Watchlist: Nicole Kidman gets the Yellowstone treatment in Special Ops: Lioness
The latest from the Yellowstone hit maker is an espionage thriller based on the real-life CIA Lioness Program — with Kidman as a CIA supervisor.
Special Ops: Lioness
Premieres with two episodes on Sunday, July 23, on Paramount+
Episodes will be released weekly
This is classic Taylor Sheridan — mournful, violent, compulsively watchable. The latest from the Yellowstone hitmaker is an espionage thriller based on the real-life CIA Lioness Program — an ad hoc unit where female Marines accompanied male infantry soldiers on raids and house searches of women in Iraq and Afghanistan, to respect local customs and cultural sensitivities while also gathering intelligence. Zoe Saldana plays Joe, the station chief commander and a mother of two, whose dedication to duty puts her personal life at risk. Saldana is bracing — you cannot take your eyes off her. The story unfolds after a mission in the field goes awry and an undercover operative’s cover is blown. Joe must find a new recruit and the young, bolshie marine Cruz (Laysla De Oliveira) steps in. Her mission is to befriend the daughter of a terrorist. It’s a job that unfolds not amid the rugged peaks of Afghanistan, as you may imagine, but in the gleaming aisles of a Kuwaiti Louis Vuitton store. Nicole Kidman, who acted as an executive producer on the show, stars as the austere senior CIA supervisor who oversees the program from Washington.
Save Me
Stan
What a treat it is to watch a show with dialogue so fresh and funny you find yourself genuinely cackling. How disconcerting that, of all things, it’s a drama about child abduction. An easy top-line for this series is: An unlikely hero descends into the sinister underworld of pedophile rings, looking for his daughter. Yes, there is a strong central mystery, but the most compelling part of this show is the south London council flat setting and the brilliant ensemble cast — Stephen Graham, Kerry Godliman and Susan Lynch — and the all-walks-of-life characters they represent. Lennie James, who wrote and stars in this series, is Nelly, a womaniser who loves a drink. He doesn’t have a fixed address and relies on bedhopping between four women to put a roof over his head. He has a long-estranged former partner, Claire (Suranne Jones), who now lives in a posh Lewisham mansion. When their daughter Jody, with whom Nelly has no relationship, disappears, their paths reconnect.
Jane B. for Agnes V
SBS on Demand
In the mid-eighties, visionary French New Wave director Agnes Varda collaborated with Jane Birkin, who died this week, on two films: the drama Kung Fu Master! and the extraordinary, dreamy documentary, Jane B. for Agnes V. The documentary, if you can call it that (Varda referred to it as “an imaginary biopic”), is not the tell-all, hagiographic pulp shilled out by streaming services every other week. Rather, it‘s a phantasmagoria of boundless imagination, playing with the idea of Birkin as an eternal muse, mother, amateur cook, daydreamer, and surprisingly, a taxidermy enthusiast. It flits between interviews and a variety of elaborate fantasy skits that vary wildly in tone and style. There’s a silly black-and-white silent comedy skit in which Birkin acts like Stan Laurel in an ode to Laurel and Hardy, and a heartbreaking vignette in which she takes on the role of Maria Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc.
Dopesick
Disney +
This is the opposite of feel-good TV. You won’t enjoy watching it and you’ll feel dreadful after it’s finished. But it’s one of those rare shows that plants a flag in your psyche and continues to appear in your thoughts for months to come. Dopesick attempts the unfathomable — condensing America’s opioid crisis into eight tight episodes. The show follows several key players across multiple timelines (the constant time-jumping gets nauseating at times): Richard Sackler (a convincingly putrid Michael Stuhlbarg), who led the development and sinister marketing of OxyContin at Purdue Pharma; a sweet doctor (Michael Keaton) who spirals from prescriber to pill addict; an ambitious but apprehensive drug representative (Will Poulter, whose cunning grin was poised for this role); two federal employees (Peter Sarsgaard and Rosario Dawson) tirelessly working to take down the Sackler Machine; and most heartbreakingly, a young coal miner (Kaitlyn Dever, in a star turn) who is a lesbian and afraid to come out to her religious parents, finding herself trapped in the hell of opioid abuse after injuring her back at work.
The Murder of Lyn Dawson
Sunday, July 23, 8pm on Channel 9 and 9Now
The murder of Lynette Dawson is revisited in Channel 9‘s documentary about love, betrayal, and the relentless pursuit of truth. In January 1982, Lynette disappeared from her home on Sydney’s northern beaches. Her husband Chris Dawson, a former professional rugby league player and high school teacher, claimed she needed time away. Those closest to her knew something was awry. The cold case lay unsolved for 40 years. It’s the kind of horror story that inspires true crime obsessions, which is precisely what it did. In 2018, journalist Hedley Thomas produced The Teacher’s Pet podcast, which topped the charts in Australia, the US and Canada, and helped to uncover new evidence. Thomas will feature in this documentary alongside Lyn’s daughter, Shanelle, who is grappling with the painful revelation that what she has been told her whole life is a farce. That her mother did not abandon her but loved her, and her father is a liar and a murderer.
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