SATURDAY OCTOBER 29
Allan Baldwin: In Frame (Maori, 8.30pm). There is an eerie moment in this documentary when a photograph is rendered into 3D, and the flame of a match dances above the bowl of a pipe. The effect almost brings to life kuia Ngaakahikatea, her face with its deep-seated moko captured beautifully by Allan Baldwin. The documentary is part historical document, part memory and part tribute to old people now dead. It also brings into the light some of the magnificent photographs Baldwin took in the 60s and 70s of “kuia mau moko”. Only a handful
Allan Baldwin: In Frame
have been seen in public, but it was Baldwin’s photos that inspired Michael King to write his 1972 book Moko: Maori Tattooing in the 20th Century. Baldwin, now 90, remembers attaching a caravan to his car in 1967 and setting out into the central North Island. It was by chance he met a kuia with a moko, and having been told that moko were all gone, he decided to try to photograph her. The endeavour was not just an artistic one, but a matter of gaining the trust of his subjects, and it’s a testament to Baldwin’s character that he was allowed. “The Pakeha, he seemed very genuine and sincere,” remembers Hokimoana Te Rika-Hekerangi, whose mother was photographed by Baldwin. Te Warena Taua remembers his grandmother, “Ngaa”, the lady with the pipe. “She was the first person ever allowed to smoke in my home,” he says. She would move around to visit whanau and he remembers her talking to people long gone, including Kiingi Taawhiao, whose children she had looked after. It was the King, she told Baldwin, who arranged for her moko. If there is one thing missing, it’s the actual carving of the moko: how it was done, who did it, how frequently it’s done today. But otherwise, the documentary is a beautiful waiata to the wahine.
SUNDAY OCTOBER 30
Rick Stein’s Spain (Prime, 7.30pm). Apparently, chefs no longer just travel to interesting locations to sample the food, they have to be seen to travel to distant destinations – Al Brown has a pick-up truck, Michael Van de Elzen had a whole truck, and Rick Stein has an old campervan in which he is searching out the soul, or alma, of Spanish cooking. It’ll be paella on wheels.
Curiosity: Did God Create the Universe? (Discovery, Sky 070, 7.30pm). Television just can’t help itself: it wants everything to be sexy. Even science. Especially science, because that is the only way that we’re going to learn anything, right? Discovery Channel’s new Curiosity series considerably sexes things up with actors, film-makers and television personalities, who explore concepts such as “why sex is fun”, “surviving an alien attack”, and “the nature of evil”. The presenters include actors Morgan Freeman, Michelle Rodriguez, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and film-makers Eli Roth and Morgan Spurlock. Slightly bucking the trend (although he is still a superstar) is physicist Stephen Hawking, who presents the first episode Curiosity: Did God Create the Universe?, based on his most recent book, The Grand Design. It’s a rhetorical question – Hawking has already said God didn’t do any such thing. The trouble is, you may have to have degrees in astrophysics and maths to understand why not. Even Hawking concedes at one point, “If you are not a math head, this may be hard to understand.” However, he explains (with some narration from British actor Benedict Cumberbatch), using as many metaphors as possible, how the Big Bang came from nothing and Discovery supplies as many visual aids as possible (from Vikings to tennis matches) and perhaps a little of all that amazing knowledge will rub off on us.
Sunday Theatre: Live Aid – When Harvey Met Bob (TV1, 8.30pm). A dramatisation that was screened last year in the UK to mark the 25th anniversary of Live Aid – remember that? It’s supposed to be the story of how Bob Geldof got together with concert promoter Harvey Goldsmith to do something for the starving Ethiopians, although the Guardian’s Andrew Anthony wasn’t so convinced: the story “would have made a fascinating documentary” and the role of Goldsmith (played by Ian Hart) was shrunk “to little more than a line-feeder to the greater cause of Geldof’s righteously surly ego”. Everyone seems to agree Hart and Domhnall Gleeson as Geldolf are fantastic, except Peaches Geldolf – someone who should know – who tweeted: “The guy acting as my dad is beyond terrible … What is that accent?! He’s not a leprechaun!”
Style Pasifika (TV1, 10.25pm). Style Pasifika just gets bigger and bigger and better and better and this year was staged as part of the REAL NZ Festival, which has been running during the Rugby World Cup. This fabulous show is now in its 17th year and was staged at Auckland’s Vector Arena.
MONDAY OCTOBER 31
ONE News Election 2011 – Leaders Debate (TV1, 7.00pm). According to moderator Guyon Espiner, this will be the first time Labour leader Phil Goff and National’s John Key have “gone head-to-head”. Apart from in the House, we suppose. There were opening addresses on Friday, but this is where the election campaign begins; apparently, the election is Key’s to lose, so let’s see if he fluffs his lines – and whether Goff can dredge up some charisma from somewhere.
The Amazing Race (TV2, 7.30pm). It keeps winning Emmys, so it must have something going for it: the US series returns for season 15, a fast 21-day course spanning eight countries, and the contestants include a pair of professional poker players (both women); the first contestant with Asperger’s; a former Miss America; and, in a nicely synergistic piece of casting, two Harlem Globetrotters.
James May’s Man Lab (TV3, 7.30pm). Top Gear’s James May does manly things in his “man lab”, skills that have been long forgotten by modern metrosexual man, like building stuff, mending things and disarming a WWII bomb. Wait, what? Do not try this at home.
Game of Thrones (SoHo, Sky 010, 8.30pm). The new HBO-like channel on Sky begins today at 3.00pm with the first episode of The Sopranos – appropriate, given it was The Sopranos that set off what is now being described as a golden age of television. Today’s schedule also features the first episodes of Six Feet Under and True Blood, but fantasy series Game of Thrones is brand new. It’s based on the book series by George RR Martin, and stars Sean Bean, Peter Dinklage (pictured, who won an Emmy last month for his role), Mark Addy and Lena Headey. It’s full-on, bloody and sexed-up, and quite the barnstormer.
Mad Dogs (TV1, 10.00pm). My, times have changed. Once, the BBC was the gold standard for drama and the Americans were a distant second with their cop shows and silly sitcoms. Now, everything’s a “co-pro”, gets screened on both sides of the Atlantic, and is more than likely to be a remake. If the BBC does produce something good, it will probably end up on pay television (think Luther and Spooks, both on UKTV, or The Hour, which will screen on Sky’s new prestige channel SoHo). Mad Dogs comes to us courtesy of British pay TV channel Sky 1, and it features the dream cast of John Simm, Philip Glenister, Max Beesley and Marc Warren. It’s a four-parter about four fortysomethings who are invited on a holiday to Majorca by an old mate (Ben Chaplin), but find themselves up to their necks in trouble of the darkest kind.
TUESDAY NOVEMBER 1
3 Sport Horseracing: Melbourne Cup 2011 (TV3, 4.30pm). The Melbourne Cup already? It seems like only yesterday that we were winning the office sweep … er, that we watched this during our tea break. Rachel Smalley presents coverage from Melbourne of the horse race that stops two nations, apparently.
The Retreat (BBC Knowledge, 8.35pm). In the other corner from Did God Create the Universe? (above) is The Retreat, a series that follows on from The Convent and The Monastery, in which six Britons are sent to a Muslim retreat in Alqueria de Rosales in Andalusia, Spain, which caters to many different branches of Islam. There will be daily prayer, reflection and study, and in the final week, the volunteers will observe Ramadan. The group includes a 32-year-old woman who converted to Islam and whose family suffered abuse after 9/11 and 7/7; a devout Muslim who, at 14, campaigned successfully for the right to wear the hijab at school; a psychotherapist who was brought up Christian; and a divorced graduate who describes himself as a “questioning agnostic”.
WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 2
Bigger Better Faster Stronger (TV3, 8.00pm). Could be bracketed with James May’s Man Lab (see Monday); certainly, May would approve of attempts to soup up everyday household items, such as vacuum cleaners, barbecues and juicers. Plus, just when we thought it couldn’t get more blokey, James Coleman and Greg Page actually compete with turbo-power domestic devices. Do not try this at home.
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 3
2011 New Zealand Music Awards (Four, 8.00pm). Auckland’s Vector Arena is a fairly cavernous and unengaging venue for the annual Music Awards, but it does illustrate just how far they’ve come; instead of a do just for the industry and various hangers-on, it’s now a televised public event featuring the industry and various hangers-on. Shannon Ryan and Ben Boyce are the hosts, with Drew Neemia and Sharyn Wakefield behind the scenes. The Naked and Famous have the most nominations (six); other nominees include Ladi6, Brooke Fraser, David Dallas and Tiki Taane. The Naked and Famous and Ladi6 will perform, as will Brooke Fraser, Tiki Taane and Avalanche City. The recipient of the NZ Herald Legacy Award is Dragon.
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 4
Community (Four, 8.00pm). A minor work of genius about a group of misfits and oddballs who inadvertently form a … community. The series is inspired by the experiences of the show’s creator Dan Harmon, who enrolled in Spanish classes at a community college to try to save his relationship with his girlfriend. In Harmon’s fictional community, the oddballs include walking non-sequitur Chevy Chase, and The Soup’s Joel McHale – plus, the series is a love letter to geeks and pop culture nerds everywhere.