What you should be watching on streaming platforms and TV this week
From an action-packed Star Wars spin-off to a documentary on Australia’s Nicole Kidman, these are the shows worth watching this week.
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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.
THE ACOLYTE
DISNEY+
After a dozen or so films and even more TV spin-offs, both animated and live action, you might be forgiven for thinking that the mighty Star Wars franchise might be getting close to tapped out after nearly half a century. But The Acolyte shows that there are still some corners of that galaxy far, far away that remain unexplored. Wisely, creator Leslye Headland has chosen to set the action in a relatively unused time frame, the last days of the High Republic, and years before George Lucas’ divisive prequel series. She’s also introduced elements of the police procedural – think detectives with light sabres – as former apprentice Jedi Mae (Amandla Stenberg) reunites with her old master Sol (Squid Games’ Lee Jung-jae in his first English language role) to solve the apparently revenge-driven murders of several of their order. It doesn’t hit the heights of the excellent Andor, but there’s some top-notch action – including a cracking opening scene with Carrie-Anne Moss – and more than enough to keep Force-starved fans happy.
NICOLE KIDMAN: EYES WIDE OPEN
WEDNESDAY, 8.30PM, SBS
It’s fascinating to see one of our national treasures through a lens that doesn’t factor in either Australian parochialism or tall-poppy syndrome and rather focuses on her extraordinary career. It traces the Oscar-winning actor’s journey all the way back to the smiling, flame-headed teen of BMX Bandits, through her Hollywood breakthroughs in Dead Calm and Days of Thunder and how her high-profile marriage to Tom Cruise threatened to eclipse not just her career, but her personality as well. But the French and English speaking talking heads – critics, directors and pop culture commentators – are more interested in her bold, and not always successful, art-house choices and emergence as a producing force, particularly for women, which have made her one of our most respected and loved exports.
ORLANDO BLOOM: TO THE EDGE
WEDNESDAY, 9.30PM, 7BRAVO
To say that Orlando Bloom is an adrenaline junkie is bit like saying BASE jumping is a little bit dangerous. Even before he became a global star thanks to the Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean movies, he’d been hospitalised and broken bones (including his back) following his mantra of overcoming his fears before they consume him and never feeling as alive as when close to death. He takes that a step further – much to the chagrin of wife Katy Perry, who pops up from time to time to express relief at his still being alive – with this three part doco in which he attempts to learn three extreme sports, wingsuiting, free-diving and rock climbing in record time from the best in the business. Crazy brave or just crazy? You be the judge.
SOCCEROOS V BANGLADESH
THURSDAY, 8PM, PARAMOUNT+
With the frenzy that has greeted the Matildas this week for their mighty tussles with China in preparation for the Olympics, it might be a case of Soccer-whos? to some, but there’s plenty at stake for the men’s national football team too. The quest to qualify for our sixth consecutive World Cup, held in Canada, the US and Mexico in 2026 – continues apace, and the Socceroos will be looking to consolidate their place on top of group 1 and move to the third phase of qualification. On paper, this week’s match against Bangladesh and next week’s against Palestine should be formalities, with the visiting Aussies ranked 27 as opposed to 184th and 93rd respectively, but playing away from home is always a danger.
THE HOSPITAL: IN THE DEEP END
THURSDAY, 8.40PM, SBS
The three hosts of this sobering three-part documentary all had personal reasons for agreeing to work at Sydney’s St Vincent’s Hospital for a week to shine a light on a public health system under severe strain. Former MasterChef judge Melissa Leong wanted to see what life was like for her mother, who did shift work in ER for years. Actor Samuel Johnson has a history of mental health issues, substance abuse and stint in hospital after a car accident. And Gardening Australia’s Costa Georgiadis had recent contact with the health system with his late father. All three are candid, frank – but not judgmental – and left in awe at the hardworking and dedicated professionals they find in a system that seems to be on life support itself.
ICONS UNEARTHED: THE LORD OF THE RINGS
SATURDAY, 8.30PM, SBS VICELAND
It might seem a bit excessive to have a six-part documentary devoted to the making of a movie, but The Lord of the Rings was not just any movie. For starters, there were three of them – all filmed concurrently in what was an unprecedented gamble – and the story of how they got from page to screen is nearly as extraordinary as Frodo’s journey from The Shire to Mordor. Narrated by Graham McTavish (aka Dwalin from the Hobbit films), it digs deep into the past of author JRR Tolkien and the complicated battle for the film rights, near misses (like the one with the Beatles that would have had John Lennon as Gollum and Paul McCartney as Frodo), and the Hollywood wheeling and dealing with the likes of Harvey Weinstein before Kiwi director Peter Jackson got the green light to start filming in his homeland. And that was just the beginning …
FANTASMAS
SATURDAY, BINGE
Ever wondered what Boardwalk Empire Steve Buscemi would look like as the letter Q? Or how The Batman star Paul Dano would conduct himself in a very strange relationship with an ALF-like puppet? I hadn’t either, but this weird, absurdist comedy created by and starring former Saturday Night Live writer and Los Espookys funnyman Julio Torres has the answers. Torres – playing a version of himself who sees the world in a very particular way – wanders around dreamy alternative version of New York in search of a lost golden earring, but it’s really just a mechanism to link various off-kilter vignettes from a roll call of guest stars. An acquired taste, for those who like their comedy waaaaaay out there.
SPICKS AND SPECKS
SUNDAY, 7.30PM, ABC
It’s always a joy to welcome Adam, Myf and Alan back on to our screens, with an 11th season of the music trivia show that keeps on giving. All your favourite segments are back – Substitute, Know Your Product, Look What They’ve Done To My Song, Ma, The Final Countdown – but as always, it’s the banging banter between the host, team captains and their guests that make it worth watching. On Myf’s team this week are a zinger-throwing Anthony Callea and Total Control actor Steph Tisdall. And in Alan’s corner are Yve Blake, creator of the West End bound musical Fan Girls, and Tommy Little, who as a singer makes an excellent broadcaster and comedian. Fingers on buzzers!
AUSTIN
SUNDAY, 8PM, ABC
Michael Theo was an absolute revelation in two seasons of Love On the Spectrum, and the charm, heart and humour he showed on that ABC series about young adults on the autism spectrum negotiating dating, love and relationships, translates beautifully to this sweet-natured eight-part comedy. Theo plays the title character, a straight-talking, open-hearted forklift driver from Canberra who has an Autistic Spectrum Condition. When Austin discovers his father Julian is a successful British children’s book author who years before had a fling with the single mother who raised him, he confronts him while on a book tour down under. Having been recently cancelled after retweeting a white supremacist, the self-centred, calculating Julian thinks his son’s story might be the key to his redemption.
HITLER AND THE NAZIS: EVIL ON TRIAL
NETFLIX
It’s a universal truth that at any given time there will be documentary on WWII and the Nazis on some streaming service. And that’s not a bad thing, given the uniquely shocking importance of one of the low points in human history as well as the ever-present threat of the extreme-right and anti-Semitism re-emerging. This six-part docuseries, directed by Oscar-nominee Joe Berlinger (The Ted Bundy Tapes, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster), is better than most, thanks in no small part to using eyewitness William L. Shirer as its lens, along with archival footage, recreations and talking heads. As one of the few American journalists in Germany at the time, and a prolific reporter and diarist, Shirer had a front-row seat to the rise of Hitler, the course of the war and the Nuremberg trials that followed.
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