Shows you don’t want to miss this week: Doco brings the pain, plus a gem from Yellowstone creator
Osher Günsberg’s probing documentary will have you rethinking everything you know about pain, and the excellent Landman gives the Texas oilfields the Yellowstone treatment.
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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.
OSHER GUNSBERG: A WORLD OF PAIN
THURSDAY, 8.30PM, SBS
Former Bachelor and The Masked Singer host Osher Günsberg knows a thing or two about pain, having lived with debilitating osteoarthritis for years. And from his hard-partying days on Channel V and Australian Idol and an addictive personality, he’s also had more than his fair share of chemical substances to know that medication is not always the answer. For that reason, he’s set out to find other solutions for the one in five Australians – more than 3.5 million people – who experience chronic pain that lasts three months or more. In addition to putting his body on the line, Günsberg talks to everyday Aussies living with conditions such endometriosis and amputations as well, as medical experts, to spotlight new treatments, and investigate how our brains process pain and whether they might be rewired to make it more bearable. He also talks to a cabaret performer who actually enjoys the heightened sensations brought on by flames and a bed of nails, as well as former NBA great Luc Longley, who viewed the punishment he put his ankles through as the price to pay for playing basketball at the highest level.
ARIA AWARDS
WEDNESDAY, 5PM, STAN; 8.30PM, CHANNEL 9
It’s one hell of a line-up for Australian music’s big night, which can be streamed live from Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion from 5pm on Stan or viewed as a greatest hits package from 8.30pm. Indie rock duo Royal Otis will be leading the charge with eight nominations, followed by electronica artist Dom Dolla, with seven. While international demand means that both will have to cross in from across the globe, there will be live performances from the likes of The Kid Laroi, CYRIL, 3%, Jessica Mauboy, Amy Shark, Julia Hamilton from The Presets, Troy Cassar-Daley and Angie McMahon, as well as international superstar Ava Max. And to close the show, newly minted Hall of Fame Inductee Missy Higgins will continue her stellar year with a medley of her hits.
HOME AND AWAY
7PM, WEDNESDAY, CHANNEL 7
In what has become an Australian tradition as sure as cricket on the telly and Christmas shop windows, the Home and Away season finale is upon us again. And regular fans of the long-running soapie know that’s never a good thing for the residents of Summer Bay. Details are of course closely under wraps but it’s promising “a life-altering decision and a night that will see one of Summer Bay’s favourites left with blood on their hands”. In tonight’s feature length final episode, the Lyrik gang are heading out of town to a luxurious private estate for a band rehearsal getaway, with Justin, Bree and Eden’s new boyfriend Tim in tow. Drama arises when cop Cash turns up uninvited with a warning for Eden, but whether it’s warranted or dangerously misguided remains to be seen.
CROSS
PRIME VIDEO
James Patterson’s best-selling thrillers have been adapted for the screen before, but Aldis Hodge brings an edge to the titular detective Alex Cross that sets him aside from the portrayals by Morgan Freeman and Tyler Perry. Not only do audiences see the forensic psychologist for the Washington police department with a knack for getting inside the heads of criminals on the hunt for a serial killer, but there’s also a deeper look into a man still traumatised by the death of his wife and trying to solo parent their two children. And when he’s reluctantly dragged into a murder case involving a black activist found dead in his car that threatens to become highly political, he also has to question his own involvement in the law enforcement community in the era of the Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police movements.
FIRST TEST: AUSTRALIA V INDIA
FRIDAY, 12.30PM, CHANNEL 7, FOX CRICKET, KAYO
It’s been more than 30 years since India last played a five-match series in Australia for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and the stakes cricketing stakes could hardly be higher than the teams ranked 1 and 2 in the world and potentially a spot in next year’s ICC World Test Championship up for grabs. The visitors are coming off one of the biggest upsets in the sport’s history, when New Zealand clean swept them 3-0 at home, but former Aussie fast bowler turned Fox Cricket commentator Brett Lee says they are much better team than that and, inspired by paceman Jasprit Bumrah, will be out for revenge. Australia will be fielding a new line-up after the retirement of veteran opening batsman David Warner, but Lee says the Australian attack is truly world class. “The three big quicks are still dominating and Nathan Lyon is the GOAT, so it’s going to be challenging and exciting at the same time” he says.
INTERIOR CHINATOWN
DISNEY+
Based on Charles Yu’s bestseller of the same name, this extremely meta action comedy takes a little while to hit its stride but it’s well worth sticking with. Jimmy O. Yang (Silicon Valley) plays Willis Wu, a lowly waiter in his uncle’s Chinatown restaurant who realises he’s just a background character in a cheesy police procedural show and is desperate to become part of the action. When he witnesses a kidnapping he finally gets a chance to step up to help the detective who may also be the woman of his dreams. What follows is an often hilarious satire of the very well-worn police procedural cliches such as interior monologues, hero lighting, product placement and gratuitous nightclub scenes, that celebrates them as much as it takes the mickey. Honorary Aussie Ronnie Chieng is also in top form as Willis’s weed and gaming loving best mate, Fatty.
BLITZ
FRIDAY, APPLE TV
Further enhancing her reputation as one of the best actors of her generation, Saoirse Ronan is fantastic in Steve McQueen’s meticulously recreated WWII drama. Set during the Blitz – when Nazi Germany tried to bomb London into submission by dropping a terrifying amount of ordnance – Ronan plays a single mother who, like countless others, sends her child away to the relative safety of the countryside. He hates her for it and jumps off a moving train, resolving to return home. As he negotiates unfamiliar streets – and she searches for him – the pair encounter the best and worst of humanity in a community living in terror and stoicism under the most trying circumstances imaginable. And yes, that’s Paul Weller from The Jam as Ronan’s character’s dad.
LANDMAN
PARAMOUNT+, NEW EPISODES SUNDAYS
From the moment you see Billy Bob Thornton’s wily, oil-industry fix it man Tommy Norris tied to a chair with a sack over his head surrounded by heavily armed Mexican gangsters, Taylor Sheridan’s (Yellowstone, Tulsa King) latest drama will get its hooks into you. The Oscar-winning veteran’s blend of guile and menace is spot-on for the frazzled employee of a West Texas oil firm whose job description involves securing the leases and managing the people who drive a business that makes trillions of dollars a year. When he’s not conducting high-stakes negotiations with money men or wrangling missing planes, drug dealers and law enforcement agents, he’s trying to make sure his rookie son doesn’t get killed in his dangerous blue-collar job on the oilfields and trying to parent his 17-year-old daughter.
THE MIGHTY MISSISSIPPI WITH NICK KNOWLES
MONDAY, 7.35PM, SBS
At more than 3500km and winding through ten states, the Mighty Miss is one of the world’s great rivers and also makes for an epic road trip, as UK presenter Nick Knowles – contender for the world’s best job – discovers in this engaging travel documentary. Beginning in Minneapolis, where he takes time out to visit a groundbreaking restaurant that uses only Native American food and ingredients, he travels from north to south bound for the Gulf of Mexico. On the way he encounters some born-to-be-mild legal bikies, finds an endangered an ancient fish from the dinosaur era, gets a lesson in the home of water skiing, explores the birthplace of Mark Twain and uncovers some of the river’s dark past when it was integral to the slave trade.
THE PASTA QUEEN
PRIME VIDEO
Celebrity chef, influencer and descendant of an Italian pasta dynasty Caterina Munno – who comes across as an over-the-top fusion of Monica Bellucci and Fran Drescher – is wonderful company in one of the most fun shows for foodies in ages. Her mantra in cooking as in life is “haste makes waste” and encourages viewers to take their time in the kitchen to savour the joys of food. She switches between her Florida mansion and her homeland to joyously, even sensuously, bring to life such as Peperonata Crostini and Assassin’s Spaghetti, with easy to follow screen recipes and fun fact boxes on Italian history and culture. Bellissimo!
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Originally published as Shows you don’t want to miss this week: Doco brings the pain, plus a gem from Yellowstone creator
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