A quirky remake of a Coen classic

TV editor Lyndall Crisp selects Fargo as her pick of the week on free-to-air television.

PICK OF THE WEEK

Fargo

Thursday, 8.30pm, SBS One

Fargo, a new 10-part series hot from the US, is a remake of Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1996 classic Oscar-winning movie of the same name. It even starts with the same (updated) message: “This is a true story. The events depicted took place in Minnesota in 2005. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed.” Not a word of that is true, but it sets the mood, which in parts is violent, weird and quirky.

This black comedy — the Coens are executive producers — has a terrific cast. Billy Bob Thornton (Sling Blade) plays the manipulative, evil Lome Malvo; Martin Freeman (The Hobbit, The Office) is hapless insurance salesman Lester Nygaard; and Colin Hanks (Mad Men, Dexter) is Deputy Gus Grimly. The story differs somewhat from the original film, but there are familiar bits. Here in The Crocodile’s Dilemma, the first of two back-to-back episodes, there’s a lot going on. A wandering deer causes Malvo to crash on a snow-covered country road outside Bemidji, Minnesota. Malvo suffers a head injury and goes to hospital where he meets Nygaard who copped a broken nose in a fight with a bully. Malvo kills him. Enter the police who investigate both the car crash and the murder. Nygaard kills his nag of a wife and Malvo kills one of the cops. Talk about gory. Then in The Rooster Prince, police deputy Molly Solverson (Allison Tolman) suspects Malvo is one bad dude but her boss disagrees.

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Gardening Australia

Saturday, 6.30pm, ABC1

As the leaves turn and fall in the southern states, it’s almost time for those of us with big gardens to shut the ride-on mower in the shed and plant those bulbs. (If only I’d remembered to keep the labels.) For you poor sods with only a small space, Josh Byrne visits Perth designer Janine Mendel, who knows a thing or two about courtyard gardens. Jane Edmanson drops in on a beautiful garden planted by Buddhist monks in Victoria.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

Saturday, 7pm, Seven (NSW, QLD and WA only)

Little wonder this 1982 science fiction film won a multitude of awards including four Oscars. The story of Elliott (Henry Thomas), a lonely young boy who befriends an alien, ET, is based on the imaginary friend director Steven Spielberg — then aged 14 — created for himself when his parents divorced in 1960. Elliott hides ET until he can work out a way to help him return home. Apart from videos and other merchandise, the film made more than $US790m worldwide — and if you don’t end up weeping, or at least tearful, when ET departs Earth, well, what can I say?

Death in Paradise

Saturday, 7.30pm, ABC1

Kris Marshall, who plays Detective Inspector Humphrey Goodman in this series, will remain forever in my memory for his hilarious role in the film Love Actually. So it’s just as well Goodman is not a serious, hard-bitten cop because it’s impossible to watch Marshall without smiling. Luther he ain’t. Goodman is a slightly ditzy detective seconded from London to work on the dreamy (but fictitious) island of Saint-Marie. Tonight Commerce Minister Jacob Doran (Simon Shepherd) is found shot dead but Goodman suspects it’s not suicide.

Life On Us

Sunday, 8.30pm, SBS One

Perhaps not one to watch during the Sunday roast. The first episode of this two-part documentary explores the trillion cells that, like it or not, are part of the human body. The little blighters are on our skin and hair and in our gut, blood and even our brain. Invisible to the eye, they can apparently determine our health, body shape, mood and even our behaviour. We just give them a free ride. Here the latest imaging technology explains how it all hangs together.

Top Gear

Monday, 8pm, Go!

In part one of Africa Special, Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson and James May set out to discover the source of the Nile. Is it Rwanda or Burundi? In part two at 7.30pm on Tuesday, the three boys race to be the first to reach what they claim is the source: a pond. After devious manoeuvres to delay the others, May wins. He poses for a photo when the others chug into view. The caption? “James May, Discoverer of the True Source of the Nile, and Two Other Blokes.”

Pilgrimage with Simon Reeve

Wednesday, 7.30pm, SBS One

In this wonderfully visual travelogue, lucky Simon Reeve passes through Istanbul on his way to the Holy Land. He retraces the steps of Victorian travellers who used the definitive guidebook published in 1876 by the deeply devout Christian, Thomas Cook. In Jerusalem, the final stop on his pilgrimage, Reeve visits the crypt in Bethlehem where Jesus is said to have been born and visits the Old City in Jerusalem — “a breath taker-awayer”, he says, gazing across at the Dome of the Rock — before dropping in on the police headquarters where 320 cameras monitor the holy sites. The three-part series began in Lindisfarne, England, and journeyed through the Alps, Santiago di Compostela and Rome to Turkey. Rich with history, interviews and anecdotes, sadly it ends here.

So You Think You Can Dance Australia

Thursday, 7.30pm, Ten

This display of musical gymnastics is exhausting to watch, especially for someone who once had to get help to untangle her foot from the bar during a jazz ballet lesson in, would you believe, Covent Garden. To get this far in the competition you have to be pretty good at not just the foxtrot. Here the judges have a tough job deciding who out of the four finalists in this 90-minute grand final will emerge as el supremo. This brings to an end the fourth season of this popular show. No confirmation yet of whether there’ll be a fifth.

Galapagos

Thursday, 8.30pm, Gem

The Galapagos Islands straddle the Equator in the Pacific Ocean, 926km west of the host country Ecuador. The chain of 121 volcanic islands was first visited by a Spanish bishop in 1535 and in recent years — much to the concern of environmentalists — they have become a popular, if expensive, tourist destination. This documentary explores the islands’ natural history, which inspired Darwin’s theory of evolution.

American Idol XIII

Friday, 8.30pm, Eleven

In back-to-back episodes of yet another talent contest, the number of hopefuls vying for the crown of American Idol goes from six to four. In this, the 13th season, viewers can vote via Google Search, with scores flashing up on screen as singers perform. Judges Keith Urban, Jennifer Lopez and Harry Connick Jr are a little more cerebral, using their own considerable talent to pick winners.

Jonathan Creek

Friday, 8.30pm, ABC 1

Alan Davies is always good value. As Jonathan Creek in this comedy drama series, he continues to solve mysterious crimes, but now he’s married to Polly (Sarah Alexander) and not to Maddie (Caroline Quentin), who was hot for him in the earlier series. In The Letters Of Septimus Noone, a West End musical star is found stabbed inside her locked dressing room. Creek is persuaded to investigate, but really his mind is on a personal problem. Saucy letters, ostensibly written to Polly’s late mother by a lover, surface and turn the Creeks’ world upside down.

As It Happened: What Destroyed the Hindenburg?

Friday, 9.35pm, SBS One

It cost $US42 million and took almost five years to build, but it took only 34 seconds to perish in a ball of flames in Lakehurst, New Jersey, on May 6, 1937. Made of 32,516sq km of painted linen, the Nazi-funded Hindenburg was, at the time, the biggest aircraft ever built. Its destruction, which claimed 36 lives, was the first air tragedy filmed live. There have been many theories as to the cause of the fire; was it a gas leak, sabotage or a thunderstorm? Here, scientists test old and new theories using three 24m scale models and conclude that … well, you’ll just have to watch.