This Is Your Life has been a staple on Australian TV since 1975. Originally hosted by Mike Willesee, newsreader Roger Climpson took over and became its best-known host, back when it was a snappy half-hour show for Seven, sandwiched in alongside a British sitcom.
Nine revived the show in 1995 with a one-hour running time and Mike Munro at the helm. It was a hit for 13 years, but when Eddie McGuire brought it back in 2011, it flopped after just four episodes. Now it’s back on Seven, and longer than ever.
This Is Your Life (Sunday on Seven) now runs for an hour and a half, but there is no media preview to see if it holds your attention. Ian Thorpe is a good choice for its comeback episode, with the Birmingham Commonwealth Games starting next Friday. That won’t affect This Is Your Life though, which will screen intermittently as a special event with host Melissa Doyle.
This Is Your Life (Seven)
Mercado on TV: Religious feast
Religion features heavily in two new streaming series. Under The Banner Of Heaven (Disney+), a Mormon murder mystery, is written by Dustin Lance Black, the Academy Award-winning screenwriter and former Mormon who cut his teeth on another TV series about the church, Big Love (Binge).
Under The Banner Of Heaven is a much darker show than Big Love, but what both series share is a large family overseen by a passive-aggressive patriarch. With a cast like Andrew Garfield, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Sam Worthington, this is one to watch.
Under the Banner of Heaven (Netflix)
Under The Banner Of Heaven is based on a true story, but Midnight Mass (Netflix) is a horror fantasy about a Catholic priest, played by Hamish Linklater, who takes over a dwindling parish on a spooky island. And if that doesn’t sound scary enough, it’s from Mike Flanagan, the creator of The Haunting Of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor (both also on Netflix).
Flanagan has a troupe of loyal actors he takes to every project, meaning Midnight Mass stars his wife Kate Siegel, plus Rahul Kohli, Carla Gugino and ET’s grown-up Henry Thomas. All will be back for his next horror miniseries based on Edgar Allen Poe stories, The Fall Of The House Of Usher.
Midnight Mass (Netflix)
Not surprisingly, some Mormons aren’t impressed by Under The Banner Of Heaven, and Catholics are cautious about Midnight Mass. The Guardian’s Sian Cain, however, says it is a must-watch for lapsed Catholics and “this wonderful, harrowing show will stay with me forever”. Count me in.