TV Week
by Fiona Rae and Alistair Bone
SATURDAY March 12
Mai Time (TV2, 10.30am). Crappy time slot for a show that’s so hip you may not know what’s going on. Never mind, the rangatahi do. Fiona Apanui and Patara Berryman get out with the young people, play new music videos and have a new competition for haka, waiata, mau rakau and wero. Get those texting fingers ready.
Squirt (TV2, 8.30am). It’s a crowded schedule for the kids these days; there are afternoon weekday shows on all channels and they can be kept busy with the return of Saturday Disney, which starts at 7.00am today. But Squirt is the only show boasting a computer-generated penguin made with the same technology that creates all those whizzy real-time graphics for sporting events. There’s also an Irish fish called Newt, a robot called Pivot and a token human called Ryan Inglis.
MONDAY March 14
DNZ: Mama Tere (TV1, 8.30pm). Another extra-ordinary story from the mean streets of Auckland, featuring Mama Tere Strickland, now known as an advocate for the transgender community and an adviser to the Manukau City Council, but once a frightened, homeless 11-year-old. Exploited by transgender prostitutes, “Charlie” descended into a life of drugs, crime, prostitution and self-destruction. Eventually, having become known as Mama Tere, she was institutionalised. But the story has a happy ending, as she changed her life and now uses her experiences to help others.
ER (TV2, 8.30pm). Nurse, get me a special guest star and hand me that plot outline from 24 stat! ER has made some innovative television in the past; episodes have been played out in flashback, and once, memorably, an opening season episode was filmed live. Tonight’s episode is called “Time of Death” and – wherever did they get this idea – the last 44 minutes are in “real time” as the decline of an alcoholic patient (played by Ray Liotta) is charted. Clocks on the wall/interns ordering pizza, etc will let you know what time it is as Luka and Sam work on Liotta’s character, Charlie. Also appearing is Sara Gilbert, whom you may know as Darlene from Roseanne. Check out Friday for more of those fun guest-starring roles.
TUESDAY March 15
Louis and the Nazis (Prime, 8.30pm). The strangely disarming Louis Theroux makes the most revealing tele-vision, usually by out-nerding his subjects and making no judgment or pronouncement on their lifestyle. According to the Guardian, however, his “goofy sang-froid” deserts him briefly in this documentary in which he meets white supremacists in California. It wasn’t Tom Metzger, a former Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan who now heads something called White Aryan Resistance, but a woman who is raising her twin daughters, then aged 11, as racists, that really rattles his cage. In addition, Theroux was nearly in a sticky situation himself when interviewing some WAR members on their ranch. They’re happy to talk until they notice that Louis is not so Aryan-looking. “Are you a Jew?” they ask. Louis, wisely, declines to answer.
WEDNESDAY March 16
Shortland Street (TV2, 7.00pm). It doesn’t seem that long since Tama and Shannon’s budget beach wedding but, bless, here’s another trip down the aisle on the Street. There’ll be no skimping this time, though, not when it’s wealthy Dr Love who is getting hitched, even if it is for the – count them – fourth time. Divorcé Chris Warner will marry divorcée Antoinette Thompson, the mother of one and a half of his children. The occasion gives the great Ilona Rodgers a chance to chew the scenery as Toni’s scheming mother Ngaire, Dr Sarah Potts will be bridesmaid, Dr Craig Valentine will be best man, and the wedding will take place in the Winter Gardens at the Auckland Domain. Toni will be wearing a pretty frock; check your local women’s mags for details. In other wedding news, Mike Jr and Vanessa are joined in holy matrimony on My Wife and Kids (TV2, Friday, 7.30pm).
THURSDAY March 17
The Sopranos (TV2, 10.30pm). Well, with no new Sopranos episodes until 2006, we’ll have to make do with our boxed sets or these repeats – isn’t this the second time around? – on TV2. And we’re clearly so over The Guardian that TV2 has shunted it to run after these season one repeats of the mob drama. The series was cancelled – that leaves only two episodes for Nick to get his act together.
FRIDAY March 18
Joan of Arcadia (TV3, 7.30pm). We’ve never really warmed to Joan, despite some excellent acting and smart scripts (Joan to God: “You have a locker now? What do you keep in there – wrath?”). It may not have helped that TV3 has moved it twice, and now there are only four episodes left in the season. In case you find the whole interventionist God thing a problem, the final episode raises the possibility that Joan was hallucinating all along.
8 Simple Rules (TV2, 8.00pm). In other guest star news this week, Raquel Welch (yes!) appears in 8 Simple Rules as the head of a modelling agency who turns down Bridget. Meantime, Thomas Cavanagh, whom you may remember as Ed from the TV series of the same name, appears as JD’s brother in Scrubs (TV2, Wednesday, 8.00pm) and George Lopez features well-known George W Bush impersonator Brent Mendenhall (TV2, Monday, 11.35pm). And Julia Louis-Dreyfus, James Lipton and Henry Winkler all appear in Arrested Development (TV3, Tuesday, 10.00pm).
SKYLIGHTS
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