New to View: May 23 – 29

A weekly guide to what’s new of note on air and online

SUNDAY

All Gardens Great and Small | Prime, 6.00

“It’s obvious that a filthy sense of humour runs in the family,” the Daily Mail said of this 2017 gardening show that teams all-thumbs Miranda Hart with green-thumb mum and horticulture expert Dee Hart Dyke. “When Mum proposed that what her daughter’s foliage really needed was a good sorting-out from a burly man, both women doubled over in hysterics. The gardening tips are entertaining, if often daft — for example, donkey dung is just the thing to keep aphids off your box hedges. But the real interest lies in seeing how similar mother and daughter are, and guessing how much of real life creeps into Miranda’s comedy.”

Dwight in Shining Armour | Neon

“Picture a clean, kid-friendly version of Monty Python and the Holy Grail with bad graphics, and you’ll get an approximate idea of Dwight in Shining Armor.” — Deseret News.

MONDAY

Snowpiercer | Netflix

“I suspect your enjoyment of Snowpiercer the TV show will depend on how much you like the core idea. You could make the case that this is grim, silly dystopian sci-fi, a comic-book idea that got out of hand. I think it’s a fabulous premise, realised here with less anger than in the film, but equal wit and imagination and the same clarity of setting. A second season is already in the works, with Sean Bean reportedly joining the cast.” — The Independent.

Van Der Valk | Vibe, 8.30

“The new Van Der Valk has the same slightly odd conceit as the old one, which is that it’s set in Amsterdam (canals, bicycles, coffee shops, staring at paintings in the Rijksmuseum) and everyone is supposed to be Dutch, but the star and most of the cast are British and don’t pretend to be otherwise. Just accept this and swiftly move on. Marc Warren is now the moody lead, as the rule-breaking but cool-headed detective … It is all quite glum – the writer, Chris Murray, has Midsomer Murders on his CV, but this is a million miles away in tone – and I don’t expect Van Der Valk to crack a smile before the series is out. But by the end of this feature-length opener I found myself warming to him.” — The Telegraph.

TUESDAY

How to Look Good Naked | TVNZ 2, 7.45

Why revive this series eight years after its original run ended? “With social media being more widely used than ever before, body confidence continues to be an enormous issue for a number of men and women,” commissioner Clare Laycock, of Discovery UK, says. “How To Look Good Naked was an incredibly important programme in boosting peoples’ self-esteem and self-worth.”

WEDNESDAY

Race Across the World (S2) | TVNZ 1, 7.30

“Here’s something unusual about Race Across the World, a sort of competitive gap year where five pairs compete to cross South America on the tightest budget in the shortest time in an effort to have the most annoying conversations back home with the people they know: I have ended up, against my better judgment, liking the contestants … Race Across the World is an astounding piece of TV because it somehow captures all the vibrant highs and exhausted lows of travel in all of their raw glory.” — The Guardian.

Grantchester (S5) | BBC UKTV, 8.30

Season five picks up a year on from the last, now in Cambridge in 1957, the year that Prime Minister Harold MacMillan told the British people that they had “never had it so good”. “As edgy as a toasted teacake but there’s bite beneath the cosy surface … Each episode drifts by in a bucolic haze but before you know it, you’re emotionally invested in the outcome.” — The Telegraph.

THURSDAY

Mystery Road (S2) | SoHo, 9.30

“With his gunbelt and cowboy hat, Mystery Road’s stoic Detective Jay Swan (Aaron Pedersen) is deliberately retro as he roams Australia’s wild north, a law unto himself as he hunts down a man who did him wrong. Okay, he’s actually after the head of a drug smuggling syndicate, but you get the idea … The crime story is compelling and Pedersen is a charismatic lead, but it’s the sense of place that lingers, of wide empty spaces and haunted, desperate characters clinging to a landscape they’ll never understand.” — ScreenHub.