New to TVNZ OnDemand in June

TVNZ OnDemand has a raft of express-from-the-US premieres in June but some of the streaming platform’s top picks have taken a slower route.

The Commons (June 25) is a prescient 2019 Stan commission about a climate-ravaged Sydney in the near future starring Joanna Froggatt.

“It’s tempting to put The Commons in the ‘dystopian future’ or ‘disaster’ genre, but the show doesn’t stray into fanciful sci-fi or over-the-top catastrophe,” the Daily Mail said.

“The events feel realistic, which makes the show so captivating. In fact, you can draw parallels between the world of The Commons and the world we’re living in today.”

69: The Saga of Danny Hernandez (June 19) is billed as part investigative documentary, part real-life gangster movie about the polarising rap sensation and internet troll Tekashi69 who testified against Brooklyn gang the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods in a landmark trial.

The Hollywood Reporter called director Vikram Ghandi’s 2020 movie “a clear-eyed take on a chaotic life, in which some of those closest to Hernandez try to give a sense of the man behind the Insta-outrageousness.

“Still, even Gandhi (maker of 2016’s Obama-early-years feature Barry) admits that what he hoped would be a cautionary tale is probably just one more way for the infamous celeb to get the attention he craves.”

More recent are Greta Thunberg: A Year to Change the World (June 26) and Leonardo (June 14).

“The BBC’s three-part documentary on Greta, following her carbon-neutral globetrotting over the last few years, is effectively an act of worship: a monument to our new religion of environmentalism,” said the Independent.

“Predictable but still breathtaking.”

In Leonardo, Poldark’s Aidan Turner plays the Italian genius reflecting on his life while imprisoned for poisoning his confidant, Caterina de Cremona (Matilda De Angelis).

The Guardian dubbed it “a cringe-inducing, broad-brush portrait of the Renaissance icon”.

Express from the US will be S2 of Why Women Kill (June 3), S4 of Claws (June 7), S17 of The Bachelorette (June 8), S2 of The Bay (June 12) and S2 of Motherland: Fort Salem (June 23).

Also new will be S1-2 of children’s series Detention Adventure (June 1), S1-3 of Lethal Weapon (June 5) and S1-3 of the Nordic noir original, The Killing (June 20).

Premiering on the branded channels will be: