RECOMMENDED
Sunny
Getting on with the help
Streaming: Apple TV+, from Wednesday, July 10
When Suzie (Rashida Jones), an American woman living in Kyoto, loses her husband and son in a mysterious plane crash, her husband’s electronics company gives her an example of the product he had been working on before his death, to help ease her grief. The product – one of a new generation of domestic robots – initially does not help at all. She resents and is suspicious of the robot, Sunny. But gradually they develop a friendship and together begin to uncover the secret of what really happened to her family. Based on the novel The Dark Manual by Colin O’Sullivan.
A Brief History of the Future
How we might save ourselves
Streaming: TVNZ+, from Tuesday July 9
American Ari Wallach has been a professional futurist for two decades. In practical terms that means he has advised large companies on developing very long-term strategies. In recent years, he told Variety this year, he realised that fewer companies were willing to think that way – and one senior executive he met refused to think further than six months ahead. That shift, he believes, relates to something similar in society: we find it hard to think about who we might become, or who we once were. To a degree, that’s a conception of ourselves built into all our cerebral cortexes, but in an era when we face choices that could determine what humanity’s future is, or whether we even have one, it’s a big problem. Wallach devotes this six-part series to describing the challenges – and to the optimistic view that we are, in fact, up to the job of thinking about the future. He talks to political leaders, scientists, activists, arts, and change-makers around the world. Intriguingly, his partner in the production company Futurific Studios is Kathryn Murdoch, wife of James Murdoch, scion of the family whose media empire often militates against the kind of future-thinking Wallach regards as a necessity.
RECOMMENDED
Colin from Accounts
Second season of the doggone rom com
Streaming: TVNZ+, from Wednesday, July 17
The 2022 Australian show about how Ashley and Gordon got together, bonding over a disabled dog they named Colin from accounts, became something of a worldwide hit for its married creators and stars Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall. They had come up with the comedy to create acting work for themselves. But their mix of believability strained through some rom-com cuteness made it feel like something fresh. Now the pair have another eight episodes about what happens after they’ve moved in together, and after they’ve found a way to repossess Colin who they gave away at the end of season one. For more, go here.
The Cuckoo
A dangerous guest
Streaming: ThreeNow, from Wednesday July 17
Jessica Haynes (Claire Goose) is delighted when her family’s ad for a lodger is answered by Sian (Jill Halfpenny), a breezy, charismatic artist. Sian proceeds to charm Jessica, her husband Nick (Lee Ingleby) and her daughter Alice (Freya Hannan-Mills). But is there something strange going on? The clue’s in the title. This four-part Channel 5 drama created quite a buzz when it screened in Britain this year, when critics variously described it as “creepy”, “tense”, “gripping” and “menacing”.
RECOMMENDED
We Are Lady Parts
The difficult first album
Streaming: Neon, from Thursday July 18
Britain’s leading all-Muslim female punk rock band has made progress since season one. Lady Parts aren’t just playing gigs, they’re touring – and somewhere along the line, Amina has completed her PhD in microbiology. But are they ever going to crack it? Can they just make an album? And are they in danger of having their thunder stolen by a younger rival Muslim band? There’s conflict and a crisis of confidence as the second season of director-writer Nida Manzoor’s rock’n’roll story begins, but the writing is as snappy and knowing as ever. Among this season’s guest stars are Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai and comedian Meera Syal. The former comes with connections to a new Lady Parts song Malala Made Me Do It which join previous bangers Ain’t No One Gonna Honour Kill My Sister But Me and Voldemort Under My Headscarf.
RECOMMENDED
Madam
Streaming: ThreeNow from July 4
Screening: Three, 8.30pm, Thursday from July 4.
This local series has a real coup in having imported Aussie star Rachel Griffiths to be the lead in the based-on-a-true-story comedy about an American woman opening an “ethical” brothel in a provincial NZ town. But with Griffiths playing the straight woman and doing most of the character heavy lifting on its drama side, most of its laughs come care of the Kiwi supporting cast. Among them, Rima Te Wiata as the owner of the motel where Griffiths’ Mack Leigh sets up shop and Mike Minogue who, in an early episode, puts his trademark deadpan to very good use as a client getting into intimate difficulties with a piece of technology. Among the other familiar faces in the cast are Martin Henderson as Mack’s husband, Kura Forrester, Robbie Magasiva, Danielle Cormack, and Carmel McGlone. For more about the show, go here.
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder
Nerdy girl cracks the case
Streaming: ThreeNow from July 1
Pippa, a 17-year-old true-crime enthusiast played by Emma Myers (who was recently in New Zealand shooting her role in the forthcoming Minecraft movie) comes to believe that the conviction of a young man for the murder of a schoolgirl five years earlier was wrong. She sets out to prove it by making it the topic of her A-Level school project. She’s very determined and very smart – but if she’s right, has she put herself at risk by attracting the attention of the real killer? Just as well she’s plucky. Six parts, based on the award-winning YA mystery novel of the same title by Holly Jackson.
RECOMMENDED
Fantasmas
A fantastic voyage
Screening: SoHo, 8pm, from Thursday July 4
Streaming: Neon
Julio Torres writes, directs, and stars in this surrealistic, digressive six-part comedy, which has been hailed as “dazzling” and “delightful” by the New York Times, “immersive” by Variety and “the best show on TV right now” by the Daily Beast. Ostensibly, it’s about his character’s search for a lost golden earring, but, as the trailer makes clear, Torres is not about to be tied down by the surly bonds of narrative. Emma Stone also stars, and Steve Buscemi has a notable cameo as the embodiment of the Q conspiracy theory.
Insomnia
Strange times in the middle classes
Streaming: TVNZ+, from Friday July 5
Six-part psychological drama starring Vicky McClure (Line of Duty, Trigger Point) as Emma, a successful career woman whose comfortable world begins to fracture. She’s worried about her kids, there’s trouble at work and – most worrying of all – she has stopped sleeping, which is what her mother did before suffering a violent psychotic breakdown. To save everything, she needs to confront her own painful past. The Guardian’s reviewer felt that it took rather too long to get to its point over six episodes, but praised its resolution, including “a last twist, presented with a conjuror’s flourish, which will stay with you just long enough for you to conclude how little sense it makes”.
For Those About to Die
The empire strikes back
Streaming: Prime Video, from Friday July 19
Not to be confused with the new series of Gladiators UK on TVNZ, this one is the latest attempt at bringing the gory glories of ancient Rome in an action drama set among the gladiators, charioteers, and other high-risk careers in the city’s entertainment industry. Eighty-six-year-old Anthony Hopkins dons the robes and laurels of Emperor Vespasian. Among the other familiar faces in the epic toga party are Tom Hughes (Prince Albert in Victoria), and Iwan Rheon. For more on the latter, go here.
Omnivore
Food matters
Streaming: Apple TV+, from Friday July 19
When René Redzepi announced last year that his Copenhagen restaurant Noma – famously regarded as the world’s best restaurant – was closing at the end of this year, he sparked a good deal of media chatter. Was Redzepi right when he declared that fine dining had become financially and emotionally “unsustainable”? And given its infamous labour practices, did it deserve to die anyway? The chef has sidestepped it all and made a globetrotting TV show about the meaning of food. Each of the eight episodes of Omnivore looks into the cultural heritage of an essential ingredient: bananas, chilli, coffee, corn, pork, rice, salt and tuna. Redzepi told Hollywood Reporter he had “no idea how Hollywood works” when he began making the show, but he did have film-maker Cary Joji Fukunaga (best known for True Detective) and Matt Goulding, who executive-produced Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, at his side.
The Famous Five: Peril on the Night Train
Blyton uncancelled
Screening: Three, 6.30pm, Saturday, July 20
Streaming: ThreeNow
The first in this series of feature-length reboots of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five stories for Children’s BBC was not well received, but this second episode – with the same cast, but a new writer and director – fared much better after it screened in Britain over Easter. Fans of the books will once again discover that it’s not based on any specific Blyton story, though. It’s 1939, war is looming, Uncle Quentin’s proto-computer, the Algebra Engine, is stolen, and George, Julian, Dick, Anne, and Timmy are swept up in a thrilling adventure on a cross-country train. Director Asim Abbasi told the BBC he was introduced to Blyton’s writing as a child in a small town in Pakistan: “The Famous Five was a big part of growing up for many of us there. Many a day spent daydreaming about carefree adventures and English picnics!”
Lady in the Lake
A dreamlike thriller
Streaming: Apple TV+, from Saturday July 20
Natalie Portman stars as Maddie Schwartz, a Baltimore Jewish housewife who seeks to break out of her 1960s life and reinvent herself as an investigative journalist. She becomes obsessed with the murder of an 11-year-old girl and then the life and death of Cleo Johnson (Moses Ingram, The Queen’s Gambit), a black mother with a very different reality to hers. It’s based on a novel by Laura Lippman (which was itself based on two real-life murder cases), and the dreamlike trailer suggests that director Alma Har’el’s penchant for poetic imagery is in full flight. Not your average thriller.
Before We Die
Mothers in law
Screening: Rialto, 8.30pm, from Sunday July 21
The story of a detective whose professional and personal path crosses that of a crime boss was based on a successful Swedish series, but according to Lesley Sharp, who plays Detective Inspector Hannah Laing, this second season forges out in its own direction, taking the story further forward and bearing scant resemblance to the Swedish version. It opens with Laing’s son Christian and his girlfriend Bianca, the daughter of the crime matriarch Dubravka Mimica, hiding out in Costa Rica. Meanwhile, their mothers do battle from opposite sides of the law.
Match Fit: Union VS League
Reviving the after-match functions
Screening: Three, 7pm, from Wednesday July 24
Streaming: ThreeNow
The idea of a “clash of the codes” almost seems inappropriate for a show that has been more about mutual support and facing the challenges of life and health after professional sport, but bringing the two codes together into one season will certainly add some interest for viewers. The line-up is a mix of ex-players from the first three seasons, including Piri Weepu, Lesley Vainikolo and Ali Lauiti’iti, and new faces such as Carlos Spencer (although, frankly, Carlos looked pretty buff the last time we saw him). Sir Graham Henry and Kiwi great Tawera Nikau team up to guide the journey.
Time Bandits
Rewriting history
Streaming: Apple TV+ from Wednesday July 24
As the trailer to Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s big-budget, NZ-made television rethink of Terry Gilliam’s 1981 time-travelling fantasy adventure shows, it has some familiar faces (them included) and places in it. Like the original, it also features some dwarf actors – though not as the bandits as they were in the movie, and there’s a giant too, now played by Josh Thomson in what will forever be his biggest role (boom!). The ten-episode series starts with a double-episode debut with two episodes arriving weekly after that.
The Decameron
Love Island, but medieval
Streaming: Netflix, from Thursday July 25
Like everything these days, it’s based on a book – but in this case, it’s a very old book. The Decameron is a 14th-century collection of short stories by the Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio, revolving around the tales shared by a group of posh young men and women hiding out from the Black Death in a villa near Florence in 1348. The original stories had a recurrent theme of lust (especially female lust), so expect plenty of medieval bonking, but creator and showrunner Kathleen Jordan (Teenage Bounty Hunters, American Princess) has added to Bocaccio’s “short little horny tales” with a theme of social breakdown and survival in dark times. Netflix is calling it a “soapy dark comedy” and released a debauched 60-second trailer cut to the beats of New Order’s Blue Monday, so anything seems possible, really.
See our guide to other recent new shows in the June, May, and April and viewing guides