” and “unsettling”, and the website LDS Living quoted church leaders who were happy with the “positive and balanced” depiction, but warned its readers that “there is one instance of strong language”.
Streaming: TVNZ+
WHAM!
When they were young guns
It’s an unthinkable 41 years since Wham Rap!, a defiant pop celebration of choosing life over drudgery, sprang into pop charts around the world. By that time, George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley had already written, but not recorded, Careless Whisper, the song which acted as Michael’s springboard to solo stardom. How Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou went from Ridgeley’s shy best mate to one of the defining pop songwriters and producers of the era — as well as shirt free sex symbol — gives this doco its own A Star is Born story. He had some balls on him too for a musical newbie, rejecting a version of Careless Whisper produced by storied Atlantic Records guy Jerry Wexler, using the famed session players at Alabama’s Muscle Shoals studio.
Precious little time is devoted to just how the pair magpied Motown, Stax, Michael Jackson and many more US influences into their sunny sound. Then again, British bands have been doing that since the beginning of the pop era. The story is narrated from past interviews with the pair as the voice-over, while the scrapbooks Ridgeley’s mum kept come in handy as a structural device. It’s also a touching, if possibly officially sanctioned, portrait of the pair’s friendship. If you ever thought Ridgeley was riding on Michael’s coat-tails, then you might need to see this. If you always hated Wham’s music, ditto. — Russell Baillie
Streaming: Netflix.
Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan
Final tour of duty
John Krasinski returns for his fourth and final season in the role of Jack Ryan. He’s put in more hours as writer Tom Clancy’s CIA guy than his big-screen predecessors – Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck and Chris Pine – and arguably done a better job than all of them, as he’s progressed from office-based analyst to field agent and now to deputy director of the agency.
Not that the promotion has him doing less running round with a gun. The season sees Ryan investigating corruption within the agency while also dealing with a new threat to US security: a hybrid drug-cartel terrorist organisation. Joining the cast is Michael Peña, whose character Domingo “Ding” Chavez appeared in nearly two dozen of Clancy’s books and who is being lined up for a possible spin-off series.
Streaming: Amazon Prime.
I Kissed A Boy
Dannii’s pashing project
There was an overwhelmingly positive reception in the UK to this gay dating show – surprisingly, a historic first. Mostly, commentators enjoyed the fact that contestants are just as messy and nuanced and ordinary and open as anyone on the blockbuster Love Island. Quelle surprise. Dannii Minogue, who handily was also able to provide the theme tune, dons an array of fabulous outfits to present the show from a sun-soaked resort in Italy. “A fun and grounding reminder that we all deserve a chance to graft around the pool while a Dua Lipa song plays in the background. Luv is luv,” said the Guardian. Naturally, a lesbian version is in the works.
Streaming: TVNZ+
Rainbow Warrior: Murder in the Pacific
J’accuse!
A three-part BBC documentary about the deadly bombing of Greenpeace’s vessel in Auckland in 1985 by French agents. Inevitably, from a New Zealand perspective, there are some familiar faces featured among the then-Greenpeace members and the New Zealand police investigating team on Operation Rainbow. But the interviewees also extend to French journalists, who exposed their government’s plot, and Jean-Luc Kister, the French secret service frogman who placed the bomb on the ship. Also featured are some British and French ministers at the time, including the Thatcher government’s Secretary of State for Defence, Lord Heseltine, defending the nuclear deterrent. Executive producer Caroline Hawkins told RNZ the purpose of the series, which was widely acclaimed when it screened in the UK in March, wasn’t just to recap the events of 1985, as many have done before, but to make it exciting for a generation who weren’t aware of it. “It was entirely intentional to make it unfold like a thriller, and that was part of what convinced the BBC to let us make it.”
Screening: TVNZ 1, 9.30pm, Mondays from July 10. Streaming: TVNZ+ from July 10
Tangata Whenua
A taonga restored
If there’s one good thing about the streaming era, it’s the use of it as a digital library, and we’re very happy to see this groundbreaking 1974 series restored and improved. Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision has digitised the iconic series to 4K quality in what it says reproduces the characteristics of the original analogue image in digital format. The series was directed by pioneer Māori film-maker Barry Barclay, produced by John O’Shea, and featured historian Michael King as narrator and interviewer. Kaumātua and others were featured for an inside view on their history, culture and identity in 1970s Aotearoa.
Streaming: TVNZ+ from July 11.
