TV & Radio Thursday October 20

A mind-bending, time-warping finale for Doctor Who, and mash-up from John Psathas and Little Bushman's Warren Maxwell.

TV

Doctor Who

Hard Time: World Without Men (National Geographic, Sky 072, 7.30pm). Behind the bars of the US state of Georgia’s largest women’s prison, where 1600 jailbirds reside. Prison creates its own rules and hierarchies, and drugs, intrigues and sexual relationships are part of day-to-day life. The programme features several different inmates, including a prison “stud”, a changed lifer and a system manipulator.

All New Motorway Patrol (TV2, 8.00pm). The latest catalogue of folly on Auckland’s motorways; fun, as long as no-one’s getting hurt.

Doctor Who (Prime, 8.35pm). You may have to have been watching closely to understand the final episode for the season. It’s a mind-bending time-warping whirlwind that brings back earlier events and characters, including the Silence, the Teselecta shapeshifting robot, Madame Kavorian (Frances Barber), Winston Churchill (Ian McNeice) and Charles Dickens (Simon Callow). Plus, of course, River Song (Alex Kingston), who has been the key to everything all along.

Rove LA (TV3, 9.00pm). Guests tonight are Steve Carell, Eva Longoria, and Lake Bell, who isn’t a location, she’s an actress who stars in How to Make It in America (starting here on Sky channel SoHo) and Tribeca favourite comedy film A Good Old Fashioned Orgy.

20/20 (TV2, 9.30pm). Tonight: a four-year-old girl who was born with underdeveloped organs and has lived her whole life at Starship Hospital; a story from the US about a 14-year-old who shot a classmate; and how did college drop-out Steve Jobs become the leader and innovator that he was?

FILM

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Bride & Prejudice (Movies Greats, Sky 022, 6.40pm). A mash-up of Jane Austen and Bollywood that seems strange to Western eyes. Characters are likely to burst into song or dance at any moment, and check out a pre-Lost Naveen Andrews who does a fine imitation of a Bollywood star himself, despite actually being English. The film boasts not one but two Kiwis – Martin Henderson is Darcy and Daniel Gillies is Wickham. You know the story: beautiful Indian girl (Aishwarya Rai) meets a snooty Western boy. Misunderstandings ensue, but it will all work out in the end. Only, this being Bollywood, don’t expect any kissing. (2005) 5

Easy A (Sky Movies, Sky 020, 8.30pm). Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter gets a modern reworking in this teen comedy about Olive Penderghast, a nondescript girl with a stand-out name who decides to get herself noticed by pretending to be a slut. Oddly enough, this novel approach comes back to bite her – in a non-erotic way. A great comic performance by Emma Stone – who nearly killed her career before it had really begun with the dire Marmaduke. She has top billing for the first time, but fights for screen time with heavyweights Stanley Tucci, Patricia Clarkson, Lisa Kudrow and Thomas Haden Church, who all add to a better-than-average teencom experience. You wonder who else might have been included: everyone in the cast had to have an “a” in their name, so no chance for, let’s see, Vin Diesel, Bruce Willis, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, Toni Collette, Jennifer Lopez … The second feature for Will Gluck, who also directed the much-hyped current release Friends with Benefits. (2010) 7 – Diana Balham

Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff (Rialto, Sky 025, 8.30pm). A documentary about the legendary lensman Cardiff, who was known for his Technicolor camerawork, and his work on classics such as Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, The African Queen and The Barefoot Contessa. He is interviewed here by director Craig McCall, who spent 12 years making the doco. Also featured are Dustin Hoffman, Martin Scorsese and his editor Thelma Schoonmaker, Kirk Douglas, and there is archive footage of Humphrey Bogart and Sophia Loren. What is missing, says Slant magazine, are details of Cardiff’s personal life, which may have given more insight into his work. (2010)

RADIO

Appointment (Radio New Zealand Concert, 7.00pm). Tonight, Christine Argyle talks to Czech conductor Oliver von Dohnányi, who was in New Zealand recently to conduct the NBR New Zealand Opera’s production of Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci. Although distantly related, he is a member of one of Eastern Europe’s most distinguished musical dynasties, which includes Hungarian composer, pianist and conductor Ernst von Dohnányi and his conductor grandson Christoph.

Amped (Radio New Zealand Concert, 8.00pm). Classical, jazz and rock worlds collide in tonight’s concert, recorded live in the Auckland Town Hall. The Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Hamish McKeich, shares the stage with saxophonist Nathan Haines, playing Omnifenix, the first of two works by John Psathas. Then it’s Pounamu, a piece Psathas wrote with Little Bushman frontman Warren Maxwell, who also performs tonight, along with the Dream Band and David Jones on drums. “I thought it would be incredible to try and create something with Warren that wasn’t just a concerto idea, but like a huge song as well,” said Psathas about the piece. Other works by Haines, Pat Metheny and C Fischer fill out the programme.

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