Rafa and Djokovic face off in the Men's final at the Aussie Open, and more Aussie drama with Offspring's Billie and Mick.
TV
Offspring
Antiques Roadshow (Prime, 7.35pm). They’re at Beverley Minster in Yorkshire, said to be the largest parish church in the UK. I know this, because it says so on Wikipedia. Treasures evaluated include a medieval ring.
Curiosity: Can We Survive an Alien Attack? (Discovery, Sky 070, 7.30pm). Alien attacks are all the rage at the moment – although, when were they not? Between Falling Skies and any number of movies slated to come out this year about intelligent life arriving from elsewhere in the universe and killing us all, Curiosity: Can We Survive an Alien Attack? seems like a reasonable question. Michelle Rodriguez (Lost) asks scientists and military strategists what they reckon, and the results are dramatised. The episode caused a bunch of chatter on UFO sites when it aired in the US – opinion seems to be divided along the lines of “when they come, they’ll wipe us out, they’re so clever”, and “they’re already here and haven’t done anything bad yet”. But Discovery, which created the show as part of its Curiosity series, rolls out the astrophysicists to play the statistics – in an infinite universe, they argue, it’s impossible we’re the only intelligent life around. It’s whether that life is genocidal that’s up for debate. That many of them think it would be is horrifying – but we already knew that. When Cloverfield, in which a Godzilla-type creature arrives in New York, killing indiscriminately and dropping parasitic nasties that destroy their human hosts, was released, Stephen Hawking’s personal assistant told a Guardian journalist that the movie “chimes with [Hawking’s] vision exactly”. – Sarah Barnett
Tennis (Sky Sport 3, Sky 032, 9.00pm). The men’s final tonight, between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal – Rafa looks to be in better shape, as Djokovic has apparently been labouring under some sort of breathing problem. He still managed to come back in that five-setter against Andy Murray, however.
Offspring (TV1, 9.30pm). Gosh, we thought Australians were more relaxed, but if Offspring’s anything to go by, they’re a seething mass of insecurities and neuroses. Tonight, Billie and Mick are trying to start a family. Naturally, it is not going to be easy.
FILM
WALL-E (TV2, 7.00pm). It’s curious that words like “beauty” and “perfection” were used to describe the first half of this Disney-Pixar gem, given that it is set in a devastated post-human world where a rusty little robot can only find joy watching Hello, Dolly! on his VCR. Then EVE – a robot so sexy it had to be – and was – designed by the Apple guy behind the iPod, arrives and WALL-E falls for her. But WALL-E is a Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth class, and EVE is an Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator. They are worlds apart. Written and directed by Andrew Stanton, whose name is on all the Pixar classics, this is the film we’ll be watching on our synthetic planet in space one day. (2008) 9 – Diana Balham
Monsters vs Aliens (TV3, 7.00pm). Spooky, possums! My child is watching this on DVD right now. He says he likes it because “the bug mad scientist guy can make computers and stuff out of pizza boxes”, which is a pretty good recommendation. With the voices of Reese Witherspoon, Hugh Laurie and Seth Rogen, as a woman turned into a giant by a meteorite on her wedding day, the bug mad scientist guy and a big blob of jelly respectively. Not DreamWorks’ best effort to date but Conrad Vernon (Shrek 2) and Rob Letterman (Shark Tale) know their way around a kid’s brain. (2009) 7 – Diana Balham
For Richer or Poorer (Four, 8.30pm). A hotshot-to-hayseed comedy in which two New York socialites (Tim Allen and Kirstie Alley) hide out in an Amish community to avoid the tax department. And guess what? When not laughing at the plain folk, they learn to love the simple things again. Yawn. (1997) 5 – Diana Balham
Strange Fits of Passion (Maori, 8.30pm). Your channel for obscure Aussie cinema, Maori TV presents a comedy drama squarely aimed at TV’s The Secret Life of Us demographic, which Samuel Johnson, who plays Josh, went on to appear in. It stars Michela Noonan, who has been in about a million drama series, as a twentysomething flicking through a range of options on the road to losing her virginity. Written and directed by Elise McCredie, who has also been in about a million drama series, sometimes with Noonan! And, no, this isn’t much of a step up from some of them. (1999) 6 – Diana Balham
Meet Dave (TV3, 9.00pm). Perhaps this should be renamed “Meat, Dave?”, as in a turkey, hammed up to the max. The plot, if you can call it that, revolves around a human-shaped spaceship (played by Eddie Murphy) full of tiny aliens who come to Earth to steal … something … and then the captain, who is also Murphy, falls in love with a human, and … Clumsy, unfunny and a significant plot point on the woeful trajectory that is Murphy’s failing career. (2008) 4 – Diana Balham
RADIO
Delius Day: In a Summer Garden (Radio New Zealand Concert, 10.00am). To mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Frederick Delius, RNZ Concert presents two programmes about the English composer, who was born in 1862 and died in 1934. Delius was born into a wealthy family of German stock who wanted their Freddie to be a businessman, so they sent him off to Florida to run an orange orchard. But Delius wasn’t meant for such things, and instead of managing, he spent his time listening to the songs of the black plantation workers. He decided he wanted to be a composer and moved to Paris, where he remained for the rest of his life. In In a Summer Garden, Jon Tolansky visits the composer’s last home, in the French village of Grez-sur-Loing. He talks to the current owner and staff who maintain the garden in Delius’s memory and plays some of the music inspired there. (See also The Sunday Feature at 2.00pm.) – Diana Balham
Spectrum (Radio New Zealand National, 12.15pm). Never one to relish a desk job, travellin’ man David Steemson is out and about once again looking at the things that make the Auckland region the place it is. In Rotoroa, No Longer an Island Apart, he prises open the lid on one of our more mysterious Hauraki Gulf islands. Until recently, you would only have the pleasure of visiting if you were part of the Salvation Army’s alcohol and drug programme, which was based here, but these days the only cold turkeys you’ll find will be holidaymakers that have spent too long in the sea. Thanks to $30 million and Neal and Annette Plowman, Rotoroa is now open to visitors. Steemson hops on a boat and meets Phil and Ginette Salisbury, who manage the island, and Barrie Brown, who chairs the Rotoroa Island Trust. – Diana Balham
The Sunday Feature (Radio New Zealand Concert, 2.00pm). Delius Day continues with Frederick Delius’s Magnificent Dance of Life and Death, in which Emanuel Garcia and Simon Romanos look at the effects of Delius’s final illness (syphilis) and the roles played by his devoted wife, Jelka Rosen, and assistant Eric Fenby. – Diana Balham
Metropolitan Opera Season (Radio New Zealand Concert, 3.00pm). Last week, we heard Plácido Domingo conducting. This week’s opera odd spot is Kiri Te Kanawa in a speaking role. She plays the Duchess of Krakenthorp in Donizetti’s The Daughter of the Regiment in this December production, with Nino Machaidze, Lawrence Brownlee, Maurizio Muraro, Ann Murray and James Courtney. First performed in 1840, it is a comic opera about a young woman brought up by soldiers in a French regiment who falls in love with – horreur! – a Tyrolean civilian who is an enemy of France. The opera is famous for the aria Ah! Mes Amis, Quel Jour de Fête!, which has been called the Mt Everest for tenors because it features nine high Cs and comes comparatively early in the opera, giving the singer less time to warm up his voice. Pavarotti shot to fame in 1972 following a heroic performance with Joan Sutherland at the Met, when, as Tonio the Tyrolean, he “leapt over the Becher’s Brook of the string of high Cs with an aplomb that left everyone gasping”, as one critic put it. (Becher’s Brook is the lethal jump in the infamous Grand National horse race, which some jockeys call “jumping off the edge of the world”.) – Diana Balham
The Sunday Feature (Radio New Zealand National, 4.06pm). In The Te Papa Treaty Debates: The Wai 262 Claim, Justice Joe Williams and public law specialist Mai Chen discuss the Waitangi Tribunal’s long-awaited first “whole of government” report – the first to consider what the Treaty relationship might become after historical grievances are settled, and how that relationship might be shaped by changes in the country’s demographic make-up in the next 30 to 40 years. – Diana Balham