What to watch on TV and streaming this week: Fisk returns, plus a footy drama that hits hard
Triple Logie-winner Kitty Flanagan is back with her global hit workplace comedy and a serious medical problem is tackled head-on in a quality new footy drama.
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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.
FISK
SUNDAY, 8PM, ABC
After being embraced by Australia in its first season and then charming the world with its second thanks to Netflix, the delightful, laugh-out-loud workplace comedy returns with high expectations – and immediately delivers on them. After already winning two Logies for the role – and fresh off a third for Utopia – writer, director and star Kitty Flanagan is once again a marvel as the perennially brown-suited, reliably awkward Helen Tudor-Fisk, who has now been promoted to partner and expected to do her bit in drumming up new clients for the firm. And as she discovers in the first episode, when she’s asked to pitch her wares in a local business collective, as a networker, she makes an excellent probate lawyer. As always, the core cast of Flanagan, brother and sister combo Roz and Ray (Julia Zemiro and Marty Sheargold) and their probate clerk/webmaster George (Aaron Chen), bounce off each other seamlessly and hilariously, supported by a who’s who of Australian acting and comedy talent, including Justine Clarke, Carl Barron, Claudia Karvan and Tom Ballard, to name but a few.
SHRINKING
WEDNESDAY, APPLE TV+
After the finale of the first season of the Emmy-nominated comedy, in which one of his patients ends up in jail after pushing her abusive partner off a cliff, psychiatrist Jimmy (Jason Segel) is starting to rethink the controversial treatment methods that led him to putting aside traditional ethics and really speaking his mind. He’s also dealing with that none-too-surprising revelation that sleeping with his late-wife’s best friend – and his work colleague – Gaby (the hilarious Jessica Williams) might not be the best idea for either of them. Meanwhile his mentor Paul (Harrison Ford) is still wrestling with his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis and the possibility of belated second shot at love, setting up another season of one of the best shows around, with just the right balance of humour and heart.
FALLEN
THURSDAY, 10.50PM, SBS
Fans of Scandi noir hit The Bridge will be thrilled to know that its writer Camilla Ahlgren and star Sofia Helin have reunited for another psychological thriller, which is a slightly different beast but nonetheless a timely reminder of why the two work together so well. Helin plays veteran cop Iris Broman, who leaves the big smoke of Stockholm for a small seaside town after her husband is murdered and takes on a job leading up the local cold case unit. As fate would have it, the day she arrives, two schoolchildren stumble on human remains that everyone assumes to be a teenager who went missing nearly two decades earlier. As she reopens the case, long buried secrets and hurt begin to re-emerge, as the suspects – and the red herrings – multiply.
RUGBY LEAGUE PACIFIC CHAMPIONSHIP
FRIDAY, 5.30PM, KAYO, FOXTEL; 7.30PM, CHANNEL 9
Penrith might have wrapped up their fourth consecutive premiership but that doesn’t mean the rugby league action is over for the year and plenty of the team’s stars will be on show as the Pacific Championship between Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Tonga plays out over the next few weeks. The action kicks off with a double-header tonight at Brisbane’s Lang Park when the Aussie women take on the might of PNG at 5.30pm and the No.1 ranked Kangaroos take on Tonga in the men’s competition. The action continues on Saturday, when the Tongan women play Samoa at 4.30pm, followed by the Fiji v Samoa men’s clash at 6.45.
THOU SHALT NOT STEAL
FRIDAY, STAN
It’s hard to describe this new eight-part homegrown comedy, which carries echoes of the Coen Brothers’ O Brother Where Art Thou and Aussie classic Wake In Fright, but it’s fair to say you won’t see anything else like it all year. Heartbreak High star Sherry-Lee Watson plays a young Indigenous delinquent, Robyn, who busts out of her Outback detention centre and sets out on a quest to find the truth behind a family secret in a stolen taxi. Hot on her heels is the taxi’s owner, an opportunistic sex trafficker (a grubbily against type Miranda Otto) and the fake, grog-slinging preacher father (Noah Taylor) of the young, white bloke (Will McDonald) she’s picked up along the way. Indigenous director Dylan River says the ‘80s set story was inspired by growing up in Alice Springs, and the collision of racism, violence and alcohol, while sometimes played for laughs, doesn’t paint a terribly flattering picture of the wild wilderness or Australia’s dark past.
A-LEAGUE
FRIDAY, 7.35PM, PARAMOUNT PLUS; SATURDAY, 4.30PM, 10 BOLD
The Men’s A-League returns with a bang this weekend, as the action kicks off with a Grand Final rematch in which four-time champion Melbourne Victory will be desperate to atone for their 3-1 loss to the Central Coast Mariners in the decider last May. Then on Saturday viewers can get their first look at the competitions newest team, Auckland FC, which will host the Brisbane Roar across the Ditch. As if that’s not enough, 10 Bold will show Newcastle Jets v Melbourne FC, followed by a huge Harbour City derby, as the Western Sydney Wanderers take on cross-town rivals Sydney FC. And for the true football tragics, new A-League analysis show The Weekly Kickoff premieres this Wednesday at 5pm on Paramount+ and 10 Play.
IT’S FLORIDA, MAN
SATURDAY, BINGE
One of the weirdest shows to hit the airwaves so far this year – fittingly from Eastbound and Down star Danny McBride’s production company – boasts of “true … sort of” tales taken from the headlines of America’s Sunshine State. Using real people to re-tell their oddball stories – and a cast of guest stars including Randall Park, Anna Faris, Jake Johnson and Juliette Lewis to recreate them – it delves into stranger-than-fiction subjects from mermaids, to witches to feral bunnies. This week’s first episode features a mega-music-fan who turns to social media to raise the funds he needs to see his favourite DJ, and winds up helping out with another man’s rather extreme fantasy.
SPICKS AND SPECKS
SUNDAY, 7.30PM, ABC
It’s always a pleasure having the long-running comedy music quiz show back on our screens and it returns with one of its highest profile guests yet in Prime Minister, occasional DJ and big-time music fan Anthony Albanese. Acknowledging that “you don’t get to be Prime Minister without being a little bit competitive”, he shows he’d be a worthy addition to any pub quiz team, especially with his specialist subject of Aussie indie music. He and Ben Lee make a hilariously odd couple on Myf Warhurst’s team, taking on Pub Choir founder Astrid Jorgensen and comedian Zoe Coombs Marr on Alan Brough’s team for a very close finish. And stick around until the final credits for a very special musical treat.
TOMB RAIDER: THE LEGEND OF LARA CROFT
NETFLIX
This swashbucklingly fun new animated adventure falls somewhere between the original video games and the various movie adaptations with Angelina Jolie and Alicia Vikander. From its very Indiana Jones opening sequence, with the young Lara following in her father’s footsteps to find ancient treasures in South America, it barrels along at a cracking pace, with fights, car chases and a roster of support characters and situations familiar to fans of the franchise. Mission Impossible and Avengers star Hayley Atwell has just the right cut-class accent and Peggy Carter pluck in the title role, with Hobbit star Richard Armitage voicing the mysterious mercenary Charles Deveraux, who makes off with one of Lara’s prized possessions that has mythical powers.
PLUM
SUNDAY, 8.30PM, ABC
Old-school footy fans of all codes who think the game has become too soft would do well to dive into this quality six-part drama starring Brendan Cowell and adapted from his own book. The veteran Aussie actor plays Peter “Plum” Lum, a retired, famously tough rugby league player, revered as one of the greats, watching his son emerge as a promising young player and self-medicating with booze and pills for the damage the game did to his body. The action is set in 2018 just as concussion is starting to be taken seriously, and at a time where he – and countless other players – are starting to zone out, hallucinate, freeze up and suffer the effects of repeated head knocks. As first he’s sceptical of the proposed rule changes, but a serious medical episode makes him re-evaluate his stance and his life. Asher Keddie, Jemaine Clement and Matt Nable also feature in a terrific supporting cast.
Originally published as What to watch on TV and streaming this week: Fisk returns, plus a footy drama that hits hard
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