Your Mediaweek guide of what to watch and when over the weekend.
Review by Andrew Mercado (AM) and James Manning (JM).
Friday
Digging for Britain 7.30pm on History
What’s not to like about British history programs? The fun of visiting the UK, whether it be just hanging out in London pubs or taking day trips to regional cities, is that there is a colourful past everywhere you go. Although this is season three, Professor Alice Roberts has been part of four seasons now and there was even a spin-off called Digging for Ireland. Roberts has worked on many other series too including Coast with Neil Oliver. Perfect to start Friday night before you get into a movie or catching-up on your TV dramas. (JM)
House Rules 8.30pm on Seven
What Women Want, the Mel Gibson movie from 2000 that was being touted as the “First Time on Seven” (despite countless screenings on other channels), has now been shafted to make way for a three and a half hour “encore” of the soft rating reno series. It’s a last ditch effort from Seven to snag in some more viewers before the show inevitably gets smashed this Sunday up against The Voice and MasterChef. Good luck House Rules – you will need it. (AM)
The Client List 8.30pm on SoHo
When it comes to trashy TV movies, it doesn’t get much trashier than this – Jennifer Love Hewitt playing a struggling mother who is forced to do hand jobs in a massage parlour so she can pay the bills, with Cybill Shepherd as her mother. Unbelievably, this was so successful it actually led to a “re-imagined” TV series that lasted for two seasons and only got cancelled when JLH fell pregnant. All she’s done since is a single season of Criminal Minds which she only left because … yep, she got pregnant again. Either JLH is particularly fertile or she will do anything to escape a terrible series. (AM)
Saturday
The Hollies: Look Through Any Window 6.30pm on Foxtel Arts
This newish Foxtel channel does some great work, but none better than charting the course of modern music by its seemingly endless collection of music docos. The Hollies are arguably one of the most-overlooked of the UK’s British Invasion big bands. People always bang on, justifiably, about The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, but it is great to get some perspective about some of the others who tasted massive success in the US too. None of The Hollies, with one exception, can qualify as household names. That exception is Graham Nash who went on to join Crosby, Stills and Nash and who has recently been touring Australia as a solo artist. Perfectly programmed too for a 6.30pm Saturday celebration of some classic tunes. (JM)
Fist of Fury/Game of Death 8.30pm on SBS2
The first movie of this classic 70s kung fu double bill was only Bruce Lee’s second major role, but the second feature was cobbled together a few years after his shock death. Just 11 minutes of Bruce Lee action was used and together with stock footage and body doubles and the end result is pretty weird. What endured was Bruce Lee’s yellow and black tracksuit from this movie, particularly when it was paid homage to by Uma Thurman in Kill Bill. (JM)
Frontline streaming on Presto
Presto has a great selection of Australian titles including this, the best Aussie sitcom of the 90s and right up there with the greatest comedies we have EVER made. Now if only they would bring it back for a new series – imagine an episode based on the 60 Minutes saga with Brooke Vandenberg languishing in a Lebanese jail! But who at Presto is doing their rating system given they only give this deadset classic 3 and a half stars? Frontline is 5 out of 5, end of! (AM)
Sunday
The Voice 7pm on Nine
Nine’s shiny floor singing contest finally gets underway and it will be fantastic to see Sonia Kruger running the show instead of just being sidekick eye candy for former host Darren McMullen. But the departure of judge Ricky Martin is still a huge loss and I’m not sure that replacing him with a cast-off from Seven cuts it (didn’t Nine learn anything from their last hot mess network switcher Mel B?). Ronan Keating told TV Week that The Voice is a great gig because it’s “not as long as The X Factor – it’s half the amount of time.” No wonder then he was having such a good laugh with ET in The Voice’s strange outer space promos. (AM)
MasterChef Australia 7.30pm on Ten
Ten are so confident about MasterChef’s ongoing success they are changing nothing. It’s still got the same judges and it’s still got the same slogan – “Ordinary people, Extraordinary food”. And why not? There is no need to mess with success and MasterChef is a class act – welcome back. (AM)
Happy Valley 8.30pm on BBC First
The first series debuted on ABC but the second series is now an exclusive to Foxtel. Given the response from UK critics and viewers, this is as cracking as the first series but it seems a shame that BBC First seems to have dropped their initial promise to “Express From the UK”. Happy Valley 2 began in the UK way back on February 9 and ended in mid-March so hopefully all plot spoilers have been avoided by its fans. (AM)
