Shows you don’t want to miss this week: a must-see Springsteen doco and the long-awaited return of Matlock
It’s a bumper week for music documentaries with The Boss and two of Australia’s finest, plus get the verdict on Oscar-winner Kathy Bates’ Matlock reboot.
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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.
ROAD DIARY: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE E STREET BAND
DISNEY+
It’s been seven years and three albums since The Boss last visited these shores, and while fans have high hopes that he’ll be back next year, there’s nothing in the calendar yet. In the meantime, there’s this magnificent documentary, written and produced by Springsteen, which goes behind the scenes of his 2023 world tour, as well as digging deep into an extraordinary career that has now spanned more than half a century. Thanks to interviews with the man himself, as well as longtime collaborators such as guitarist Steve Van Zandt, drummer Max Weinberg and wife Patti Scialfa it traces his celebrated journey from introverted teenager to up-and-coming road warrior who played just about any venue that would have him on the way to becoming one of the most celebrated entertainers on the planet. Equally fascinating is seeing his process of whipping the crack E Street Band into tour-ready shape and why this current tour is more structured and less freewheeling than usual, as Springsteen carefully crafts a set list that tells the story of a man who knows he’s a lot closer to the end than the beginning. A must for Boss fans.
LAWRENCE MOONEY: EMBRACING YOUR LIMITATIONS
WEDNESDAY, 8.30PM, CHANNEL 7
It’s fair to say that stand-up comedian and sometime radio host Lawrence Mooney is an equal opportunity offender, and just about everyone gets a spray in this shamelessly politically incorrect stand-up set from last year, which was also spun off into a book. Front and centre is the self-help industry that the veteran funny man clearly has the greatest disrespect for, preferring a mantra that says we can only be truly happy by embracing our inner loser. With his butcher’s paper slogans such as Kill Your Dreams, Everyone Needs To Relax and It’s Easy To Be Angry, he takes the big stick to cults, mental health, pronouns, Peter Dutton (repeatedly) and his own football shortcomings in a very funny and definitely adults-only set.
GOING PLACES WITH ERNIE DINGO
THURSDAY, 7.30PM, SBS, NITV
Veteran actor and presenter Ernie Dingo is back with another season of the travel show that likes to take the long way round, knowing that the journey is at least as important as the destination. Rather than focusing on fancy hotels and tourist landmarks, Dingo and his co-presenters tease out the stories behind the locations. First up, Dingo heads to Ningaloo Reef to snorkel with the world’s biggest fish, the whale shark, thanks to a former electrician and radiographer now living their best lives as dive operators out of Exmouth. Rae Johnson visits tiny Picola on the art silo trail in Victoria to learn the basics of bush dancing and folk music. And Mark Coles Smith gets schooled in two-up by an old-timer local in Kalgoorlie, where the Anzac Day tradition is legal all year round.
RONALDINHO’S XI VS CAHILL’S XI
FRIDAY, 7.30PM, CHANNEL 10
One of Australia’s greatest footballers, Tim Cahill, drags on the boots on home soil for the first time in five years to lead an all-star line-up of Australian and A-League players, including Archie Thompson, Luke Wilshire, Aaron Mooy, Brett Emerton, Amy Chapman and Heather Garriock at CommBank Stadium in Sydney. Their opponents will be led by Brazilian great Ronaldinho, with other international names including Spurs and Milan veteran Kevin-Prince Boateng and Kiwi Shane Smelz. What does it all mean? Absolutely nothing, but the players will miked up and playing to the crowd so expect plenty of banter and fancy footwork.
BEFORE
APPLE TV+, NEW EPISODES FRIDAYS
Comedian Billy Crystal’s underrated dramatic talents are in full effect in this new psychological thriller that’s also one of the freakiest, most disorientating shows of the year. He plays psychiatrist Eli, who is already grieving the death of his wife, when he’s presented with a troubled young boy, Noah (an utterly mesmerising Jacobi Jupe), who also seems to be wrestling with a deep-set trauma that is connecting the two in some way. There are echoes of the Sixth Sense early on, as Noah is plagued with visions that blur the line between hallucination and reality as well as that between science and the supernatural. The less you know going in the better, as their bond deepens in unexpected and sometimes terrifying ways.
GREAT AUSTRALIAN CONCERTS WITH DIESEL
SATURDAY, 8.30OM, SBS VICELAND
With a new Paul Kelly album out on Friday and a Crowded House tour kicking off this month, it’s perfect timing to revisit this coming together of two of the greatest songwriting talents to ever emerge from this part of the world. In 2013, longtime friends Kelly and Neil Finn teamed up for a national tour – easily one of the top five gigs I have ever seen – in which they cherrypicked from their extraordinary collective catalogue of hits, singing their own songs and each other’s songs. Their mutual respect and affection is evident on stage with their easy banter and arrangements that complement each other perfectly. Diesel teases out stories from the tour and their careers from both Kelly and Finn, as well as glowing testimonies from the likes of Missy Higgins, Jimmy Barnes and Clare Bowditch.
MATLOCK
MONDAY, 8.40PM, CHANNEL 10
Veteran actor Kathy Bates says that this update on the much-loved ‘70s legal drama of the same name – which has already been greenlit for a second season – will be her swan song. If that’s true, it’s a fitting farewell to a glittering 50-plus-year career that’s netted her two Golden Globes, two Emmys and an Oscar. Bates is perfect as Madeleine Matlock, a lawyer who hasn’t practised in 30 years but bluffs her way into a big law firm by taking advantage of the profession’s – and society’s – tendency to underestimate older women. Once there, she uses the homey people skills and grandma energy that mask her steely determination and razor-sharp mind to prove her worth to her still dubious employers, but her superb acting skills may also be hiding some secrets of her own.
AUSTRALIA V PAKISTAN ONE DAY INTERNATIONAL
MONDAY, 2PM, KAYO
Pakistan will be coming into the first game of this three-match one day series with wind in their sails thanks to their recent demolition of England over three Tests at home – but it’s a different prospect entirely on Australian soil and in the 50-over format. Wicketkeeper batsman Muhammad Rizwan replaces Babar Azam as skipper and firebrand pacemen Shaheen Shah Afridi and Naseem Shah also return to the side for the first match at the MCG. Australian Test captain Pat Cummins will be back in charge of the ODI side for the first time since last year’s Cricket World Cup Win, and with Mitch Marsh and Travis Head both unavailable on paternity lead, the door is open for some emerging talent such as Jake Fraser-McGurk to make an impression on what is shaping up as a cracking summer of cricket.
RESCUE: HI SURF
BINGE, NEW EPISODES TUESDAYS
The first impression of this new drama set on the fabled North Shore of Hawaii’s O’ahu – home to the famous surf breaks Banzai Pipeline and Waimea Bay – is that it’s basically Baywatch with bigger waves. And if that’s your jam, then by all means wax on and paddle out with the impossibly buff and good looking surf lifesavers who come to the rescue of experts and novices alike chewed up and spat out by the monster waves that cover a dangerously shallow reef. Among them are the tough but fair boss, Sonny Jennings (Kiwi actor Robbie Magasiva), Will Ready (Aussie Adam Demos) and his ex-girlfriend Em Wright (Arielle Kebbel), as they juggle their heroic rescuing duties with emotional entanglements, shifty authorities and eager rookies.
WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS
BINGE, NEW EPISODES TUESDAYS
It’s gratifying to see the vampire mockumentary spun off from Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clements’ 2014 film of the same name going out on a high in its sixth and final season. The four bloodsucking housemates – Nandor, Laszlo, Nadja and Colin Robinson – are adjusting to life without former familiar/vampire/vampire-slayer Guillermo when they remember a fifth resident, Jerry, who has been asleep since 1976 and is now 30 years past his requested waking time. After catching up on some of the lost years with Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire, Jerry’s disappointment at his comrades’ lack of “dark purpose” throws the house into disarray. Meanwhile, Laszlo revives his long-harboured, Frankenstein-adjacent dream of creating life from body parts, with predictably hilarious results, befitting one of the most reliably funny shows of recent years and one that will be sorely missed.
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Originally published as Shows you don’t want to miss this week: a must-see Springsteen doco and the long-awaited return of Matlock
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