TV & Radio Thursday October 13

Rove might be uncomfortable, but his guests are good, and it's the beginning of the end on Fringe.

TV

Rove LA

Motorway Patrol (TV2, 8.00pm). Oh, Motorway Patrol, of all the observational, cheap-as-chips series, you are our favourite. We laugh, we cry, we are mildly appalled at the speeders, sleepers, overloaders, old dunger cars and inappropriate pedestrians. Our cops are so patient, aren’t they? Or is that just because they’re being filmed? We’ll never know.

Doctor Who (Prime, 8.30pm). Ah! Cybermen!

Rove LA (TV3, 9.00pm). Rove doesn’t seem quite so comfortable as he did in his Australian studio with Pete Helliar and a cast of comedians. He’s not much of a stand-up for a start. However, the guests usually save the day on talkshows, and tonight on Rove’s couch are the jolly terrific Seth Green, the lovely Olivia Munn, and NCIS’s Michael Weatherly.

Fringe (TV2, 10.30pm). Last week’s awesome episode (which was partly animated) is followed by the activation of the doomsday device in the alternative universe this week, beginning a three-episode story arc to end the season.

FILM

Dinner for Schmucks (Sky Movies, Sky 020, 8.30pm). Jemaine Clement made it into the cast of this underseasoned US remake of Francis Veber’s 1998 French comedy, The Dinner Game,and you might like it for this reason alone. You might also like Steve Carell’s brand of agonised deadpan humour or appreciate the fine nuances of another identical loser performance by Zach Galifianakis (The Hangover, Due Date). But even a full-on French farce has more subtlety than this excuse for overdoing things: the parade of stuffed mice, a blind fencer and a crazy ventriloquist pour an entire salt cellar over the original, simple idea: who can bring the biggest idiot to a dinner party? (2010) 6

RADIO

Music Alive (Radio New Zealand Concert, 8.00pm). Brahmissimo! continues, this time featuring gifted Russian violinist Mikhail Ovrutsky in the soloist spot. The programme includes Brahms’s Tragic Overture, his Violin Concerto in D and his Symphony No 2 in D.