New to view
Big Boys
First-year blues
A widely-praised UK comedy drama about two flatmates settling into their first years at university: Jack is shy, gay, and still reeling from the death of his father; Danny is a confident, older “lads’ lad” who’s not as robust as he likes to crack on. It’s based on writer Jack Rooke’s successive autobiographical comedy shows at Edinburgh Fringe and effectively blends the twin streams of Rooke’s career. He is a comedian and, still in his late 20s, a respected voice on male mental health. He has a BBC documentary series and a Penguin-published memoir to his name. Dylan Llewellyn (Derry Girls) plays Jack – with a voiceover commentary from Rooke himself – and rising star Jon Pointing (Plebs) is Danny. Rooke calls it “a silly, sweet comedy about two boys from very different ends of the “spectrum of masculinity” and “very British in a way that can celebrate everything that being British is about that isn’t exclusionary”. Critics have been as one in their praise. The Times reviewer called it “truly funny, humble and clever” and the Daily Mail declared it “deliciously funny yet also so warm, tender and affecting.”
Screening: Saturday September 23 (full series), TVNZ 1, 8.35pm
Streaming: TVNZ+
Con Girl
Arrested adolescence
Running four hour-long episodes four nights in a row, Three is betting big on this true-crime doco series about Australian con woman Samantha Azzopardi, who, in her 20s and 30s, posed around the world as a teenager. Among her estimated 75 false identities were her pretending to be a 15-year-old Russian gymnast who said her family had been killed in a murder suicide. She also become briefly famous as a 14-year-old supposed sex trafficking victim when she was found mute wandering outside Dublin’s General Post Office. In Canada the following year, she was deported to Australia after falsely claiming to Calgary police she was the victim of sexual assault and abduction. And back home, she was jailed for a year after enrolling as a 13-year-old at a high school. Later claiming to be 18, she was hired by a Melbourne couple as a nanny who then abducted their two kids and was jailed again. Other scams are outlined in the episodes which come with recreations – Azzopardi is depicted by an actor – and victims’ thoughts about what she put them through. Various experts ponder the psychology of her behaviour and why people were taken in by it.
Screening: Three, 8.30pm, from Sunday September 24 to Wednesday September 27
Streaming: ThreeNow
The coming week’s election programmes
There was no end of headlines when Ikaroa Rāwhiti MP and Labour government minister Meka Whaitiri defected to Te Pāti Māori this year – but there have been far fewer about what happens next. Mata Reports (TVNZ+ from Saturday, Sept 23), with Mihingarangi Forbes and Annabelle LeeMather, aims to address that.
The two journalists travel the length of the electorate, from Matakaoa in the north to Wainuiomata in the south, with a particular focus on the two women in with a chance of winning Ikaroa Rāwhiti – the incumbent Whaitiri and Labour’s new candidate, Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. On Monday September 25, the concerns of younger voters get an airing in TVNZ’s Young Voters’ Debate, which will be moderated by Anna Harcourt of Re: News and 1News Digital’s Isaac Gunson. Three years ago, the same debate was widely described as “fiery”. The debate streams live from 7.30pm via all Re: News’ social channels, TVNZ+, 1News.co.nz and across 1News social channels.
At 7.30pm on Tuesday Sept 26, 1News deputy political editor Maiki Sherman hosts TVNZ’s online-only Kaupapa Māori Debate, which will be streamed live via TVNZ+, 1News.co.nz and across 1News social channels. And at 7.00pm on Three on Wednesday, September 27, it’s time for the big guns – Patrick Gower will preside over Newshub’s Decision 2023 Leaders’ Debate, in which Chris Hipkins and Christopher Luxon will go head-to-head in front of a live audience. Gower promises to “hold the leaders to account on the questions that need answering and the topics that need debating”.
Coming up next week
The Man Who Played with Fire
An author’s obsession with a real-life crime
The late Stieg Larsson is best known as the author of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but in 1986, he was working as an illustrator for Sweden’s biggest news agency. When he was instructed to create a map speculating on the escape route taken by an unknown assassin who had shot Swedish prime minister Olof Palme on a busy Stockholm street the night before, it was the beginning of an obsession. Larsson alluded to the assassination in all his novels – which weren’t published until after his sudden death in 2004 – and left behind a huge archive of information about the case. Larsson’s 20 boxes of files were discovered by chance by investigative journalist Jan Stocklassa, who made them the basis of his 2018 book, The Man Who Played with Fire: Stieg Larsson’s Lost Files and the Hunt for an Assassin. Stocklassa, who is at the centre of this four-part series, believes Larsson was on the verge of a breakthrough when he died.
Streaming: TVNZ+ from September 26
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
Anderson’s new dabble in Dahl
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Wes Anderson’s three other Dahl short story adaptations – The Swan, The Ratcatcher, and Poison – arrive on Netflix in quick succession. Anderson cast Ralph Fiennes – who had played the lead in his The Grand Budapest Hotel – as Dahl reciting the first story in his writer’s hut, among other roles. He’s part of an ensemble of Brits, which also includes Benedict Cumberbatch, Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley and Richard Ayoade. Henry Sugar is 40 minutes, but the other three are 17-minute tales, respectively about a bright boy pursued by bullies; a rat standing up for itself and a man who discovers a poisonous snake asleep in his bed.
Streaming: Netflix from September 27
Down for Love
In all the right places, hopefully
A second season of the dating show with a difference, following people with intellectual and neurological disabilities on their search for companionship. Some familiar faces from the first season return, including a guest appearance from Leisel and Brayden, who are now planning their wedding, and multilingual photographer and Down syndrome advocate Carlos. They’re joined by a new group of hopefuls from all over the country over five episodes.
Screening: TVNZ 2, 8.35pm, Thursday September 28
Streaming: TVNZ+
From earlier in the month
Queen of Oz
Crown of prawns
Catherine Tate (The Office, Doctor Who) plays Princess Georgiana, a “spare” British royal who behaves so badly that The Firm cuts a deal to ship her off to become Queen of Australia. Tate – who also co-writes the show – is right in her element, but Georgiana is perhaps too grotesque for some viewers to warm to. Still, it’s pacy and sharply written. Fun fact: the show was originally pitched with Canada as Georgie’s destination, but broadcasters didn’t seem to think anyone would find that funny.
Streaming: TVNZ+ (full season)
Being Maori: The Dr Ranginui Walker Story
The academic and activist remembered
A feature-length biography of the great Māori academic and activist, but also a family history. It doesn’t dazzle stylistically, but it includes fascinating and previously unseen footage of a reflective interview Walker gave several years before his death in 2016 – and it draws a clear picture of a man who achieved his authority through the European education system, then had to recapture his roots and his language later in life.
Streaming: Māori+
Origins
The hunt for the kūmara people
In the ambitious, if anthropologically lightweight, first 2020 season of Origins, Te Karere presenter and te reo champion Scotty Morrison traced Māori genealogical origins all the way back to Ethiopia via stop-offs in Taiwan, among other places. In his second, he’s heading east, not only to trace the possible Pacific voyaging paths of Māori tūpuna, but also how the humble kūmara spread from the west coast of South America through Polynesia and eventually to Aotearoa. Morrison’s travels take him to Chile and the Marquesas Islands on the possible pre-European voyaging canoe kūmara trade route.
Streaming: TVNZ+
Moko The World
Skin deeper
The entertaining and ubiquitous Tamati Rimene-Sproat goes on the road with renowned tattoo artist Henare Brooking to explore what tā moko means to the multiple generations choosing to have the work done. Rimene-Sproat has skin in the game – the first episode has Brooking enhancing the art on the presenter’s arm, the original having been done by veteran tā moko practitioner and Brooking’s mentor Mark Kopua. Brooking and Rimene-Sproat make a good road-trip comedy double act. In a discussion about a possible mataora (facial tattoo), the TV star asks, “Would I look good in one?” Brooking deadpans: “I think you’d look better.”
Streaming: TVNZ+
Hongi To Hāngī: Waiata Special
Altogether now: “Tūtira mai ngā iwi … "
Tamati Rimene-Sproat’s third te ao Māori-for-beginners show is about waiata and how it has been a gateway to the acceptance of te reo. It reminds us that Dame Hinewehi Mohi singing God Defend New Zealand in Māori at Twickenham in 1999 sparked a cultural shift. It also traces why some te reo anthems have endured. It’s a bit padded with talking heads of past shows stating the bleeding obvious, but Rimene-Sproat’s encounters with non-television folk out in the wilds are a pleasure. And there’s a handy haka lesson to go out on.
Streaming: TVNZ+
Into The Valley
Muru, the reality
This documentary series follows Three’s previous night’s screening of Muru, director Tearepa Kahi’s 2022 action thriller based on the supposed police anti-terrorism raids in Tūhoe communities of Rūātoki and Tāneatua in 2007. The hit film might not have retold the real event, but this two-part documentary by Kahi looks at the lasting effects on those involved and those who had to pick up the pieces in its aftermath. Its accounts include those of Tāme Iti, community police sergeant Richard Thrupp, Deputy Police Commissioner Wally Haumaha, and the young adults who were kids when they were held on their school bus by members of the Specialist Tactics Squad, one of whom is also an interviewee. It’s not your usual behind-the-scenes production and it’s a fine decade-later bookend to the great 2011 documentary on the raids, Operation 8.
Streaming: ThreeNow
Welcome To Wrexham
Game of dragons returns
The series that is like a real-life Ted Lasso returns for a second season. Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney bought struggling Wrexham AFC, Wales’ oldest football club, in 2020 and have done wonders for the club and the town. But the Red Dragons were in the National League, the fifth tier of English football, and although their ranking rose from 20th to 2nd under Reynolds and McElhenney, they missed out on promotion in the 2021-22 season. The club was unsustainable if they didn’t get promoted, says McElhenney, so the stakes were high for the 2022-23 season. Also, there’s a visit from the King of England.
Streaming: Disney +
Telemarketers
I’m calling on behalf...
This three-part HBO documentary series might be about US telemarketers cold-calling for donations on behalf of charities but pocketing 90% of the cash themselves. However, it’s not a strait-laced piece of investigative journalism but a gonzo tale of two unlikely whistleblowers who first met at a New Jersey call centre run by the Civic Development Group (CDG), which was once the biggest telemarketing fundraiser in the States.
They spent 20 haphazard years making a DIY film hoping to expose the scamming methods of their employers. Says HBO, “The film is a madcap story of an unruly, low-wage environment and two long-time office buddies who find themselves hot on the trail of a sobering look at the dark side of American capitalism and the misuse of consumer trust.”
Streaming: Neon
The Morning Show
More media melodrama
The backstage newsroom drama starring Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston returns for a third season having taken a critical beating for its sophomore slump of its second after a promising first. Just as previous seasons ripped from the – mostly #MeToo – headlines, this one is too. The push-back on US abortion rights and billionaires in space meet head-on in the first episode, which also introduces Jon Hamm as a tech tycoon possibly buying the UBA in a storyline that may induce deja vu among Succession fans.
Streaming: Apple TV+
The Lovers
Belfast philandering
The Lovers is a dark, romantic comedy series set in Belfast where a self-centred English political broadcaster (Johnny Flynn of Lovesick and Emma) with a celebrity girlfriend (Alice, Eve) finds he and a sweary local supermarket worker (Róisín Gallagher, The Dry) are strangely attracted to each other, despite having plenty to argue about. It’s written by playwright David Ireland and directed by Justin Martin (Together).
Streaming: Neon/Sky Go
West Coasters
A Westland whakapapa
The West Coast loves its history, but it’s a history often told without reference to the people who have been there the longest. This six-part series sets out to tell the story of Te Tai o Poutini through the words of members of Ngāti Waewae and Ngāti Mahaki, the Ngāi Tahu hapū who call it home and who, like all West Coasters, are just a bit different from everyone else. The first episode focuses on pounamu, the taonga at the centre of the region’s founding myth and a resource that was the subject of economic rivalry over hundreds of years. Ngāi Tahu didn’t achieve control over the Coast until the late-18th century. Other treasures came later. Standing by the Mahitahi River at Bruce Bay, Kahurangi Mahuika refers to “our tīpuna from Scotland”, who came to seek gold in the Coast’s black sand. Successive episodes tell the stories of the land itself, the catastrophic population loss in the wake of colonisation and, ultimately, the birth of a new future.
Streaming: Māori+
Bay of Fires
Rachel is in the House
Financial firm CEO Stella Heikkinen (Marta Dusseldorp, The Twelve) has her life upended when she’s attacked by assassins, then placed into witness protection and shipped off to the weird little town of Mystery Bay. This comedy-drama, shot on location in Tasmania (Mystery Bay is fictional, but the Bay of Fires is a real place), has divided Australian critics. But according to the Brisbane Times’ reviewer, it’s yet another opportunity for Rachel House to steal every scene she’s in – in this case, as a forbidding intelligence officer. Fellow Kiwi Kerry Fox plays a criminal matriarch.
Streaming: TVNZ+
The Changeling
A dark, twisted fantasy
A supernatural parenting story based on Victor LaValle’s 2017 widely praised horror-fantasy novel of the same name. Adina Porter (True Blood) stars as a new mother who disappears after apparently committing an unthinkable act. Her husband (LaKeith Stanfield, Knives Out) searches for her and finds himself caught up in a supernatural New York City. The showrunner and writer of all eight episodes is Kelly Marcel, writer of the Fifty Shades of Grey film and creator of Terra Nova.
Streaming: Apple TV+
Blue Lights
Young cops’ troubles
With all the police procedurals there are in the world, it seems implausible that a new cop show could be anything different – and yet, this Belfast-set series has been almost universally lauded in the UK (five stars from the Guardian, “one of the most thrilling shows of the year so far”). The secret seems to be the utterly relatable characters, who include three green recruits, mixed with unbelievably tense situations and the legacy of sectarian violence. There are mundane callouts too, but storylines intersect in unexpected ways as the cops are part of a network dealing with organised crime and the drug trade.
Streaming: ThreeNow.
Miriam and Alan: Lost in Scotland and Beyond
The laddie and lady in the van
The bed and breakfasts of Scotland must still be offering discounts to television crews tagging along with famous folk pretending to be odd-couple tourists holding up local traffic in their campervans. This is the second series with Alan Cumming and Miriam Margolyes doing just that. But they soon run out of Scotland and the episodes detour to the US West Coast on a trip ending up in Las Vegas where they are piloting a bigger RV down the freeways. The American places of interest include a cannabis farm, a drag show and a gay supermarket in Palm Springs, and Margolyes’ old apartment and synagogue in LA.
Streaming: Sky Go
Black Ops
A different call of duty
This BBC comedy thriller has picked up some great reviews at home with its adventures of two well-meaning East London police community support officers, played by the show’s co-creators Gbemisola Ikumelo and Hammed Animashaun. The non-sworn duo end up out of their depth on an undercover operation involving a notorious local drug gang – and crooked Met cops. As Ikumelo’s character puts it: “This is some Line of Duty shit!”
Streaming: TVNZ+
Starstruck
The ex-files
The third season of Rose Matafeo’s BBC/HBO series feels less like an episodic situation comedy about a Kiwi gal in London and more like a great British movie rom-com that takes its cues but rejects the cute stuff from those Richard Curtis flicks then delivers in it in six bittersweet parts. The laughs might quite be as loud as they were for the previous seasons, but this one has a lot of genuine heart and lived-in insights in its tale of Matafeo’s Jesse and her thirtysomething mates adjusting to the stuff adult life throws at you. Like becoming an “ex” – Jesse and her film star boyfriend Tom (Nikesh Patel) split at the beginning of the season. Like having babies – or not having babies and seeing your friends go forth and multiply. Making it to three seasons (as well as all her other UK telly commitments), Matafeo has possibly become our biggest television comedy export since Flight of the Conchords. One might almost hope this is Starstruck’s final series. Mainly because its last episode is the perfect finale, in all sorts of ways. – Russell Baillie
Streaming: TVNZ+ (full season)
The Wheel of Time
Going for another fantasy spin
There’s now not one but two Kiwis in Amazon Prime’s second most expensive fantasy epic with Rima Te Wiata joining core cast member Zoë Robins in the sophomore season of the show based on Robert Jordan’s best-selling books (it’s based largely on the second of Jordan’s The Great Hunt series). Te Wiata is Sheriam Bayanar, the “Mistress of Novices”, a mother superior figure to the young women aspiring to become Aes Sedai — channellers of the One Power, the cosmic woo-woo that figures in the battle between good and, yes, evil, in this vaguely medieval world that can feel like Tolkien with a feminist makeover. The early episodes of season two suggest it’s an improvement on the exposition-heavy first series and Rosamund Pike remains in good form as the Gandalf of these particular proceedings.
Streaming: Prime Video
This guide is updated weekly with new previews and reviews. See what was good in August that you might have missed here.
