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The Last Airbender
High stakes take on a cartoon classic
Some of the kids who had their minds blown by the original Last Airbender animated series nearly 20 years ago are in the media themselves now, which probably explains the degree of fretting in advance of this new live-action remake of the story. Showrunner Albert Kim has been declaring in interviews that the new series is “a remix, not a cover’' of the original and there are reportedly significant changes to the original timeline of the story – some simply to accommodate the fact that real-life early teens actors do actually grow up in the time it takes to shoot a high-end production like this. The nerds will make their judgment, but the big news for New Zealanders is that Roseanne Liang (Creamerie) is a director.
Streaming: Netflix
RECOMMENDED
Constellation
Stranger things happen in space
Apple’s streaming platform certainly likes a bit of fictional extrapolation when it comes to its shows about our actual efforts to head into space. Its For All Mankind began as an alternative history of the Cold War era space race projecting what might have happened if a cosmonaut had landed on the moon first in 1969. That ongoing US-USSR rivalry has meant that by the recently released fourth season set in the 2000s, there are the beginnings of a colony on Mars. Constellation doesn’t aim quite as high and there aren’t any lunar buggy chase scenes. But it does go into something of a twilight zone. It starts out on the International Space Station with an incident that might bring on some deja-vu of the film Gravity, with Noomi Rapace in the Sandra Bullock position of having to find her own way back to Earth. But it’s soon clear that this is also a story with parallels to many a sci-fi story, where returning astronauts find that either things are not quite as they left them at home, or they aren’t quite the same people they were before lift -off. Or something weird is going on. The eight episodes also star Jonathan Banks (Breaking Bad) as a former Nasa astronaut working for mission control, who is keen that when calamity hits the ISS, the equipment for a quantum physics experiment is retrieved.
Streaming: Apple TV+
RECOMMENDED
Boiling Point
British kitchen pressure
This intense British restaurant kitchen drama follows in the footsteps of the much celebrated The Bear – but it also predates it. It was made first as a short film and then a 2022 feature film, most notable for the power move of having been made in a single take. The TV series keeps the title but picks up a few months aft er the collapse of the film’s restaurateur lead character, Andy. His student, Carly (Vinette Robinson), is now head chef at a new restaurant and most of the old team has followed her – as has the stress that dealt to her former boss. “I’d advise you to pop a handful of statins and switch to a low cholesterol spread before watching it,” wrote the Guardian’s reviewer in September, but Boiling Point really is one of the best things on TV this year.”
Streaming: TVNZ+
The Walk-In
Hunting Nazis from the inside
Stephen Graham (This Is England) stars in this true-life story of how Matthew Collins, a reformed neo-Nazi and founder of the advocacy organisation Hope Not Hate, infiltrated National Action, the extremist far-right group linked to the murder of British Labour MP Jo Cox. Collins’ fears that the group was planning further killings amid the heightened atmosphere of the Brexit campaign proved well-founded and his identification of a mole within National Action helped prevent the murder of another MP. Reviewers praised the five-part series as gruelling but compelling viewing.
Screening: TVNZ 1, 9.25pm. Saturday February 24
Streaming: TVNZ+
The Castaways
When you really miss your flight
Sheridan Smith (The Teacher) stars in this five-part adaptation of Lucy Clarke’s mystery thriller novel, her latest to hit the screen after No Escape (showing on ThreeNow). Lori (Smith) is supposed to be heading off on the holiday of a lifetime to Fiji with her sister Erin (Céline Buckens, Showtrial) but after they fight, only Lori boards the plane. Her flight never arrives. Erin becomes obsessed with finding out what happened – and whether her sister is in fact still alive. Meanwhile, on the island where the plane has crash landed, it’s all a bit like Lost, minus the metaphysics. Reviewers have largely found it daft but diverting.
Screening: TVNZ 1, 9.30pm, Sunday Feb 25
Streaming: TVNZ+
RECOMMENDED
Dynamic Planet
Warming to the idea
A new NHNZ-made natural history docuseries about how people in remote regions and local fauna are adapting to climate change. Three years in the making and filming in all seven continents (and New Zealand), the show’s four episodes entitled, “Ice”, “Fire”, “Water” and “Earth” are narrated by Cliff Curtis. To read more about the show, go here.
Streaming: Neon
Screening: Sky Open, Sundays, from February 25, 7.30pm
RECOMMENDED
Shōgun
Samurai, I am
Paperbacks of James Clavell’s 1975 novel remain an item that can be found browning in Kiwi caravans and holiday home bookcases to this day. The doorstop was about an Englishman who becomes a feudal lord in 17th century Japan, and it sparked a memorable mini-series starring Richard Chamberlain as “John Blackthorne”. In this revival for Disney+, the role is being played by Brit actor Cosmo Jarvis, with the Japanese cast led by Hiroyuki Sanada, a veteran of white-guy-goes-samurai productions such as The Last Samurai and 47 Ronin.
Read more about the show here.
Streaming: Disney+, two-episode debut on Tuesday February 27, then weekly.
This Is Me... Now: A Love Story
A new J. Lo
Is it a long music video? A biopic? A musical? The kitchen-sink trailer for this visual work created to accompany Jennifer Lopez’s new album This Is Me …Now suggests all three. Her record company’s publicity characterises it as “an ode to Lopez’s journey of self-healing and everlasting belief in fairy tale endings.” There’s a lot to take in in that trailer: choreography, costumes, comedy, lavish special effects, dramatic life moments – and veteran rapper and celebrity podcaster Fat Joe (he’s the guy who’s in every hip-hop documentary) as J. Lo’s therapist. There are also cameos from Trevor Noah, Post Malone, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Lopez’s husband Ben Affleck. And some of the choreography is from NZ’s very own Parris Goebel, who Lopez discovered and kicked off Goebel’s international career. But wait there’s more, on February 27, on the same platform comes The Greatest Love Story Never Told which is behind-the-scenes on the whole album video project which offers, says the publicity, “unflinching access to Jennifer’s most personal moments as she works hard to reclaim her narrative through the making of This Is Me…Now.” “This is a vulnerable portrait of an icon who put it all on the line and discovered a newfound determination in self-acceptance and love.” Lordy.
Streaming: Prime Video
Infiltré(e)
The undercover mother
A new six-part French language crime drama created by Emmanuel Dauce, producer of the long-running World War II occupation drama Un village francais. When a deadly synthetic drug floods the market and kills a police superintendent’s babysitter, he decides that someone needs to go undercover and infiltrate the Marseilles-based network distributing it. Aurelie (Audrey Fleurot), a police chemist and solo mum, must pose as an expert illicit drug manufacturer to help bring down the operation.
Streaming: TVNZ+
RECOMMENDED
The New Look
Haute, who goes there?
The life of French fashion icon Coco Chanel has been the subject of many dramas, almost all of which ignored or fudged her antisemitism, homophobia and her acting as an agent of the occupying Nazis. They once sent her to neutral Madrid to meet old chum Winston Churchill with an appeal for peace. The British prime minister failed to show, though he did help her later when she was facing arrest for being a collaborator. This 10-part series begins in the middle of World War II and pits Juliette Binoche’s Chanel against Christian Dior, played by Aussie actor Ben Mendelsohn as the latter fights to save Catherine, his resistance-fighter sister from the concentration camp. It’s also about the post-war rise of haute couture designers such as Dior and his creation of the revolutionary “New Look” in 1947 that reflected l’esprit du temps aft er the liberation of France. Binoche is the only big French name in a cast that also includes John Malkovich as couturier Lucien Lelong, Emily Mortimer as Chanel acolyte Elsa Lombardi and Glenn Close as Harper’s Bazaar editor Carmel Snow. The show’s creator is Todd Kessler who was behind Grammy-winning legal drama Damages, for which Close won an Emmy.
Streaming: Apple TV+
Ghosts
Spirits having flown
On the back of strong ratings for CBS, the US version of the good-natured spectral comedy rolls on into a third season. It gets straight into resolving season two’s cliff hanger, the mystery of which of the ghostly cast has crossed over to the next realm (or, in the show’s language, been “sucked off”). But have they really? Samantha (Rose McIver) and Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) need to find out, because haunting is the basis of their business.
Streaming: TVNZ+
Wake In Fright
Recurring Outback nightmares
Sean Keenan (Puberty Blues) stars as John Grant, a young teacher who should be ending an unlovely year on a posting to an Outback school and returning to his life in Sydney but finds himself marooned in a small mining town after an accident. Aft er he joins an illicit gambling game, events spiral out of control, and he finds himself living a personal nightmare. Robyn Malcolm plays the wife of a local real estate agent who, it transpires, has some very strange friends. The two-part miniseries is based on Kenneth Cook’s 1961 novel and the 1971 feature film adaptation of the same name. It rated poorly when it was broadcast in Australia in 2017, but most reviewers praised the performances and the quality and originality of the production, and it subsequently picked up several awards.
Streaming: ThreeNow
RECOMMENDED
One Day
Second turn at a recurring romance
A second attempt to capture David Nicholls’ much-loved bestseller One Day for the screen – the 2011 Anne Hathaway movie was almost universally adjudged to have missed the mark (awkwardly, Nicholls wrote the script). He is back on board as an executive producer for this “reimagined” version, with Emma and Dexter, two students setting off into their lives, played by Ambika Mod (This is Going to Hurt) and Leo Woodall (The White Lotus) respectively. It’s 14 episodes long. The book was 21 chapters. And the early episodes we’ve seen suggest it hits the mark, especially with Woodall’s haircuts being a very good indicator of what year it is as the story swings from the 1980s, to the 1990s and beyond.
Streaming: Netflix
RECOMMENDED
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Spies like us
If you had to pick Atlanta Wunderkind Donald Glover’s next project, odds on it wouldn’t be a reboot of the 2005 movie about married assassins, yet here it is. Glover created the show with Atlanta writer Francesca Stone and plays John, a spy who is paired in a cover marriage with Maya Erskine’s Jane. Comedy assassin action ensues as the pair develop feelings for each other. Stone says the writing team drew inspiration from 70s movies and reality TV. “Reality shows about love and marriage really spoke to us. We feel like lonely people are everywhere and we really wanted to speak to them,” she said. “At the end of the day, it really is a love story.”
Streaming: Prime video
The Boy, The Queen and Everything In Between
Going straight, sort of
Jacob Taylor is fresh out of prison and looking to stay on the level with the help of his partner and young son. But when things go off course, he’s obliged to reach out to his father, who seems to be the one person who can help him – and who is also Aotearoa’s best-known drag queen. Soon, Jacob is working in a club on K Road and unexpected things are happening. The six-part “dramedy” was written and directed by Ramon Te Wake, the former Takatāpui presenter, recording artist and documentarian.
Streaming: TVNZ+
Halo
Game show reboot
In case you don’t know any teenagers, Halo is one of the biggest media franchises of all time, encompassing the original video game, spin-off games, graphic novels, short films, animation, and merch. However, the first live-action season of Halo, starring Pablo Schreiber as the iconic Master Chief, was not well received, with fans and critics complaining that it had taken too many liberties. It was an independent story, said the producers, but they’ve gone back to the drawing board for season two, which focuses on one of the most iconic events in the Halo canon, the Fall of Reach, a famous setback for humanity in its battle with the alien alliance known as the Covenant. There’s a lot at stake, for humanity and Microsoft.
Streaming: TVNZ+
Alexander: The Making of a God
What was so great about him?
Netflix does big-budget history with a six-part series exploring the life and conquests of Alexander the Great, who conquered much of the known world over his short life. He was just 20 in 336 BCE when he succeeded his father, Philip II of Macedon, and over the next 10 years created one of the largest empires in history by conquering everything between Greece and northwest India. The series features re-enactments, experts and contemporary accounts discovered in the excavations of Alexandria and focuses on his obsession with defeating the Persian King Darius. Buck Braithwaite (Masters of the Air) plays Alexander and Mido Hamada is Darius.
Streaming: Netflix
The Hunt for Raoul Moat
Britain’s biggest manhunt
A true-crime drama about the case of Raoul Moat, who was released from Durham Prison in 2010 then went to the home of his former girlfriend and shot her and her new partner. Three days later, he ambushed a policeman with a shotgun, blinding him. While police mounted the largest manhunt in British history, Moat took to Facebook to post a “hit list” of his girlfriend’s family members and a threat to kill any police officers who got in his way. The story by former music journalist and novelist Kevin Sampson focuses on the impact on Moat’s victims, which might be seen as a necessary correction to the folk-hero status Moat achieved.
Streaming: TVNZ+
The 12th Victim
“Me and her went for a ride, Sir. And 10 innocent people died …”
The true story of fugitive murderers Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate has echoed through popular culture since their arrest and conviction in 1958: Natural Born Killers, Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners and even Bruce Springsteen’s album Nebraska are all said to draw on the events that claimed 11 victims. This documentary series explores a belief that has lingered just as long: that Fugate, who was 14 years old at the time of the murders and a year older when she was sentenced to life in prison, was not Starkweather’s accomplice, but his victim. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, John Anderson said The 12th Victim was “a beautiful thing to watch, in its black-and-white interviews and dreamy aesthetic, but it will leave a viewer in a troubled state of reflection long after it is over.”
Streaming: TVNZ+
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Quit your moaning
Larry David’s semi-improvised misanthropic cinéma vérité-style series enters its 12th season, although it seems David has finally had enough of his socially awkward alter ego. As the series finishes, his press release reads: “As ‘Curb’ comes to an end, I will now have the opportunity to finally shed this ‘Larry David’ persona and become the person God intended me to be – the thoughtful, kind, caring, considerate human being I was until I got derailed by portraying this malignant character. And so, ‘Larry David’, I bid you farewell. Your misanthropy will not be missed. And for those of you who would like to get in touch with me, you can reach me at Doctors Without Borders.”
Streaming: Neon
Screening: SoHo, Mondays, 8.00pm from February 19
The Girl From Plainville
Behind the headlines of a shocking suicide case
An eight-part dramatization of the true story of American teenager Conrad Roy’s suicide and the subsequent conviction for involuntary manslaughter of his girlfriend Michelle Carter. In the course of hundreds of text messages exchanged by the pair, she was found to have repeatedly encouraged Roy to kill himself. Most of the critical praise for the series has focused on the performances of Elle Fanning as Carter, Colton Ryan as Roy, and Chloë Sevigny as Roy’s mother. Peter Travers of ABC News hailed Fanning’s performance as “astounding” and wrote that the series “moves past true crime clichés and persuades us to open our hearts to this troubled teen in all her flawed humanity”.
Streaming: Neon
See our guide to other recent new shows in the January viewing guide.
Our recommended tags are based on shows the Listener team has had a chance to see.
