Under the Vines, starring Rebecca Gibney and Charles Edwards, starts on TVNZ 1 on Wednesday at 8pm
Watch, listen and be inspired by Calum Henderson's definitive list of what's hot right now and from the vault.
Under the Vines (TVNZ 1, starts 8pm Wednesday)
All across the country, boringly rational types are hissing at the grape-eyed dreamers in their lives: "But we're not vintners for god's sake!" It's the sound of the summer, and it's the obvious pull quote from Under the Vines, TVNZ's new co-production with Acorn TV, the international streaming platform for people who only want to watch the Best of British.
The series is filmed in Central Otago, but more precisely set in the same quirky and uncomplicated version of rural New Zealand as more-popular-overseas-than-they-are-here local productions (The Brokenwood Mysteries, that rom-com where an American ex-pat inherits a knitting shop). Into this idyllic world steps Sydney socialite Daisy (Rebecca Gibney) and disbarred London lawyer Louis (Charles Edwards), both believing they are the sole heirs of a fancy vineyard.
After literally bumping into each other at Queenstown Airport baggage claim, the pair soon learn they have been misled by the inept local lawyer (Cohen Holloway). The late Stanley Oakley – his uncle, her stepfather – has actually left his winery (plus an annoying French car and two taciturn Kiwi staff members) to both of them, with the instructions to "Do with it what you will."
Oakley Winery, it turns out, is a total shambles – Old Stan clearly wasn't a vintner either, nor did he know how to balance the books. But while Louis is hell-bent on selling up and getting back to London, Daisy decides to place an unreasonable amount of faith in the vague memory of someone once telling her she had been a vintner in a past life.
So, with a couple of aces up their sleeve in inherited staff members Tippy and Gus, the fish-out-of-water odd couple set about rehabilitating a failing vineyard and uncomplicating their own big-city rat-race lives. Easy to watch and hard to dislike, it's a comfortingly familiar country caper.
Peacemaker (Sky Go and Neon)
If there's one thing we can be sure 2022 will bring, it's about 10 more new Marvel shows. But for now, it's the DC Comics cinematic universe's time to shine with Peacemaker, a spin-off of 2021's The Suicide Squad (not to be confused with 2016's Suicide Squad). Written and directed by James Gunn, who also wrote and directed the film (and before that, Marvel's extremely popular Guardians of the Galaxy movies), this series is all about John Cena's character (Peacemaker, a merciless killer hell-bent on achieving peace) and his origin story. Very much at the comedy end of the superhero spectrum.
The Hungry and the Hairy (Netflix)
As we stare down another year with probably not a lot of international travel prospects, it's time once again to turn to TV for our vicarious holiday thrills. And not many shows do this better than The Hungry and the Hairy, in which we get to ride shotgun with South Korean celebrities Rain (a K-Pop icon) and Noh Hong-chul (a maniacal entertainer whose main claim to fame seems to be appearing in the Gangnam Style music video) on a motorcycle tour of their country's many culinary delights. It's high energy, very funny and will both fuel and satisfy your food and travel cravings.
Landscapers (SoHo and Sky Go)
Until a couple of days ago Landscapers was just a name on several international best-TV-of-2021 lists, but good things come to those who wait. It's got Olivia Colman, which almost immediately makes it a must-watch, alongside David Thewlis as Susan and Christopher Edwards, an unassuming real-life British couple who in 1998 killed Susan's parents and buried them in the back garden before evading arrest for more than a decade. Directed by Will Sharpe, who worked with Colman on the Netflix hidden gem Flowers, the four-part miniseries operates at the darker end of the comedy-drama spectrum, delivered with reliably strong performances from the two leads.
Movie of the Week: The Lost Daughter (Netflix)
Is Olivia Colman the busiest actor in the world right now, or does it just seem that way because every performance is so memorable? Here she is again in Maggie Gyllenhaal's extremely assured directorial debut, an adaptation of the novel by Italian literary genius Elena Ferrante. Colman plays a professor alone on a working holiday at a Greek seaside resort who becomes fixated on a young mum (Dakota Johnson), who's part of a group of rowdy fellow holidaymakers. Tense, mysterious and utterly absorbing, the movie deals with themes of motherhood and identity in a way that will stick with you long afterwards.
From the Vault: Boyhood (2014) (Netflix)
Filmed annually over the course of 12 years, Richard Linklater's epic coming-of-age drama follows the childhood of Mason Evans Jr (Ellar Coltrane) from the age of 6 through to adolescence and young adulthood. Understandably very talked-about on release in 2014, it's worth (re)watching now the dust has settled to fully appreciate not just a unique and ambitious feat of film-making, but a really good film. While young Mason is the centre of the story, it's the performances of Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke as his parents that really stand out. Watching the way their complicated adult lives evolve over the course of the film is just as profound and moving as witnessing their child grow up before our eyes.
Podcast of the Week: One Year: 1995
Twenty-five years ago you couldn't go anywhere without hearing it, and even now it's so ubiquitous you probably don't think to question it. But what on earth was the Macarena? How did two random Spanish blokes end up with one of the world's biggest hits of all time?
These are the questions asked and answered in the best episode so far of Slate podcast One Year: 1995. This is the second season of the series (the first was about things that happened in 1977) which goes beyond the basic "remember playing with your Tamagotchi while simultaneously watching Nickelodeon and listening to the Spice Girls" nostalgia to explore more interesting stories from the year in question. Every episode is a good listen, but The Macarena one is by far the most fun and obvious starting point.
While we spent 1996 and 1997 awkwardly and unquestioningly doing the prescribed dance moves, the song's origin story actually belongs to 1995. That's when its journey from conception by Spanish pop old-timers Los Del Rio (formed in 1962!) to the club hit that reached our radio waves took place, and it's such a spectacularly unlikely story you won't believe you hadn't heard it already.