New to View: September 27 – October 3

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

Monday

➢ Westside Three, 8.30

The Outrageous Fortune spin-off returns for its final season — which means it’s had as long a run as the original.

➢ Traces BBC UKTV, 9.30

New forensics crime drama series that’s been dubbed “Silent McWitness” because of its setting. “It’s really honestly awful good: written by Amelia Bullmore, from a lightbulb moment by Val McDermid, it’s set in Dundee and, at least nominally, focuses on the work there pioneered by forensic anthropologist Professor Sue Black, to which McDermid owes such debts of insight.” — The Guardian.

Tuesday

➢ Fargo SoHo, 8.30

Double episode premiere. “The FX series’ long-awaited fourth instalment pits warring mobs, corrupt cops, bootstrapping immigrants, and more in a battle for 1950 Kansas City … This move away from the series’ familiar Minnesota home turf is mostly a rollicking success. After all, there’s plenty of snow — and blood — to be found in a Kansas City winter, too.” — Rolling Stone.

➢ Will & Grace TVNZ 2, 10.00

Premiere of the final season of the reboot that TVNZ 2 trumpeted but could never will enough viewers to watch, hence the fringe primetime slot. For fans only.

Wednesday

➢ Newshub Decision 2020 Leaders Debate Three, 7.30

Patrick Gower moderates and Tova O’Brien analyses Three’s first party leaders’ debate. It spearheads a crowded soapbox for your attention this week, with Monday’s Whakatau 2020 Election Coverage (Maori TV, 7.00) and Young Voters Debate (1news.co.nz) also seeking your support.

➢ This Could Go Anywhere  Prime, 9.30

Note the later slot for the premiere of a lifestyle series in which cricketers Phil Tufnell and Brendon McCullum hit the road. There will be a same-week repeat on Saturday nights.

➢ Educators TVNZ OnDemand

Season two premiere of the unscripted comedy about the staff of a Kiwi secondary school. A double-episode opens the season, then new eps stream weekly.

Thursday

➢ Oktoberfest: Beer and Blood Netflix

“Netflix’s gleefully dark new drama about the early years of the famous beer festival. It isn’t a documentary or a staid period story — packed with buttoned-up old-timey folk being deliciously nasty to each other. This razor-sharp romp through the cut-throat world of beer brewing plays more like Peaky Blinders with a creamy foam head. Deadwood in lederhosen. Boardwalk Empire with subtitles.” — C|Net.

➢ Ultimate Tag Three, 7.30

Vanity Fair reckons this gladiatorial newcomer “never achieves Ninja Warrior’s beguiling momentum. The game is too easy and over too quickly; contestants and taggers alike are too often thwarted by walls, by the limited constraints of the show.”

➢ Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Detectives Prime, 8.30

First free-to-air run of a daytime BBC caper about odd-couple sleuths that was released six months ago on DVD. “This lightweight murder mystery is set in Stratford-upon-Avon, and never lets us forget it … Fans of Midsomer Murders will settle in straight away and, with so many grim, grinding crime dramas clogging up the evening schedules, it’s worth setting the recorder for this one.” — Daily Mail.

Friday

➢ Tiny World Apple TV+

Who better than Ant-Man Paul Rudd to narrate this groundbreaking take on the ingenuity and resilience of the smallest animals on earth, using new camera technology to see the world through their eyes.

➢ The Walking Dead: World Beyond Amazon Prime Video

“This is not a perfect series: The shots of the undead often look cheap and the rules of how these monsters are evaded have never felt more loosely applied. And yet there’s a willingness to reinvent, to genuinely probe a corner of the universe previously untouched, that makes this series feel serious in its intent and, for fans of the forerunning series, well worth checking out.” — Variety.

➢ Emily in Paris Netflix

“Emily in Paris, starring Lily Collins and by Darren Star, creator of Sex and the City and Younger, is a comedy-drama on a young woman from the Midwest who suffers a ‘culture clash’ when she moves for a job opportunity. The series is set to première on October 2, but the French are already chortling at the just-released trailer and what many see as the hilariously airbrushed and outdated view of Parisian life.” — The Telegraph.

➢ Vice Meets: Taika Waititi & Jemaine Clement Vice, 7.30

NZ broadcast premiere of a five-year-old interview with Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement about their movie, What We Do in the Shadows. Precedes the even wackier Treating Alien Abduction Victims with Hypnotherapy.

Saturday

➢ Southern Journey Sky Arts, 8.00

“In 1959, musicologist Alan Lomax began traveling across the American South to make field recordings of traditional songs — everything from blues to bluegrass — in order to capture the nation’s cultural history. Approximately 60 years later, British documentarians Rob Curry and Tim Plester retrace Lomax’s journey, resulting in a thoughtful, compassionate study of America that ends up being a little too diffuse and insubstantial to fully resonate.” — Screen Daily.