What to watch on TV and streaming: Pixar’s Inside Out spin-off, plus Neighbours do Hard Quiz
Pixar keeps coming up with the goods with a small-screen Inside Out spin-off and unwrap the behind-the-scenes story on a Wham! Christmas classic.
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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.
DREAM PRODUCTIONS
DISNEY+
After Pixar’s brilliant Inside Out 2 became the highest grossing animated film ever and this year’s biggest box office hit, it’s a joy to go on a small-screen side quest set in the another corner of the same world, set between the two films. This time, Amy Poehler’s Joy and the other emotions are pushed to the background as the documentary-style four-part series investigates the team that constructs the movie-like dreams of pre-teen Riley to help her process her more complicated emotions and memories. SNL regular Paula Pell voices Paula Persimmon, a once great director of Riley’s childhood dreams who has struggled to evolve with her and is desperate need of a “hit dream” to avoid being relegated. After her promising assistant is promoted and becomes a rival, she’s forced to team up with Xeni (Richard Ayoade), a pretentious pretender who thinks his indie cred can turn their fortunes around. Not only is it another shining example of Pixar’s peerless world-building, it also has huge fun with Hollywood cliches, such as pretentious stars, overbearing studio heads and savage critics.
HARD QUIZ
WEDNESDAY, 8PM, ABC
It’s a special Ramsay St episode of the much-loved quiz show, with four of the long-running soap’s finest stepping up to show their brain power and facing up to curmudgeonly host Tom Gleeson’s inevitable barbs. Tux-wearing Stefan Dennis’s special subject is James Bond, Georgie Stone proves to be quite the Brooklyn 99 enthusiast, veteran Alan Fletcher professes to know all things Doors related and Madeleine West is an impressive Fleetwood Mac mega-fan. All four know exactly what is expected of them as Gleeson pokes fun at Fletcher’s nude Neighbours scenes and Dennis’ controversial choice of best Bond, Stone explains how she “gaslit” her way on to the show and West throws in a few zingers of her own.
SECRET LIFE OF ANIMALS
WEDNESDAY, APPLE TV+
Some of the footage captured in this ten-part nature documentary from the BBC Studios Natural History Unit is so extraordinary that it will leave you scratching your head wondering how they got so close to so many creatures in such a wide array of remote and inhospitable terrains. Narrated by Hugh Bonneville, each episode captures a different part of the life cycle, from birth to raising a family and finding food to growing old and the unique characteristics that different species have developed to survive and thrive. The first episode is all about leaving home and follows fur seals in Australia, a Costa Rican lizard that can literally walk on water, a fish that can jump across land and some very smart pachyderms.
WHAM! LAST CHRISTMAS UNWRAPPED
WEDNESDAY, 7.30PM, SBS
It’s been 40 years since Wham!’s instant Christmas classic first hit the airwaves and this timely documentary reunites all the key players – bar of course the late George Michael, who is heard only in archival interviews – to celebrate the song and the video that accompanied it. Michael’s Wham! partner Andrew Ridgely is front and centre, as are the back-up vocalists and friends, as they head back to Switzerland to lovingly recreate scenes from the snowy film clip as well as their memories of the band’s heyday. Other musical luminaries including Neil Tennant from the Pet Shop Boys, Mary J. Blige, who covered the song, and an emotional Sam Smith, who was inspired by it, also weigh in on Michael’s timeless genius.
DADDY ISSUES
THURSDAY, 8.30PM, SBS
Life is looking grim for hard-partying singleton Jemma (Sex Education’s Amy Lou Wood) at the beginning of this six-part UK comedy. She’s newly pregnant from a holiday hook-up, has terrible taste in men, her sister is behind bars and her flat mate is about to bail on her. It’s even worse for her hangdog, dim but well-meaning father Malcolm (David Morrissey), whose wife has left him taking all their savings and he’s struggling to make ends meet in a crappy Manchester flat, drinking tea out of jam jars and weeing into others to avoid using the toilet he shares with five other equally useless blokes. The solution might just be for them to move in together, making for a quirky, sometimes bleak, often moving and always honest odd-couple comedy as they adjust to each other’s foibles while the due date gets closer.
PAULA MCINTYRE’S HAMELY CHRISTMAS
FRIDAY, 7.30PM, SBS FOOD
For those who prefer a traditional culinary slant to their Christmas dinner, Northern Irish chef Paula McIntyre has mined her Ulster-Scots heritage and decades of experience for some delicious and easy-to-follow recipes that could transform your spread. Her Spiced Yuletide Biscuits with Jeweled Centres (made from melted boiled lollies of different colours) not only look super tasty, but would make a fancy looking gift for those on a budget. Having been cooking Christmas dinners since she was 11, McIntyre has plenty of hacks for preparing the perfect turkey (or “bubbly jock”) with mouth-watering stuffing balls, as well as in ingenious and stress-free method of making sure all the vegies are ready at the same time by cooking them all into a savoury king cake.
DEXTER: ORIGINAL SIN
NEW EPISODES FRIDAYS, PARAMOUNT
After the promising and often genuinely thrilling early seasons, the crime thriller about a brilliant forensic pathologist who moonlighted as a serial killer of those he judged unfit to live went off the rails towards the end. The 2022 postscript series New Blood, set a decade later, went some way to redressing that and now comes this prequel series set in 1991 Florida, which fills in the blanks of how Dexter Morgan transformed from a promising medical student with some seriously dark urges into a vengeful monstrous antihero. Patrick Gibson plays the young Dexter – with narration from series stalwart Michael C. Hall – who is just embarking on both of his chosen careers, while Christian Slater plays his cop father Harry, who provided him with his twisted code of conduct.
CHRISTMAS AT GRACELAND
MONDAY, 7.35PM, SBS
Apparently Christmas was Elvis Presley’s favourite holiday, so it only seems appropriate that this television special recorded last year should gather an impressive roster of musical stars to perform the King’s music and festive favourites at different locations in and around his famous Memphis home. Alongside performances by Lana Del Ray – who does an absolutely breathtaking version of Unchained Melody, Post Malone, with a slightly odd choice of (You’re The) Devil in Disguise – there’s also never-before-seen home movie footage of Elvis and his family as well as various friends and hangers-on sharing their memories of him and Christmases at Graceland.
CAROLS BY CANDLELIGHT
TUESDAY, 8PM, CHANNEL 9
It just wouldn’t feel like Christmas without the annual candlelit tradition broadcast from Melbourne’s Sidney Myer Music Bowl and with proceeds going to Vision Australia. David Campbell and Sarah Abo will once again take on hosting duties with performances from a who’s who of Aussie musical talent including Anthony Callea, Casey Donovan, Dami Im, Emma Memma, Marina Prior and Silvie Paladino. And for those who think that too much carol singing is barely enough, there’s also the Carols in the Domain broadcast live on Channel 7 on Saturday night, with performances by The Wiggles, Samantha Jade, Hugh Sheridan, Conrad Sewell, Budjerah and more.
SHAUN MICALLEF’S EVE OF DESTRUCTION CHRISTMAS SPECIAL
TUESDAY, 7.30PM, ABC
Shaun Micallef’s Eve of Destruction talk show – in which two personalities each bring the two items they would save if their house was about to be destroyed – was a bit hit and miss during its run earlier this year, and largely came down the quality of the guests. Thankfully, this one is a Christmas cracker, with Logies and Front Bar host Sam Pang proving to be the gift that keeps giving this year. The comedian and host take delight in mercilessly ribbing each other while discussing the vintage wrestling figurines (not dolls!) and battered autograph book he’s brought with him, with Pang pondering at one point “how is this a show?”. Second guest, drag artist Courtney Act, proves to be more thoughtful, explaining how her comfort blanket Fluffy and collection of X-Men comics – and a very supportive family – helped her through the years struggling a young queer kid.
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Originally published as What to watch on TV and streaming: Pixar’s Inside Out spin-off, plus Neighbours do Hard Quiz
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