SATURDAY NOVEMBER 5
The Russians Are Coming (Maori, 8.30pm). Maori Television continues its Pakipumeka Aotearoa season with The Russians Are Coming, a doco about the little-known meeting between Maori and Russian voyagers in Queen Charlotte Sound in 1820. Two Russian exploration expeditions were sent out in 1819 as part of Tsar Alexander I’s expansionist aims: one to the Arctic and the other to the Antarctic. The story of the visit to Queen Charlotte Sound by the Southern Polar Expedition, led by Commander Thaddeus von Bellingshausen, is told through the first-hand accounts of the voyagers. There is also a dramatisation of a meeting on board one of the expedition’s sloops, the Vostok, and commentary from Russian and New Zealand historians and naval experts. Maori traded with the Russians – as a result, Russia is now the repository of one of the most significant collections of taonga outside New Zealand. Producer-director Toby Mills travelled to Russia to see the collection and says they are “taonga that tell us of people who no longer exist, because Te Rauparaha came to the Sounds several years after the Russian visit and annihilated the inhabitants of that area”.
The Killing
Poirot (Prime, 8.40pm). This week’s Poirot veers into The 39 Steps territory, with a mystery set in Dover just before World War II. A dead man is discovered surrounded by clocks stopped at 4.13. Young Tom Burke plays Lieutenant Colin Race, who asks Poirot to help when Sheila Webb (Jaime Winstone) is implicated in the death. The cast also features Phil Daniels as Inspector ’Ardcastle, Lesley Sharp and Geoffrey Palmer.
Rugby League (Sky Sport 2, Sky 031, 1.30am Sun). Round two of the Four Nations tournament, and the Kiwis play Wales on the hallowed ground of Wembley Stadium. This is followed by an England-Australia derby. Next week, the Kiwis play England in Hull, which doesn’t sound depressing at all.
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 6
Our World: Extreme Fishing (TV1, 5.00pm). Robson Green and his enormous fish return, and in the first episode he’s travelling to his most remote location yet – tiny Ascension Island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Thrilling if you like fishing and Green going “woo-hoo!”
South Riding (UKTV, Sky 006, 6.00pm). There’s always change a-coming in British costume dramas, although this one is more modern than most. It’s the 1930s, and in Andrew Davies’s adaptation of Winifred Holtby’s novel, change comes in the form of Sarah (Anna Maxwell Martin), who arrives back in South Riding, Yorkshire, with a few uppity ideas about equality. Sarah has returned from London to run the girls high school, but comes up against narrow-mindedness and sexism – and the brooding local farmer (ladies, it’s David Morrissey). Sort of Jane Eyre in bias-cut skirts.
Dancing with the Stars US (TV1, 8.30pm). If you thought the British Strictly Come Dancing was glitzy, try the American version, which features B-, C- and D-listers dancing like their lives depend on it. Possibly their careers do. This is the latest season, No 13, featuring Sonny and Cher’s son, Chaz Bono; Courtney Cox’s ex, David Arquette; actress Ricki Lake; a member of the Kardashian species; and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’s Carson Kressley, who replaced Ryan O’Neal at the last minute. There is a wild, anything-could-happen vibe about this iteration: Kressley’s “cheerleader jive” later in the season is described as a “crowning achievement in madness” by judge Bruno Tolioli. Wow, this is looking like the kitsch guilty pleasure we’ve been waiting for.
Boardwalk Empire (SoHo, Sky 010, 8.30pm). Season two of the Prohibition-era drama finds Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) apparently in control of Atlanta after rigging the vote for mayor. However, trouble in the form of Jimmy Darmody (Michael Pitt) and his father (Dabney Coleman) is coming, not to mention mobsters Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky and Al Capone.
MONDAY NOVEMBER 7
Prime Rocks: Rock’n’Roll Exposed (Prime, 10.00pm). You will know the work of rock’n’roll photographer Bob Gruen – he’s the snapper who captured John Lennon in a sleeveless New York City shirt, and he has taken similarly iconic shots of Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie and the Sex Pistols. In Prime Rocks: Rock’n’Roll Exposed, the legendary Don Letts explores Gruen’s photographs and the stories behind them, and interviews Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, Iggy Pop, Debbie Harry, Yoko Ono and Alice Cooper.
Shameless (TV2, 11.00pm). A US adaptation of a UK series that works if you can suspend any knowledge of the original. William H Macy plays the role that made David Threlfall an anti-hero in Britain: the boozing, drug-addled, neglectful-but-not-uncaring Frank Gallagher. In the UK, poverty means living on a benefit in a rundown council estate; in the US, it’s a reasonably big house in a rundown neighbourhood of Chicago. One UK critic complained that everyone’s teeth are too white and, basically, they’re not poor enough, but the series seems, like the US version of The Office, to be finding its own way and has been renewed for a second season.
In Treatment (SoHo, Sky 010, 11.30pm). Therapy is usually thought of as a peculiarly American obsession, but In Treatment is based on a successful Israeli series. It does have a peculiar format, however: it runs five nights a week, to reflect the working week of psychologist Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne). He sees four patients a week, and then debriefs with his own clinical supervisor and psychologist, Gina (Dianne Wiest). It cleverly combines therapy with star power – Byrne’s patients include Melissa George, Mia Wasikowska and Josh Charles.
TUESDAY NOVEMBER 8
Downton Abbey (Prime, 8.30pm). Oh Lord, as if the stink under the Dowager Countess’s nose couldn’t get any worse, she has to endure an uplifting wartime concert right there in Downton. Poor Lady Mary is forced into a gang show and has to sing, “If you were the only boy …” Downton Abbey: the best place on TV for appalled facial expressions.
WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 9
Children’s Hospital (TV1, 8.00pm). The opening of a new children’s hospital in Manchester – the UK’s largest – was a big deal in June, so naturally an observational documentary series was a top priority. Cameras intrude on the lives of the small and ill, including in tonight’s episode a seven-year-old with a range of genetic conditions who is undergoing his 22nd operation, and a three-year-old with an orange pip up her nose who is being treated in the emergency department. Possibly of more interest are the state-of-the-art facilities at the hospital, described by the BBC as the result of the biggest shake-up in children’s healthcare services in decades. There are some 2500 staff, 371 beds, a dedicated emergency department, fold-down beds for parents, en-suite rooms, a hospital school, and a dispensing robot in the pharmacy.
The Killing (SoHo, Sky 010, 8.30pm). Sometimes being last in the television food chain has its advantages: down here, we have not been party to the rhapsodising over Danish series The Killing (Forbrydelsen), which was a huge hit in Denmark and an unlikely hit in the UK. It won a Bafta, was nominated for an Emmy and made a star of the heroine’s chunky-knit fair isle jumper (it’s cold in Denmark!). Happily, we’ve never seen this series here (but it will be available on DVD), and although remakes, with a tiny few exceptions, are almost always inferior, we can go ahead and watch the US version of The Killing without having to grumpily complain it’s not as good as the original. This series has been made by AMC, which is known for such quality fare as Mad Men and Breaking Bad, and it has been given the space it needs to tell the story of a murder investigation. It carefully unfolds over 13 episodes as Detective Sarah Linden (Mireille Enos) and her new partner Stephen Holder (Joel Kinnaman) try to find the killer of 17-year-old Rosie Larsen. The side-story of the Larsen family’s grief and disintegration is brilliantly played by Michelle Forbes and Brendan Sexton as her parents. In the best murder-mystery tradition, the killer could be anyone, from Rosie’s dissolute former boyfriend, to her slightly creepy teacher, to the guy who works at her dad’s furniture-removal business. There is a connection to the mayoral campaign of a city councilman. In keeping with the gloomy Danish origins, the location of The Killing is Seattle in the winter, which is probably as depressing as Copenhagen. The city is green and grey; it rains a lot. Enos, not conventionally beautiful, is a super-cool presence. Best of all, in a nod to her Danish counterpart, she gets to wear chunky jumpers, too.
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 10
Treme (SoHo, Sky 010, 9.30pm). David Simon takes the novelistic, multi-layered style he used in The Wire and applies it to New Orleans, three months after Katrina. The series is another naturalistic tour de force, capturing, over a long arc, the people, places, issues and music of an amazing city. John Goodman, Steve Zahn, Khandi Alexander and Wendell Pierce star, and there are guest appearances from Dr John, Elvis Costello, Steve Earle and Allen Toussaint.
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 11
Human Planet (Prime, Friday, 7.30pm). This week, it’s how we amazing humans have adapted to life on or near rivers. The episode includes a Laotian fisherman walking a high wire strung above the raging Mekong River on his way to work; the extraordinary partnership between Samburu tribespeople and wild elephants in Northern Kenya; and a father who takes his two children on a six-day trek to school down a frozen river in the Himalayas.
The Graham Norton Show (TV3, 8.30pm). TV3’s talking heads go head-to-head with TV1’s talking heads. The Graham Norton Show returns and is lined up against The Jonathan Ross Show, so it may depend on whose guests you like the most. On Graham’s sofa are Kate Winslet, Rob Brydon and Jamie Bell (who is starring in Tintin, albeit in animated form) and music from Noah and the Whale. Over on TV1, Ross’s guests are David Walliams, Seth Rogen, Michael Bublé and Coldplay.