Free to air: Head First tackles online scam problem

TV editor Ian Cuthbertson selects Head First as his pick of the week on free-to-air television.

TV editor Ian Cuthbertson selects Head First as his Pick of the week on free-to-air television.

Wednesday, 9.30pm, ABC2

The brilliant debut episode of this new investigative series by Sabour Bradley might make you reconsider the obviousness of internet scams. Australians, especially lonely, elderly Australians, are being ripped off for millions each year by sophisticated overseas scammers. Bradley dives head first into their problems, getting to know the victims and, he says, the only policeman in Australia doing anything about it: Brisbane detective Brian Hay, who runs support groups for such people. I found myself intensely moved by the plight of, among others, 82-year-old Bill, a pensioner who came out as gay late in life and promptly lost everything he had -- more than $120,000 -- when he went online looking for love. Bradley and Hay travel to Ghana in an attempt to expose and apprehend scammers that almost goes horribly wrong.

Treasures of Ancient Rome

Sunday, 7.30pm, SBS One

Is there anything left to say about ancient Rome that hasn't already been hammered into our heads by hundreds of programs like this? Perhaps. In this three-part series, written and presented by the unfortunately named Alastair Sooke, we trace how the notoriously artless Romans of the Republic went from being art thieves and copycats to pioneering a style all their own. As Sooke paddles a kayak under an aqueduct in southern France, built more than 2000 years ago, he tells us the construction is an enduring testament to the power Romans had over the natural world, a marvel of engineering. While no one disputes the architectural brilliance of the period, Sooke says he is out to debunk the myth that the Romans didn't do art. "Over the centuries they transformed art and defined the way we view the ancient world," he says. Sooke's journey will take us from the heart of Rome to the furthest reaches of its Empire. In this debut episode, Warts 'n' all (yes, really) Sooke promises to reveal 10 works of art that chart the city's transition from a pugilistic republic to an empire. We'll discover how the Romans forged warts-and-all realism. So those Roman portrait statues reveal what the big names such as Julius Caesar and Cicero actually did look like. Gosh, all these years I thought they were vanity portraits, touched up with the ancient equivalent of Photoshop.

Colour Theory

Sunday, 8pm, NITV

If the warts on the faces of the denizens of ancient Rome leave you cold, this may be the warming medicine you need. Presenter Richard Bell's new program profiles indigenous artists. With typical understatement, humility and irony, Bell tells us he is an activist who masquerades as an artist. He says he is not sure why NITV asked him to do this series because he only got into art for the money -- and the pretty girls. Charmed and disarmed, we are suddenly hovering over beautiful Lake Eyre in South Australia. This is where we meet Bangarra Dance Company set designer Jake Nash. He is out there on a research and inspiration trip for a new Bangarra work called Terrain, taking photographs and trying to get into the spirit of the place. (The production is touring nationally from May until September.) Soon enough we are back in the company's offices in Sydney's Walsh Bay. Nash explains how the images and the spirit he has brought back from Lake Eyre inform his designs for the work. We also get to meet Bangarra composer David Page and witness the fascinating interplay between Nash's designs and Page's music. Then it's over to choreographer Frances Rings for her take on the way the production will incorporate these elements into the dance. A rare insight into the co-operation and creativity it takes to bring a dance work into the world. Beautiful, compelling television.

House Husbands

Monday, 8.40pm, Nine

How can anyone not love House Husbands? Sure, it's another of those shows -- like Packed to the Rafters -- that presumes to know what makes suburban Australians tick. The couples fall in and out of love, lose their jobs and try something different, renovate their houses and try to do the best they possibly can for their children. The difference is that House Husbands, now in its second season, is often very funny. The idea of the show -- to build a drama around men as primary caregivers for children -- is a strong one, as it turns on its head the notion that nobody does it better than women. Of course that notion is not buried -- the women in House Husbands all believe they would do it better if they possibly could. The relationships between the men also represent an interesting commentary on mateship. Certainly Gary Sweet's character, Lewis, is a mouthpiece for the Australian father and grandfather trying to come to terms with modern life and shifting gender roles. It is somehow perfect that House Husbands contains a gay couple -- Kane (Gyton Grantley) and Tom (Tim Campbell) . They are trying to raise Stella (Edwina Royce), who came to them when Tom's sister was killed. Kane is seamlessly integrated into the main group of mates while Tom is frequently lumped with the women, not because he is less manly but because he is the worker in the couple. That Kane and Tom can exist without resorting to the cliches of gay parenting we see in American fare such as Modern Family and The New Normal speaks volumes about how far we have come in this regard. In this episode Craig McLachlan turns up in a role he is accustomed to -- the ageing but still fresh-faced larrikin -- a reversion to the norm from his foray into being a distinguished middle-aged man in the ABC's Friday night thriller, The Doctor Blake Mysteries. His character is a childhood friend of Lewis's wife, Gemma (Julia Morris). Amusingly, Lewis seethes with sexual jealousy for a good part of this episode. The child actors are brilliant, even when unpleasant things are asked of them. Even the tiny tots seem to deliver on cue. You'd have to have a hard heart to dismiss House Husbands as just another bogan soap opera.

Borgen

Wednesday, 9.35pm, SBS One

All right, fans of Scandinavian dramas such as The Killing, The Bridge and even Real Humans, here is another gem for your collection. Borgen began last week, but you can easily pick up the action in this second episode. The parallels with our politics are striking. The lead character Birgitte Nyborg (Sidse Babett Knudsen) is a feisty politician who has the prime ministership of Denmark unexpectedly thrust upon her following a scandal. She has issues with foreign workers taking Danish jobs, there are nasty leaks around the parliament from her own party members, and she faces condescension and chauvinism from other party leaders. But as always with these Scandinavian dramas, I believe, it is the differences that come to you through dialogue in another language, the whiff of a different culture, and the rise of issues that are universally human, all delivered in a fresh new flavour, that account for the contemporary fascination with such television. I'm not suggesting for one moment that any of it is travel porn, or foreignness for its own sake. All the programs that have been successful enough to be shown in other countries are astonishingly well made and superbly acted. Most have American or British English-language versions on the way. But that is a risky business because it may well be the confronting European frankness about sex, crime and politics -- not necessarily in that order -- that draws us in. It is a quality always absent from the remakes. Despite the similarities with our own politics, Borgen is the kind of program that those disaffected by endless political commentary on competing ABC program Q & A will run to, like kids playing truant from school. Great viewing.

Shane Delia's Spice Journey

Thursday, 7.30pm, SBS One

If I were a halfway presentable looking chef operating my own ethnic restaurant somewhere in Australia, I think I'd be expecting a knock on the door from SBS at any minute. Shane Delia is just the latest in a long line of chefs with exotic backgrounds to be granted a show. This is not meant as a criticism -- it just seems to be a fact of life. Delia exudes vitality and speaks in a broad Aussie accent. He tells us Middle Eastern food is his passion. "As a Maltese Australian the food I grew up with was heavily influenced by Arabic spices and flavours," he says. "And so," he continues, as if the one idea leads inexorably to the other, "I'm embarking on a culinary pilgrimage to explore my heritage." Righto, then. First stop, Malta -- a place Delia calls "my island home", without reference to the great Christine Anu hit of the same name from 1995. After Malta, he is off to Lebanon, the birthplace of modern Middle Eastern cuisine. His philosophies? Life is too short to eat boring food; and never eat alone.

Good Cop

Friday, 9:30pm, ABC1

Good Cop is a gripping, four-part miniseries from the BBC. I guess it snuck in under the radar before the BBC's deal with Foxtel to take most of its programming here was inked. The central character is John Paul Rocksavage, a beat cop in Liverpool city centre, played by Warren Brown (Luther, Single Father). The life of a policeman is particularly tough in Liverpool. According to the program's notes, it can be adrenalin-fuelled and terrifying one minute, boring and freezing cold the next. Sounds a bit like journalism. As always with hard-bitten English policemen, who care so much about the job that the rest of their lives dwindles to nothing, there is an ex-girlfriend with a child who floats through to remind him (and us) of what his life might have been if he hadn't chosen this profession. She is particularly bitter and refuses even to let him walk with her from a desolate Liverpool beach to the car park. In this debut episode, the scene is set when Sav's partner Andy, who we are just getting to know, is so horribly beaten on a routine noise complaint call-out that you can believe Sav's life and career -- his entire philosophy of being -- is thrown into turmoil. When the perpetrators walk free, something fundamental in Sav snaps. Beautifully played, suspenseful, violent and occasionally terrifying, this is crime TV of the highest order.