THE AFFAIR
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New series
★★★★
Tuesday, February 10, 7.30pm, Showcase
Taking a leaf from the True Detective playbook, this ambitious new drama from Showtime employs a he-said/she-said flashback structure to explore the genesis, progress, and outcome of an extramarital affair. At first, it looks like an ordinary sort of family saga. Then it becomes clear that husband Noah (Dominic West) is actually being quizzed about the events we're seeing. Then halfway through the ep we suddenly switch and get the same time period seen through the eyes of Alison (Ruth Wilson, Luther), the woman who will become Noah's mistress. Both the protagonists are married, so the affair belongs to both of them. Both are cheating on their spouses. Both have very different reasons for doing so and one of the pleasures of this opening instalment is the skilful use of the unreliable narrator (in this case, one suspects that's both of them) to simultaneously create intrigue, explore the notion of memory bias, and tease out their individual psychology. The script, from Sarah Treem (In Treatment, House of Cards) is a cracker and more than honoured by the super cast which includes Maura Tierney and Joshua Jackson alongside West and Wilson, and a wonderful group of junior actors. Wilson recently won a Golden Globe for her performance here, while the series took out the gong for best television series. It's certainly doing everything right so far.
THE WALKING DEAD
Series return
★★★★
Monday, February 9, 8.30pm, FX
The Walking Dead returns from its mid-season hiatus tonight with a near-perfect episode. The construction is a work of art, from the opening montage to the final credits. The action is exquisitely balanced, moving seamlessly from quiet reflection to bloody swordplay to sudden moments of real horror. Even more impressive, some of the most nail-biting sequences are those moments of quiet reflection. It's also a powerful summation of this series' themes which is, after all, less about the rise of the undead and much more about what it means to be truly human.
GOGGLEBOX
New series
★★★
Wednesday, February 11, 9.30pm, Lifestyle
It might just be because I know from personal experience the very odd way at least one person behaves while they're watching TV. But I'm really looking forward to this quirky new series being shared by Foxtel and Ten (this ep will screen on Ten the following night, 12 February). Various households across Australia have cameras installed on their televisions. They're recorded while they're watching telly. And the results are edited up for our entertainment and edification. Sounds weird, I know, but the UK version has been a huge hit there, and I reckon it's so crazy it just might work.
SHARK TANK
New series
★★★
Sunday, February 8, 8pm, Ten
This format is more familiar to local audiences under its UK name: Dragon's Den. And if you love that series, you'll love this. Five businesspeople with money to invest hear pitches from aspiring entrepreneurs and decide whether the ideas or products are worth their dollars. In some spots the editing in this first ep needs tightening up a bit, but otherwise it hits all the right notes: some great ideas, some hubris, a dash of public humiliation, and captivating television coming from the least expected quarter.
HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER
New series
★★★½
Tuesday, February 10, 9pm, Prime
It's a little difficult to know whether Shonda Rhimes deliberately made the protagonist in this new series unlikeable, or whether we're actually meant to admire and empathise with her, despite her faults. In the end, it doesn't really matter: Professor Annalise Keating (Viola Davis) is compelling, the turbo-charged engine at the centre of this clever, multi-layered legal drama. Indeed, forceful characters are one of Rhimes' strong suits and Murder is packed with them. She's an unlikely auteur, and certainly people don't speak about her with the same reverence as a David Simon or a Matthew Weiner, but Rhimes has both the distinctive voice and the thematic obsessions that have distinguish all the great TV producer/showrunners, from Steve Bochco and David E Kelley through to the current crop of HBO heroes. It's just that – in the era of HBO heroes – a network showrunner (and a woman, at that) is never going to get the same kind of love. But not only does she make cracking prime time television, her work is evolving and maturing in really interesting ways. Like her female protagonists. With rare exceptions, female leads in mainstream television have to be both moral and likeable, even if they're flawed. Rhimes is becoming increasingly gutsy in showing us just how manipulative, selfish and occasionally cruel a powerful women can be (or must be). After starting out as mostly smart and sassy, Scandal's Olivia Pope has become a woman who will break any rule to achieve her ends. In How To Get Away With Murder, Professor Keating is instantly established as utterly ruthless. It's confronting, but also kind of exhilarating. There is also, of course, plenty of in-your-face sex scenes, a touch of speechifying, and a murder that casts even the most likeable characters in a dubious light. It's shaping up as a helluva ride.
JUDITH LUCY IS ALL WOMAN
New series
★★★
Wednesday. February 11, 9pm, ABC
In her latest foray, very much in the style of Spiritual Journey, Judith Lucy sets out to investigate how women are travelling in the 21st century. As her pal Kaz Cooke explains, in the 1980s we ladies thought the feminist path was going to be all onward and upward but it's turned out to be a rather bumpier ride and this series looks at the good and bad of the journey. It's a typically irreverent, left-field adventure (this episode includes jelly wrestling, Lucy dressing as a man, and two female-to-male transgender chaps) but typically intelligent, too.
OUTBACKER
New series
★★★½
Wednesday, February 11, 8pm, ABC
This new observational documentary, filmed in and around Broken Hill, opens with a bang. It deals – as the title suggest – with the medical staff (hospital, ambulance, RFDS) who handle the medical emergencies in that corner of the world, and it's no easy task. The landscape is evocatively captured, both on film and in the words of the people who live there, but it's an environment as brutal as it is beautiful. And the same could be said of the work of the people we meet tonight.