Top shows to watch this week: gritty Guy Ritchie gangster drama; The White Lotus season finale
Tom Hardy packs a punch as a hardman fixer in Guy Ritchie’s MobLand; and The White Lotus whodunit will finally be revealed in the season finale.
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We’ve sifted through the latest offerings from TV and streaming platforms to find the best shows you should be watching this week.
MOBLAND
NEW EPISODES SUNDAYS, PARAMOUNT+
No one does barely restrained menace and coiled-spring anger better than Tom Hardy and he brings both in spades to his dangerous fixer Harry Da Souza in Guy Ritchie’s new crime drama. Husband and father Harry is the kind of resourceful tough nut you absolutely don’t want to show up at your door, especially when he’s solving problems for the Harrigan crime family, headed up Pierce Brosnan’s patriarch Conrad and his wife Maeve, the brains of the outfit. His job his complicated, though, when Conrad’s entitled idiot grandson Eddie gets into strife by stabbing a stranger in a nightclub and worse still, is seen fraternising with a member of rival crime family and sworn enemy, the Stevensons. Ritchie, who directs the first two episodes, brings his trademark love of villains, geezers and boozers to the gritty, grimy London underworld and there’s enough brawling, shooting, swearing and scheming to keep fans of the well-worn gangster genre well and truly happy.
THE HUNDRED WITH ANDY LEE
WEDNESDAY, 7.30PM, CHANNEL 9
The always affable Andy Lee is back in his element for another season of his comedy game show that provides the answers to questions you didn’t even know you wanted asked, courtesy of his panel in the studio and one hundred ordinary Aussies over Zoom. The questions, which range from secret families to digital mascots to how to correctly stack a dishwasher or eat a sandwich are mostly just setups for gags and silly clips and comedian Mike Goldstein, presenter Sophie Monk and Lee’s bestie Hamish Blake duly oblige, assisted by sometimes oversharing Zoom guests. One pressing poser about whether the best part of any given meal should be saved for last or dispersed equally raises the even bigger question of whether the beloved pub dish is a parma or a parmi. It’s a parma, obviously.
DYING FOR SEX
DISNEY+
Michelle Williams is absolutely magnificent as terminally ill woman in this jet-black and often confronting comedy, adapted from a hit podcast, that’s as often punch-in-the-gut affecting as it is laugh-out-loud funny. She plays Molly, who is delivered the news that the breast cancer she thought she’d beaten has spread to her bones while in couples therapy for a sexless marriage with her well-meaning but mostly useless husband Steve. Her first instinct is to run to her fiery best friend Nikki realising that she is the one to support her through all the things she wants to do with her life in whatever time is left to her. With the help of a therapist, Molly embarks on a voyage of sexual discovery as she explores love, connection, friendship, trauma and mortality.
ARE YOU AUTISTIC
WEDNESDAY, 6.05PM, SBS VICELAND
Although this UK documentary is seen through the lens of the local data and health system, stats also suggest that autism diagnoses are up in Australia too, which is mostly down to increased awareness of the condition that covers a huge spectrum and is not always easy to spot. London GP Claire Taylor speaks to a range of people who have been diagnosed, as well as health professionals, to discuss their experiences of living with autism and how societal attitudes and long-held preconceptions are changing. It’s fascinating to see how difficulties in social communication, repetitive movements and pattern behaviours, sensitivity to sound and light and a need for routines and order can be telltale signs, as well as the exhausting ways some of those living with the condition will go to mask it.
RESTORATION AUSTRALIA
THURSDAY, 8PM, ABC
The opening episode of the seventh season of the much-loved house restoration series goes to show just how fine the line can be between a renovator’s dream and a renovator’s nightmare. Melbourne barrister Justin and his market researcher partner Lisa took on a herculean task in buying a grand but dilapidated 13-bedroom mansion in the former Victorian Gold Rush town of Inglewood – designed by the same man behind some of Bendigo’s grandest buildings – with the noble intent of eventually restoring the architectural masterpiece to its former glory. They soon find that 150 years of sinking and cracking will require some major structural surgery on the outside and the delicate and ornate period fittings on the inside need and hard to find artisans as expensive issues arise that will test their resolve – as well as their bank balance.
MID CENTURY MODERN
DISNEY+
If you can get past the annoying and intrusive canned laughter and telegraphed gags, there are just about enough zingers and feels in this sometimes racy sit-com to appeal to fans of the Golden Girls and Will and Grace. Nathan Lane, Matt Bomer and Nathan Lee Graham play three gay men of a certain age, who reconnect at the funeral of the fourth member of their once-tight friendship circle. Flamboyant, rich romantic Bunny (Lane), takes the death as a reminder of the need for comfort and companionship and asks hot-but-dim flight attendant Jerry (Bomer) and acerbic New Yorker Arthur (Graham), who has lost his great love, to move into his mansion in Palm Springs, a place that is “so gay, even the trees are named Joshua”.
SYDNEY’S SUPER TUNNEL
THURSDAY, 8.30PM, SBS
The Sydney Metro Tunnel has been widely hailed as a success and this fascinating documentary literally digs deep into the staggering logistics and mind-blowing engineering feats that commuters are probably already taking for granted. It takes viewers underground with the monster tunnel boring machines – with delightfully understated names like Wendy, Nancy and Mum Shirl – as they seek to drill nearly a kilometre beneath Sydney Harbour, as well as threading the needle between existing railway lines carrying hundreds of thousands of people a day and a heritage listed sewer in the middle of the CBD. Not only are there unforeseen complications of discovering historical artefacts below ground in working class Waterloo, there’s also the nerve-shredding deadline of closing down the country’s busiest station for a strict 48 hour window.
NCIS SYDNEY
FRIDAY, PARAMOUNT+
The intrepid agents of NCIS have left the Harbour City behind for the last two episodes of the second season (another season as already been announced) and are embracing the mango madness and sweltering climes of Darwin. The NT capital looks stunning too, even if the producers have embraced every cliche in the book, from stalking crocs to the Mendil markets and even the million-dollar barramundi, as a joint training exercise between US Marines and the Australian Army goes terribly wrong. When a Marine is killed by live grenade – and with the commemoration of the 1942 bombing of Darwin looming – Mackey, JD and the gang’s hunt for the culprit embroils them in a complicated stolen weapons racket that could have dire consequences for the VIPs about to descend on the city.
SUPER NETBALL
FROM 5PM SATURDAY, BINGE, FOXTEL, KAYO
There could hardly be a more tantalising way to kick off the new season of netball than with a grand final rematch and the Melbourne Vixens will be looking to atone for their two-point loss to the Adelaide Thunderbirds in last year’s hard-fought, nailbiting decider. Then stick around at 7pm when the Melbourne Mavericks take on the Sunshine Coast Lightning. With a mix of current and former players and expert commentators driving the coverage, the netball can be streamed on Binge for the first time this season, and all Sunday matches will live on Kayo Freebies, starting with his weekend’s Giants V Firebirds and Fever v Swifts games.
THE WHITE LOTUS
MONDAY, MAX, BINGE, FOXTEL
It’s been another outstanding season of rich people behaving badly from creator Mike White and his immaculately chosen cast – and it’s wide open as to just who is going to come to a sticky end in next week’s final episode and how they turned their toes up. As always, there’s no shortage of potential corpses and people with reasons to kill from Walton Goggins’ perennially angry Rick – last seen on the run from a shady Bangkok businessman – to Jason Isaacs’ pill-popping patriarch Timothy, who has spent the whole season teetering on the edge of a financial abyss and murderous visions. Will Natasha Rothwell’s Belinda pay the ultimate price for recognising the odious LBH Gary (Jon Gries)? Or will the mild-mannered security guard Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong) find his inner beast and unleash his firearm skills? So many questions … season four in Australia please!
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Originally published as Top shows to watch this week: gritty Guy Ritchie gangster drama; The White Lotus season finale
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