Including Ka Mate and The Borgias

SATURDAY OCTOBER 1

The Voice (TV2, 7.30pm) It’s the final! Excited? Nah, neither are we.

Ka Mate: The Haka, the Legend (Maori, 8.00pm). There have been mass haka on the waterfront, flash haka on the street and, of course, All Blacks’ haka in the stadium. Thanks to the Rugby World Cup, never in New Zealand’s history have so many haka been done by … so many. Overseas visitors must think we’re a nation ready to whip off our shirts at the drop of a hat, so to speak – and the haka that everyone’s doing is Ka Mate. So it’s a good time to tell the story of Ka Mate. Get everyone up to speed. Which is what Ka Mate: The Haka, the Legend does exactly. Actor Jim Moriarty begins the story while fishing with his children, but the documentary soon moves into a bravura dramatisation of the story of Te Rauparaha, the Ngati Toa chief who hid from his pursuers in a food pit. Originally, the tribe lived around Kawhia in the Waikato, but constant battles with neighbouring tribes led Te Rauparaha to seek an alliance with Tuwharetoa. He ended up at Rotoaira, where he was hidden from the war party on his tail. After, as Te Rauparaha emerged from the pit, Ka Mate (“An upward step, another … the sun shines!”) was born. Skip forward, and Ka Mate crosses into the mainstream when it was performed by Sir James Carroll in 1901 during the visit to New Zealand of the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall. The 1905 Originals performed it on tour but it wasn’t until the mid-1970s that Ka Mate was performed by the All Blacks at home. At first it was, as sports commentator Keith Quinn puts it, “the Pakeha version”, but in the mid-80s Buck Shelford restored its proper meaning and status. The documentary describes the challenges that have been made to the haka on the field – and the challenge now to protect it: “We want the haka done properly,” says Ngati Toa’s Ariki Wi Neera, “so that it’s not abused by people anywhere.”

SUNDAY OCTOBER 2

Ka Mate: The Haka, the Legend

Hellcats (TV2, 5.30pm) The kind of silly teen drama/unintentional comedy that only the Americans can get away with – it’s pretty much the plot of cheerleading movie Bring It On told over a season with all the pom-pom shaking, bitchy dialogue and nubile half-nakedness you could want. However, the Los Angeles Times reviewer did declare herself “intrigued by any show that showcases teamwork’s necessary companions – patience and forbearance – while also evoking Flashdance”.

Wild Vets (TV1, 7.00pm) The return of the series that follows the vets who treat zoo animals and endangered birds. So no cute kittehs, then, but cute lion cubs, a baby giraffe and a newly hatched kiwi chick crop up. Aw. In the first episode, vet Kate leads a DoC team looking for short-tailed bats in Fiordland, vet Mike treats a tiger in Hamilton, and in Nelson vet Mana tries to save a baby penguin called Pixie who weighs a minuscule 66g. Aw. Again.

Raising Hope (TV3, 7.00pm) My Name Is Earl’s Jason Lee pops up in tonight’s episode – well, he would, wouldn’t he? Hope’s creator, Greg Garcia, was the man behind My Name Is Earl, that other dose of white-trash cleverness. Lee has been busy with his new show, Memphis Beat, in which he plays a cop whose hobby is singing Elvis songs at his favourite bar. He taps into that rock’n’roll side in this episode of Raising Hope, too, playing the ageing former lead singer of a hair band who headlines the local market’s “Grocerypalooza” concert.

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Netball (Sky Sport 3, Sky 032, 7.00pm) It might have been the last of the Rugby World Cup pool play on the weekend, and we might be looking forward to the quarter-finals this coming weekend, but another of our national teams is in action, too: the Silver Ferns play England twice this week in a short two-test tournament. Today’s game is at the Trusts Stadium Arena in Waitakere, then there’s the long journey down to Invercargill for the second test at Stadium Southland on Thursday (also screening at 7.00pm on Sky Sport 3). The selectors have named three new caps for the Ferns: 19-year-old Mystics player Kayla Cullen, 20-year-old Sulu Tone-Fitzpatrick from the BoP Magic; and Mystics shooter Cathrine Latu. The captain will be Laura Langman.

TUESDAY OCTOBER 4

America’s Next Top Model (Four, 7.30pm) Cycle 16 begins. Excited? Nah, neither are we.

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 5

Shortland Street (TV2, 7.00pm) Gerald Urquhart and Kate Elliott have given Shortie a much-needed shot of comedy that takes us back to the days of Leonard and Gina. Bravo, thesps. Tonight, Luke accidentally ends up in a church and hears Zlata’s confession.

Survivor: South Pacific (Four, Wednesday, 8.30pm) Season 24? Excited? Nah, etc. However, it’s a big week for the Samoan island of Upolu, the location for this series; it also features in Hunting Aotearoa on Thursday.

The Borgias (TV3, 9.30pm) Irish film-maker Neil Jordan does for the Borgias what Michael Hirst did for the Tudors. History is once again sexed up, although with the Borgias, it probably wasn’t difficult: the crimes listed against this 15th-century family include adultery, incest, theft, rape, murder and simony. Yes, simony. Jeremy Irons is his creepy best as patriarch Rodrigo Borgia, a Spanish cardinal who schemes to become pope. Vannozza dei Cattanei, his mistress and mother of his four children, is played by Joanne Whalley, but as the season progresses her position is supplanted by Giulia Farnese (Lotte Verbeek). English actress Holliday Grainger plays the notorious Lucrezia Borgia, who was married off, several times in fact, for the good of the family.

Entourage (TV2, 11.30pm) Because this is a Hollywood story, they just had to go there – cute It-boy Vince (Adrian Grenier) addicted to drugs and hitting rock bottom at the end of season seven, which somehow involved getting beaten up by Eminem in a hotel. As you do. So as the final season begins, can Vince, Eric, Drama, Turtle and Ari regroup? There will be ups and downs, as well as the usual huge number of guest stars, starting with The Big Bang Theory’s Johnny Galecki tonight and, later in the season, Alice Eve, daughter of Trevor, who plays a mean journalist.

THURSDAY OCTOBER 6

Coronation Street (TV1, 7.30pm) A secret affair, a secret baby; there’s plenty of mileage to be had in the Kevin-Molly fallout. Nine months, in fact, of heaping on the guilt, which is what happens tonight when Tyrone asks Kevin to be the baby’s godfather. Meanwhile, Natasha and Rosie are on to Graeme.

Hunting Aotearoa (Maori, 9.30pm) Howard Morrison jnr has been checking out the hunting in the wider Pacific this season. In tonight’s episode he’s on the Samoan Islands of Savai’i and Upolu hunting with – get this – the Prime Minister and a couple of villagers from the tsunami-stricken village of Poutasi.

Monteith’s Wild Food Challenge (TV1, 9.30pm) A wild foods restaurant challenge that is now in its 14th year, apparently, and this year has its very own TV series. Chefs Mark Southon and Wylie Dean travel the country checking out the dishes created by competing restaurants; tonight features Greymouth restaurant the Coalface (marinated venison with Celtic cabbage and brandied Blackball bacon) and Geraldine’s Taste (wild chocolate hare éclair, and wallaby, blue cheese and stinging-nettle spring roll).

FRIDAY OCTOBER 7

Human Planet

Human Planet (Prime, 7.30pm). One of those wonderful BBC series that spans the globe in glorious living colour. It took three years to film and the producers shot 70 stories in around 40 countries. The series explores the ways humans have adapted to every environment on Earth, from the sand dunes of the Sahara to nature’s deep freeze in the Arctic. Tonight’s episode, Deserts – Life in the Furnace, features a sandstorm in Mali, Tubu women in the Sahara, camel herders in the Gobi Desert, and an unusual beauty contest in Niger. Wodaabe men are the ones on display, and high-born women get to judge – and pick a new husband if they like. The beauty contest is called the Gerewol and they celebrate the fertility the rains bring to the Sahara. The BBC film crew was lucky to capture such an event, as it is only when there is enough water that the small nomadic groups who live on the edge of Chad and Niger can gather together. It was the first Gerewol after six years of drought.

Wonders of the Solar System (BBC Knowledge, Sky 072, 8.30pm). One of those wonderful BBC series that spans the universe in glorious living colour. Presented by Brian Cox – who else? – the five-part series describes the laws of nature that mean we have such wonders as the atmosphere of Titan or giant fountains of ice erupting from the surface of Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons. Naturally, all this explainin’ means Cox travels to the ends of the Earth, from tornadoes in Oklahoma, to an ice-choked lagoon in Iceland, to the volcanic landscape of Ethiopia. It was not for naught, however; the series won a Peabody Award earlier this year.

The Adventures of Merlin (Prime, 8.35pm) Like a medieval Smallville. Merlin (Colin Morgan) is a teenager in the court of Camelot and is learning his craft from Gaius (Richard Wilson), the court physician. Unfortunately, King Uther Pendragon (Anthony Head) has banned sorcery and imprisoned the last dragon (voiced by John Hurt). Merlin protects a young Arthur, the king’s son, and is friends with Guinevere. The first series was so-so (AA Gill called it bland, but he would, wouldn’t he?), but four seasons have been made, with a fifth ordered, so it must be doing something right. The second series begins tonight with an appearance by Mackenzie Crook (Gareth from The Office) as a duplicitous servant; no bad thing.