Whiskey Not So Risky After All

TVNZ 2 has opted to proceed with this week’s launch of Whiskey Cavalier — despite pulling the originally scheduled double-episode premiere on Sunday because it was deemed inappropriate in the wake of the Christchurch mosque shootings.

The first episode will screen 8.30 tomorrow in what will be its weekly Wednesday slot.

Whiskey Cavalier is an odd-couple romp about an FBI agent and a CIA agent who lead a team of spies.

Variety dubbed it “a fun spy drama that refuses to take itself too seriously. Yes, it’s cheesy, but it’s hard to hold that against the show too much when it’s also half the point.”

And The Hollywood Reporter thought it a “fizzy throwback” to such ’80s duos as Moonlighting, Remington Steele, Hart to Hart and Scarecrow and Mrs. King: “a romantic action-dramedy in which a pair of pretty people bicker and flirt and fight international crime.”

The decision to premiere Whiskey Cavalier hopefully signals a return to programming commonsense, although TVNZ is still pulling movies willy-nilly: Saturday’s Elysium is being replaced by Blended, and Collateral Damage by The Prestige.

Sky again has gone overboard by pulling one of the best 9/11 dramatisations yet, The Looming Tower, from SoHo’s April schedule and season two of Hap and Leonard from this week’s SoHo schedule.

The latter will be replaced by Michelle Wolf: Nice Lady and the former by season four of Halt and Catch Fire.

Meanwhile, on tonight’s Late Show With Stephen Colbert (Prime, 11.45), the host will reveal he’s canned a surprise visit to film in NZ because of the shootings. “I just love that country,” he tells his audience:

If you’ve never been, go. The people there are unbelievably kind and welcoming. Obviously we’re not going to go down now but we hope to go down in the future and again, we want to say to everyone down there how sad and heartbroken we are for what that country is going through.

Guesting on this week’s shows will be:

• Tonight: Lupita Nyong’o, Vicky Ward and a musical performance by Karen O & Danger Mouse directed by Spike Jonze.
• Wednesday 11.30: Chris Hayes and Nico Parker.
• Thursday 11.30: Paul Giamatti, Senator Doug Jones and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
• Friday 11.30: Kit Harington, Amber Tamblyn and musical performance by Hozier (repeat).
• Monday 11.35: Gayle King, Pamela Adlon and a musical performance by Mumford & Sons (repeat).