What to watch this week: The Day of the Jackal hits the mark, plus awesome Oils doco
The Day of the Jackal is an action-thriller from the top drawer, and the space shuttle and Midnight Oil documentaries are also well worth your time 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 DAY OF THE JACKAL
BINGE, THURSDAY
Frederick Forsyth’s 1971 spy thriller has been twice adapted for the big screen, but never with quite the panache and depth that this 10-part serious offers. Updated for the hi-tech world of 2024, and all its associated surveillance gadgets and weaponry, it also looks terrific as it tears around Europe in a high-stakes, high-octane game of cat and mouse. Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne is a revelation as the titular Jackal, a very expensive assassin who can kill from long range and has a mastery of disguise, unassuming appearance and forensic attention to details that enable him to vanish without a trace before the body is even cold. Lashana Lynch (Captain Marvel, No Time to Die) is equally compelling as MI:6 weapons expert Bianca, whose brilliance and tenacity in the globetrotting hunt for the Jackal, rubs some up the wrong way, even as she juggles hunting terrorists with parent-teacher night. The action sequences and set pieces are impeccably staged but the longer format also opens up the opportunity to explore the personal cost and sacrifices that the two foes endure in their chosen professions.
THE JURY: DEATH ON THE STAIRCASE
WEDNESDAY, 8.30PM, SBS
Anyone with a passing interesting in our judicial processes or true crime will find much to like in this new documentary, which aims to address the fact that only 30 per of Australians have faith in our legal system by showing how it ticks. Using a real manslaughter case, with actors recreating the key courtroom players by reading the transcript line for line, it assembles 12 every day Australians who will act as the jury to see if they arrive at the same verdict. As judges and legal experts weigh in from the sidelines, it’s fascinating to see how the jurors from all walks of life – from a former prison officer to a sexologist – bring their own assumptions and prejudices into their deliberations and how the evidence, witnesses and fellow jurors can change their minds and challenge their preconceptions.
WIZARDS BEYOND WAVERLY PLACE
DISNEY+
Teen sitcom Wizards of Waverley Place always walked the line between Harry Potter homage and knock-off but made for a fun teen fantasy sit-com – and star vehicle for Selena Gomez – for the four seasons it ran between 2007 and 2012. That same sparkle (if you can ignore the very grating canned laughter and somewhat cheesy effects) infuses this belated sequel, which centres around the now grown up Justin Russo, the brother of Gomez’s character Alex, and his family, none of whom know he is secretly a wizard. Smartly, the wisecracking, deadpan Gomez returns for the opening episode to coax her brother out of his wand-waving retirement so he can teach a promising but troublesome new student, unleashing all manner of magical mayhem.
BELOW DECK
WEDNESDAY, 8.30PM, 7BRAVO
As this 11th season sets sail, by now you’re probably either all-in or all out this luxury nautical reality TV show that has spawned countless spin-offs around the world, including Australia. But there’s something oddly compelling about going behind the scenes in the lives of the obscenely wealthy through the eyes of the invariably hot and handsome crew of the motor yacht St David. Led by no-nonsense Aussie Captain Kerry – “if you work hard you will be rewarded, if you f--- around you are off the boat” – it’s a veritable United Nations of crew members including French chef Anthony, loose unit Kyle from the Scottish highlands, and stewards American rich-girl Barbie (yes, really) and sexually fluid Sunny. The sparkling seas around Grenada make for the best kind of travel porn, and everyone on board is single so you know that things are going to get steamy.
MY OLD ASS
THURSDAY, PRIME VIDEO
If the name and the goofy premise of this movie in which a teenage girl meets her older self don’t immediately appeal, stick with it and be rewarded with a coming-of-age comedy drama for mid to later teens that has humour and heart. Canadian singer and actor Maisy Stella stars as 18-year-old Elliot, who can’t wait to leave her farming roots and simple-pleasures family for the lights and adventure of the big city and ingests magic mushrooms in one last blowout with her two best friends. While in her altered state of consciousness, she comes to face-to-face with her jaded, guarded 39-year-old self (the always excellent Aubrey Plaza), who has some words of warning about her future. As the two communicate, the younger Elliot begins to reconsider the people and places she’s taken for granted and how sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone.
JUNIOR TASKMASTER
SATURDAY, BINGE
Kiwi actor-comedian Taskmaster Rose Matafeo and her assistant/punching bag, British funnyman Mike Wozniak, put paid to the old adage of not working with animals or children in this very family friendly spin-off of the much loved improvisatory game show. While the five contestants are aged between 9-11 – and the top two each week proceed to a semi-final – it’s otherwise pretty similar to the adult version but it’s a lot of fun to watch how their young brains arrive at very different approaches to the ridiculous tasks through some wacky lateral thinking. The youngsters themselves are predictably but never unpleasantly precocious and often hilarious, intentionally or otherwise, as they dish it out to their judges and each other.
PACIFIC CHAMPIONSHIP FINALS
SUNDAY, FROM 11.25AM, FOX LEAGUE, KAYO, CHANNEL 9
After the mayhem and the extraordinary finish of last weekend’s semi-final, one-time rugby league minnow Tonga gets its first shot at some serious silverware in the final of the Pacific Championship, which kicks off at CommBank Stadium in Sydney at 4.05pm. But to do it, they will have to overcome the might of Australia, who will be looking to atone for the loss to New Zealand in last year’s event. But the women will keep the trans-Tasman rivalry alive in the earlier game starting at 1.50pm when Australia and New Zealand will face off to become the event’s first champion. There’s also the 3rd and 4th playoff games in the men’s and women’s with Papua New Guinea v New Zealand and PNG v Samoa respectively in a what’s shaping up as a ripper day of rugby league.
THE SPACE SHUTTLE THAT FELL TO EARTH
MONDAY, 8.30PM, ABC
In 2003, the space shuttle Columbia broke apart in the sky above America on its 28th mission, killing all seven astronauts on board and badly denting the public’s faith in NASA, one of the country’s most popular government agencies. But this excellent, thorough, three-part documentary explores whether it had to happen and whether the warning signs were ignored. By talking to NASA employees, viewing interview and behind-the-scenes footage and talking to the relatives of those who perished (particularly heartbreaking is the son who begged his mother not to go into space), this week’s first episode traces the history of the ambitious trailblazing space shuttle program, the rigorous training regimen that helped bond the astronauts, right up to the launch, where the seeds of the future disaster were sown.
THE HARDEST LINE: MIDNIGHT OIL
TUESDAY, 8.30PM, ABC
After a cinema release earlier in the year, this outstanding documentary on one of this country’s greatest and most enduring bands arrives on the small screen as part of Ausmusic month. It traces their extraordinary journey from the sweaty beer barns of Sydney’s northern beaches, through their initial struggles to get airplay and record company support, and the eye-opening tour of remote indigenous communities that set the groundwork for the huge international success of Diesel and Dust – all without compromising their musical and political ideals. Through interviews with the band members and archival footage there are also revelations about some of their greatest gigs and biggest moments as activists, including their surprise Sorry statement at the Sydney Olympic Games.
DEADPOOL AND WOLVERINE
TUESDAY, DISNEY+
As soon as he saw his great mate Ryan Reynolds’ first Deadpool movie, Aussie Hugh Jackman knew he’d hung up his Wolverine claws too early in 2017’s Logan. Thankfully, after years of saying no, Jackman changed his mind and was rewarded with what he calls the most fun he’s ever had making a movie. The real-life bromance between the two A-list actors – as well as their mutual pal Shawn Levy – jumps out of every frame of this hugely entertaining, extremely sweary and even more gory third Deadpool movie, which has Reynold’s motormouthed assassin travelling the multiverse in search of a version of Wolverine who can save his world. And while it technically also serves as the characters’ entry into the massive Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s more a love letter and swan song to the 20th Century Fox X-Men movies, and is bursting with meta references and some very satisfying cameos.
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