What to watch this week: doco on league legend Bellamy; Running Point’s Ted Lasso vibes
It’s a festival of sport for the beginning of football season, with a quality documentary on the enigmatic Craig Bellamy and an underdog sports comedy billed as Ted Lasso meets Succession.
Entertainment
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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.
REVEALED: CRAIG BELLAMY – INSIDE THE STORM
SUNDAY, STAN
The most extraordinary thing about this feature-length documentary on revered coach Craig Bellamy is that he agreed to do it at all. But by allowing the cameras inside the inner sanctum of the Melbourne Storm – the rugby league team he has guided to three premierships (and had two more stripped) and taken to the finals in 21 of his 22 seasons in charge – the publicity shy and sometimes prickly veteran has shone a light not only on his own extraordinary career as a player and coach, but also on the impact it has left on the club and the game more broadly. Over the course of the 2024 season, in which they fell agonisingly short to the rampaging Panthers in an epic grand final, the documentary gleans nuggets of sporting and life wisdom from the man himself (“hard workers get lucky” is the credo passed down by his dad, who died when he was young), as well as Storm players past and present, coaching contemporaries including Tottenham’s Ange Postecoglou and Collingwood’s Craig McRae and the one thing that matters to Bellamy more than football – his family. Fascinating viewing for all lovers of sport.
THE FRONT BAR
WEDNESDAY, 8.30PM, CHANNEL 7
After hosting the Logies last year, a huge stand-up tour, his frequent appearances on Have You Been Paying Attention and his comedy show airing this month, this is clearly Sam Pang’s TV world and we’re all just living in it. The versatile Pang also returns to our screens to kick off the new AFL season with his partners in crime Mick Molloy and Andy Maher finding the funny side of the week in footy – and this week will have triple premiership player and Hall of Famer Simon Black in tow to weigh up whether his beloved Brisbane Lions can go back to back. And if that’s not enough footy for one night, the 90-minutes documentary Full Sweat – a behind-the-scenes look at Hawthorn’s pre-season training program – will air straight afterwards at 9.30pm.
AUSTRALIA: AN UNOFFICIAL HISTORY
WEDNESDAY, 7.30PM, SBS
Twice-Oscar-nominated acting legend and national treasure Jacki Weaver is the perfect host for this three-part documentary that digs deep into a forgotten film vault to bring to life a rapidly changing Australia in the 1970s. Government organisation Film Australia was set up to create an official portrait of the Lucky Country – and also sell our image overseas – mostly covering beige topics from beach and suburban life to farming in the last days of the White Australian policy. But as society started to change radically with the anti-Vietnam War movement and filmmakers such as future Hollywood director Phillip Noyce became bolder and more determined to find new voices and untold stories, the unit also began to document trailblazing work in gender equality, gay rights and indigenous issues.
DELI BOYS
THURSDAY, DISNEY+
The blood and laughs flow freely in this new 10-part black comedy about a couple of underachieving Pakistani-American brothers who are unwittingly thrown into the criminal underworld. Raj is the stoner older brother, more interested in partying with his hippie shaman, and younger brother Mir has been desperately trying to impress their father to get ahead in the family business, which he thinks is a deli empire about to branch out into prestige golf courses. But when patriarch Baba is killed in a surprisingly bloody golf accident, the boys realise it’s all a front for a massive drug empire and they must find a way to survive the sudden loss of their luxe lifestyle, not to mention the feuding relatives trying to take over and the FBI agents hellbent on taking them down.
AFL OPENING ROUND
FROM FRIDAY 6.30PM, FOX FOOTY, KAYO, CHANNEL 7
While Melbourne fans will have to wait another week to see footy in the flesh, the focus this weekend will be north of the Murray River for the opening of season 2025. After the AFL late yesterday postponed the two games scheduled for Queensland because of Cyclone Alfred, Sydney will now host the opening game of the year on Friday night. The Swans will be desperate to atone for their humiliation in last year’s grand final by making a statement against a young Hawthorn side that many are predicting will go deep into finals this year. Collingwood will close out the mini-round at 2.30pm on Sunday with a visit to western Sydney to take on the Giants. Game on!
DRIVE TO SURVIVE
FRIDAY, NETFLIX
As F1 fans are getting revved up for the new season to kick off in Melbourne comes Netflix’s annual recap of the previous season – and last year’s was a ripper from the get-go. After 2023 was absolutely dominated by Red Bull and the all-conquering Max Verstappen, 2024 began full of intrigue on and off the track. Not only was more than half the grid not signed up beyond the end of the season – meaning jockeying for 20 available slots on ten teams was going to be furious and “every race is going to be an audition” – but Red Bull boss Christian Horner (husband of former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell) was facing allegations of misconduct made by a female employee. As always, the behind-the-scenes access is extraordinary, capturing the action on the track, the machinations in the dressing rooms and board rooms and even whispered conversations between drivers.
ROCKET CLUB
MONDAY, 6.55 PM, ABC KIDS
It’s nice to know that kids still have treehouses in the year 2160, as especially when they are as cool as the one in the backyard of Callie and her little brother Chip, which also doubles as a command centre for her secret Rocket Club, complete with X-Men style launching pad under the lawn. This fun, bite-sized animated series is pure wish-fulfilment for the under-10s and is fun and fizzy without being too preachy. Callie and her pals zip about the cosmos in their trusty ship StarBird 1, which can take them anywhere in the galaxy and still have them back before their parents miss them, foiling grand plots by arch-nemesis Calvin, who little ones will know is a baddie by his manic cackle and how mean he is to his robot.
RUNNING POINT
NETFLIX
It’s not quite Ted Lasso, but there’s a lot to like about this underdog sporting comedy from comedians Mindy Kaling and Ike Barinholtz. Kate Hudson stars as re-formed and overlooked party girl Isla Gordon, who gets put in charge of the fictional basketball franchise the LA Waves when her older brother is sent to rehab for a spectacular and very public drug-fuelled crash. Initially overwhelmed by the top job – and threatened by her scheming other brothers – she soon realises that the encyclopaedic knowledge of the game learned from her late, legendary and old-school father and the fact that she is underestimated at every step might be what the once mighty but now struggling team needs to turn its fortunes around. It’s fun, frequently funny and disarmingly heartfelt when you least expect it.
HOME AND AWAY
MONDAY, 7PM, CHANNEL 7
Ever since Neighbours favourites Scott and Charlene moved to Brisbane more than 30 years ago, soap operas have been conveniently writing characters out by sending them to Queensland. The same fate befell Summer Bay’s Ziggy (Sophie Dillman) and Dean (Patrick O’Connor), who haven’t been seen on screens for nearly two years but return for a special run of episodes filmed in and around the Whitsundays and promising “two lives in jeopardy”. Dean’s sister Mackenzie (Emily Weir) makes a surprise visit to their beachside shack along with new flame Levi (Tristan Gorey) but given his cheating past, not everyone is glad to see him. Meanwhile, back in the Bay, the troubled Eliza is dealing with the repercussions of planting one on classmate Scott and has to choose whether to find another family or control her anger and stick with the youth program at the Surf Club.
MEMORY BITES WITH MATT MORAN
MONDAY, 7.30PM, SBS FOOD
Celebrity chef and former MasterChef judge Matt Moran introduces his charming new show by explaining that certain dishes can be like a time machine that catapult us straight back to people we love who may no longer be with us but still have the capacity to conjure up happiness and emotion. His first guest – future episodes will feature Ross Noble, Richard Roxburgh and Christine Anu – is actor Pia Miranda, who embraces her Italian heritage and memories of her beloved Nonna and how she expressed love and connection through food. Over delicious dishes including Sicilian Stuffed Artichokes, and the last meal her Nonna ever cooked for her, Pasta e Fagioli, Miranda opens up on her family’s immigrant experience, Italian influence on Australian cuisine, acting and her surprise win on Australian Survivor.
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