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The Residence

Light relief in the White House

Streaming: Netflix from Thursday March 20

Shonda Rhimes and Paul William Davies had a hit with Scandal, a sexy potboiler set behind the scenes at a fictionalised White House. They’re back in harness with another, very different, show set in the same location. The Residence is being billed as “a screwball whodunnit set in the upstairs, downstairs, and backstairs of the White House” and the cast is vast: Uzo Aduba (Orange is the New Black) leads as droll detective Cordelia Cupp, alongside Giancarlo Esposito, Edwina Findley, Molly Griggs, Jason Lee, and many more in the core line-up. Guest stars include Jane Curtin, former senator Al Franken, Ryan Farrell as well as Jake Tapper and Kylie Minogue playing themselves. It has already been characterised as a crossover between Knives Out and The West Wing, but the focus on detective Cupp suggests that she’s the key to it. Is this a new cosy crime hero in the making?

The Sixth Commandment

The true-life story of an emotional predator

Streaming: Neon, from March 27

A four-part drama relating the true story of the way British teacher Peter Farquhar and his neighbour were befriended and manipulated by Farquhar’s student, a predatory narcissist who persuaded both to amend their will in his favour, then murdered Farquhar. Writer Sarah Phelps (A Very British Scandal) went on to win for best limited series at Royal Television Society Programme Awards and Timothy Spall won a Bafta for his performance as Farquhar. “Spall is as good as – or perhaps even better than – you have ever seen him, which is not something to be said lightly,” wrote The Guardian’s reviewer, who called The Sixth Commandment “as fine a piece of television as you will ever see” in a five-star review.

Protection

When witness protection breaks down

Streaming: TVNZ+, from Sunday March 2

Screening: TVNZ1, Sundays, 9.30pm from March 30

Siobhan Finneran (Happy Valley) takes the lead as Detective Inspector Liz Nyles, an experienced witness protection officer who is faced with a breakdown in the system. It’s written by Australian Kris Mrksa, who wrote the first Underbelly series, based on an original idea by a real witness protection officer. Mrksa describes it as “a suspenseful conspiracy thriller, but it also explores some complex moral questions about how far we should be prepared to go to serve the greater good. The murky world of witness protection provides the perfect context for examining these thorny issues.” New episodes weekly.

The Leopard

Italian unification as you haven’t seen it

Streaming: Netflix, from Wednesday March 5

If you were among the generations of New Zealand students taught about Italian unification in high school history classes, this is the lavish, sensuous version the teacher never told you about. Based on the novel of the same name by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (which went unpublished in his lifetime and is now regarded as an icon of Italian literature), The Leopard follows the story of Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, whose privileged life comes under threat as Garibaldi’s red shirts land on Sicily and he is forced to confront a new world. It’s not the first screen adaptation of the story: a 1963 film starring Burt Lancaster won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. Lancaster acted in English but was dubbed into Italian, but this six-part Netflix adaptation is in Italian with English subtitles.

Daredevil: Born Again

Same old Daredevil

Streaming: Disney+, from March 5

Essentially a continuation of the Daredevil show that ran for three seasons on Netflix, now in the Marvel fold with Disney. Charlie Cox returns as Matt Murdock, a blind lawyer whose special abilities allow him to fight for justice not only in the courts, but as the masked Daredevil. The villainous Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) is now running for mayor of New York City, and the trailer suggests that he needs Daredevil to get back into the vigilante game – but for what purpose? Fan favourites journalist Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) and Murdock’s buddy Franklin “Foggy” Nelson (Elden Henson) also return. And yes, it’s as violent as ever.

End of the Valley

When two tribes go to war

Screening: Whakaata Māori, 9pm Thursdays from March 6

Streaming: Māori+, entire season, same date

This new te reo drama tells a story of conflict between two fictitious neighbouring iwi over land and taonga. But while that might sound like a period piece from ancient times, End of the Valley is a melodrama complete with corporate wrangling, Waitangi Tribunal claims and what happens when a young lawyer finds himself abandoned in the rival iwi’s forest lands after being sent there by his grandfather and iwi chairman to broker a deal between the groups. On one side is the business-minded, urban, Te Pāhua; on the other is the isolated, rural, grounded Ngāti Kiokio. The show stars some well-known faces, including Roimata Fox as a Ngāti Kiokio leader, Temuera Morrison as Te Pāhua iwi chair Sir Taungaroa Williams, and Miriama Smith as his daughter Kahu Williams. It’s her lawyer son Kaea Williams (newcomer Matia Mitai) who, sent by his grandfather to confront Ngāti Kiokio over a disputed land claim, gets lost in the woods – but it’s where he may find more about the tribes’ long-standing feud and its effect on his own whānau. Shot by a local production company in Rotorua, End of the Valley is an ambitious series of six subtitled half-hour episodes which received more than $2 million in public funding. “We were determined to create a TV drama focused on our current Māori world and the challenges we face,” says co-writer/director Richard Curtis.

Deli Boys

Finding out that the family business is crime

Streaming: Disney+, from Thursday March 6

Mir (Asif Ali, WandaVision) and Raj (Saagar Shaikh, Ms. Marvel) are two Pakistani-American brothers whose comfortable lives unravel when their father dies, and they discover that he was actually a violent mobster whose convenience store business was a front for drug trafficking. And now they’re expected to step up and do the job – for which they are wholly unprepared. The show was created by former Vice journalist Abdullah Saeed (the mind behind Bong Appétit, among other things), who recently said that the comedy was written to entertain but “the byproduct is that you get to learn about Pakistanis – Pakistani-Americans specifically – and our culture, our relationships, our hardships with balancing the two halves of our identities.”

Laid

He’s dead to me. Literally.

Screening: TVNZ2, 10.25pm Fridays from March 7

Streaming: TVNZ+, same date

A romcom with a body count. Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All at Once) stars as Ruby, a Seattle-based party planner with a busy sex life, who is still searching for the right relationship. It’s all upended when she discovers that her former partners are progressively dying in unusual ways. Zosia Mamet (The Flight Attendant) plays her friend AJ, who is a true-crime obsessive. Based on an original Australian series, but this version, the Hollywood Reporter noted approvingly, “is a television show about characters who love television shows”. Expect lots of geek references and weekly star cameos.

Dope Girls

Women behaving badly in the 1920s

Screening: TVNZ 1, 9.10pm, from Saturday March 8

Streaming: TVNZ+, same date

Dope Girls: The Birth of the British Drug Underground, Marek Kohn’s fascinating non-fiction account of fast lives between the wars in London clubland, cried out for a screen adaptation from the day it was published in 1992. And here it is, at last. Kohn dealt with real lives (notably that of actress Billie Carleton, whose scandalous death of a drug overdose made headlines here in the colonies), but the series creator, celebrated playwright Polly Stenham, chose to create her own characters. Julianne Nicholson (Mare of Easttown) plays the lead Kate Galloway, a middle-class woman pulled into the shadowy Soho scene after she is widowed. The six-part series is produced for the BBC by Bad Wolf, the company that made His Dark Materials and the last three seasons of Doctor Who, and it brings a dreamlike air to its gritty subject matter.

Vera

Return of the dishevelled detective

Streaming: Acorn TV and AMC+, from Monday March 10

The series based on Ann Cleeves’ Vera Stanhope novels has had quite a run. This three-episode 13th season is almost the end of it (a final season of two episodes has screened on ITV). DCI Vera Stanhope (Brenda Blethyn) is as insightful as ever. After being called to the quiet country lane where a man has been killed by a car, she begins to deduce that the victim wasn’t quite the popular cheeky chappie he appeared. But who disliked him enough to want him dead?

The Wheel Of Time

The Dragon exposed

Streaming: Prime Video, from Thursday March 13

Just in case anyone was wondering what season three of The Wheel of Time might have in store, Prime Video recently posted an “exclusive sneak peek” of the first 11 minutes of the season premiere – which turns out to be a Really Big Fight. Rand (Josha Stradowski) has claimed his destiny as the Dragon Reborn, but the world is a more dangerous place than ever – and the battle between light and dark within Rand himself rages like never before. It’s up to Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) and Egwene (Madeleine Madden) to prevent him turning to the dark side. For those following Robert Jordan’s original fantasy books, the season will focus primarily on storylines from The Shadow Rising but also introduces elements from the fifth book, The Fires of Heaven. Kiwi actress Zoë Robins returns in her role of Nynaeve al’Meara.

Dope Thief

Bad people to steal from

Streaming: Apple TV+, from Friday March 14

Brian Tyree Henry (Atlanta) stars alongside Brazilian actor Wagner Moura in this adaptation of a 2009 book by Dennis Tafoya. They’re a couple of Philly layabouts with an ingenious (if innately perilous) scam: they pose as Drug Enforcement Agency officers to raid and rip off drug dealers. Unfortunately, they accidentally pick the wrong house, guns get fired and some very bad people are angry enough to kill them “and everyone you know”. Moura has some form to draw on – he played Pablo Escobar in two seasons of Narcos. Peter Craig (Top Gun: Maverick) adapted the book for the screen, but the banner name on the show is that of producer Ridley Scott.

Good American Family

A very strange story about adoption

Streaming: Disney+ from Wednesday March 19

After the documentary comes the drama. In 2023, The Curious Case Of Natalia Grace told the story of Natalia, a girl who was adopted from a Ukrainian orphanage by US couple Kristine and Michael Barnett. The Barnetts became convinced that Natalia, who lives with a rare form of dwarfism, was in fact an adult posing as a little girl. They were even able to convince a court to replace her birth certificate, making her officially 22 rather than 8. The difference became crucial when the Barnetts moved to Canada with their birth children and left her alone in their old apartment. A DNA test and other research indicated Natalia was in fact a minor – and the Barnetts were charged with neglect. But the strangeness didn’t end there. The producers of Good American Family, say the story is told “from multiple points of view, as a means to explore issues of perspective, bias, and trauma”, and it seems set to portray the Barnetts more sympathetically than the documentary. Natalia is played by 27-year-old British actor Imogen Faith Reid and the Barnetts by Ellen Pompeo (Grey’s Anatomy) and Mark Duplass (The Morning Show).

Black Snow

Missing persons

Streaming: TVNZ+, from Sunday March 23

A second season of the Australian mystery crime drama and another cold case for Detective James Cormack (Travis Fimmel, Boy Swallows Universe) to try to crack. This time, he investigates the disappearance of a young woman from her 21st birthday party in 2003: was she murdered, or did she simply choose a new life without her family? Then it gets personal: Cormack’s father appears and claims that his brother, missing since 1994, is in fact alive. Suddenly, there are two cases to crack. New double episodes weekly.

David Blaine: Do Not Attempt

A world of dangerous things

Streaming: Disney+, from Monday March 24

Blaine puts aside his magic tricks for this six-part documentary, instead heading out into the world in search of “things that seem so impossible that you’d assume they were tricks. But they’re actually real”. In India, Japan, Southeast Asia, South Africa, Brazil and the Arctic, he meets people who set themselves on fire, embrace poisonous creatures, poke themselves with blades and do various other things no one should attempt. And then, of course, he has a crack at these himself. In truth, there’s some overlap with Blaine’s own previous endurance stunts, but if you’re looking for spectacle, it’s here in spades.

The Studio

Hollywood hall of mirrors

Streaming: Apple TV+, from Thursday March 26

Movie biz satire co-written, directed and starring Seth Rogen as the new boss of a legacy Hollywood movie studio, who finds his idealism about making great films isn’t going to fly now that he’s the one in charge. Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, and Kathryn Hahn also star while Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Zoe Kravitz, Charlize Theron and others put in appearances as themselves. To read more go here.

Alone Australia

Wild in the country

Streaming: TVNZ+, from Wednesday March 26

After season two’s adventures in New Zealand’s South Island, Alone Australia shifts back across the ditch to the West Coast Range of Tasmania. But there are still a couple of New Zealand connections: former Warriors and Canberra Raiders player Matt Allwood, an indigenous Australian who returned to his roots in traditional bushcraft after rugby league, and Kiwi possum hunter Shay Williamson, creator of Keeping It Wild on YouTube, are among the contenders. The last one standing wins the $250,000 prize. New episodes weekly.

Gold & Greed: The Hunt for Fenn’s Treasure

Looking for gold

Streaming: Netflix, from Thursday March 27

Former United States military pilot and sketchy art entrepreneur Forrest Fenn was told in 1988 that he had cancer, and it was likely to be terminal. He responded to the news in an unlikely way: by burying a chest of treasure somewhere in the Rocky Mountains with the intention of encouraging the public to search for it. To his own surprise, he survived the cancer – and then published a book of stories from his life that he said contained clues about the location of the treasure. We won’t spoil the whole story of this three-part docu-series, but it is safe to say that the treasure chest was eventually found – and a bunch of people died along the way.

The Last Anniversary

Life and death on the island

Streaming: ThreeNow, from Friday March 28

Screening: Three, from April 2

Adapted by Samantha Strauss (creator of Apple Cider Vinegar) from Australian author Liane Moriarty’s novel, The Last Anniversary tells the story of a young woman who unexpectedly finds herself owning a house on an island called Scribbly Gum, which has been mysteriously left to her by the great-aunt of a former boyfriend. But when she arrives on the island, she finds a hostile reception from other residents – and discovers the place has its secrets. It’s officially a dramedy, so not as dark as it sounds, or the trailer makes it look. Starring Teresa Palmer, Miranda Richardson, and Danielle Macdonald, with Nicole Kidman among the executive producers.

Am I Being Unreasonable?

Daisy’s whoopsies

Streaming: TVNZ+, from March 30

A long-awaited second season of the 2023 Bafta-nominated dark, warped, suburban comedy-thriller, which was created, written and starred Daisy May Cooper and her co-star Selin Hizli. Season one followed the aftermath of the death of Alex, the brother-in-law of Cooper’s character Nic, with whom she was having an affair, which she had drunkenly confessed to new best friend Jen (Hizli). Season two picks up very quickly on the season one cliffhanger of the affair being revealed at Alex’s memorial service. UK reviews suggest the new series is just as offbeat as the first, helped again by the presence of young Lenny Rush as Nic’s disabled son Ollie, who won a Bafta for his performance in the first. Among new season guests is comedian Jamali Maddix, Cooper’s team mate on the panel show Never Mind the Buzzcocks, which has been airing in New Zealand.

Shetland

Spinning more yarns

Streaming: Acorn TV, from March 31

The ninth season of the crime series set on Britain’s northernmost archipelago is the second since Ashley Jensen’s Detective Inspector Ruth Calder arrived back from London and took over from original lead DI Jimmy Perez. But she’s no longer the senior ranking officer at the Lerwick Police Station – show stalwart Detective Sergeant Alison “Tosh” McIntosh (Alison O’Donnell) has also been promoted to DI. This time, the pair investigate a missing person case which was the deadly outcome of an argument between two brothers. Guest starring is Ian Hart as an Oxford University professor with connections to one of the missing. As always, the treeless Shetland scenery and the knitwear choices play vital roles. A 10th season is in the works.