Two cooks' journeys, and Time Team fossicks around in a quarry for its 200th episode.
TV
Time Team
Sunday (TV1, 7.30pm). Tonight: 10 years after Sir Peter Blake was murdered in the Amazon, Lady Pippa Blake and James and Sarah-Jane Blake look back; John Cleese pleads poverty; and and update on Casey Heynes, the bullied boy who turned on his attackers.
60 Minutes (TV3, 7.30pm). Paula Penfold reports on how the parties try to portray their leaders in the right light, and how it can easily go wrong. *cough* #teapotapes *cough*; a story about the Kiwi who is turning the tables on Nigerian con artists who go after lonely women – or more precisely, their savings; and a report about South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker and their Broadway hit, The Book of Mormon.
Rick Stein’s Spain (Prime, 7.30pm). The ebullient Stein is in America’s Cup country, Valencia, where there is a paella festival. Yes. We celebrate rugby; they celebrate food. Heading towards the middle of the country, there are windmills, a grape harvest and a man from La Mancha who shows Stein the best garlic soup in the world. He ends his journey in Seville.
Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations (Food Television, Sky 009, 7.30pm). The macho New Yorker often just seems uncomfortable, and has some pretty funny ideas about the places he’s visiting, but he’s game nevertheless. In season seven of this food travelogue series, he goes everywhere from Chernobyl to Vienna to Boston.
Sunday Theatre: Sherlock (TV1, 8.30pm). The TV1 listings have been in such an uproar – an uproar I tell you! – lately, and we hope there will come a time when we will have to stop apologising for our magazine listings, through no fault of our own, being wrong. So, Dancing with the Stars US is outski, and a repeat of the rather wonderful Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, is in. It’s another bit of brilliance by Steven Moffat (Doctor Who) and his fellow Who writer and actor Mark Gatiss. As with his update of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Moffat places Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick, Dr John Watson, in the modern day; London, of course, where Watson writes a blog rather than a journal and Holmes embraces mobile phones, GPS, the internet and nicotine patches. Nevertheless it is surprising how much of Conan Doyle’s original stories can be used: Watson is an army doctor injured in Afghanistan (Conan Doyle’s Watson was injured in the second Anglo-Afghan war); in tonight’s episode, A Study in Pink, Holmes describes himself as a “consulting detective”, which sounds modern, but is the very phrase used in A Study in Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes mystery published in 1887. But it’s the performance of Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes that really seals the deal. Recreating Holmes in modern London could be a disaster, but Cumberbatch makes him an eccentric intellectual, three steps ahead of everyone, slapping on nicotine patches and conducting mad experiments in the kitchen of 221b Baker St. More than once the word “Asperger’s” was used in UK reviews. Cumberbatch’s other-worldly looks and excellent coat (there was apparently a run on tailored coats and scarves after the series screened in Britain) are just right, as is Martin Freeman as Watson. Not so other-worldly, just world-weary and bemused at his new flatmate’s eccentricities. Also, slightly worried. A repeat to be sure, but at lease something worthy of the Sunday Theatre timeslot.
Campaign 2011 (Sky News, Sky 090, 8.30pm and Prime, 10.40pm). Tonight, the Sope discusses MMP with Sandra Grey (for), Jordan Williams (against) and Raymond Miller (expert). Winston “Phoenix” Peters also appears, plus more expert talk from political journalists Alex Tarrant, Katie Bradford and John Hartevelt. More info here.
aimRenderAd(300, 250, '300X250','ContentRect','/POS=POS2'); if(!$.browser.msie){ ContentRect_frame = $("#ContentRect")[0]; ContentRect_frame.src = ContentRect_frame.src; }Time Team (Living, Sky 008, 9.30pm). With so many layers of history to peel back, it’s no wonder Time Team is now in its 18th season, plus there’s the charm of seeing proper British eccentrics at work. Tony Robinson and the team, which includes wild-haired archaeologist Mick Aston, uncover archaeological digs over the course of three days. In this series, they begin with episode No 200, and double their celebration with the first stone henge to be discovered in the UK in a century. The site is the bed of a Devon reservoir, where an assortment of prehistoric remains are found. As is often the way, the site had been discovered by a member of the public, but there were many obstacles, not least that the reservoir had to be drained. Consequently, it was a very muddy dig, but yielded such prehistoric goodies as a stone circle, stone rows, burial cairns and a mysterious mound covered in ancient flint tools. It transpires, after a lot of digging, that the site had been occupied for thousands of years. Mesolithic hunter-gatherers camped there, and in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, it was developed for ritual use. The series also includes an episode in which author and historian Philippa Gregory helps the team piece together the story of the powerful Greys, a medieval family connected to the Tudor Dynasty and which produced Lady Jane Grey, who was known as the Nine Days Queen. In a more modern episode, Robinson decides he would like to excavate a German anti-aircraft battery built during the Nazis’ five-year occupation of Jersey. What they discover is a fortified settlement basically built with slave labour that was home to thousands of German soldiers.
Missing Piece (TV1, 10.25pm). Tonight’s well-known New Zealander going in search of their ancestry is actor and director Katie Wolfe.
LIVE SPORT TODAY: English Premier League soccer, Swansea v Manchester United (Sky Sport 3, Sky 032, 6.20am); Grand final of the Four Nations rugby league tournament, from Elland Rd, Leeds (Sky Sport 2, Sky 031, 6.30am); Presidents Cup golf, day four, from Melbourne (Sky Sport 1, Sky 030, 12.30pm); A-League soccer, Melbourne Victory v Perth Glory (Sky Sport 3, Sky 032, 7.00pm).
FILM
Did You Hear About the Morgans? (TV2, 8.30pm). Hugh Grant hasn’t looked this embarrassed since he was caught with that prossie in Hollywood. Yet another variation on the city-folks-in-the-country theme, except this time there are two of the buggers. Should you care, the other one is Sarah Jessica Parker. (2009) 4 – Diana Balham
500 Days of Summer (TV3, 8.30pm). A Sundance favourite that is ostensibly a guy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) meets girl (Zooey Deschanel) story, but could more properly be termed a romantic break-up picture rather than a romcom (a rombreak? A breakcom?). It’s not giving the game away to say the story begins with the break-up, and cycles back and forth through the 500 days that Tom (Gordon-Levitt) knew Summer (Deschanel). The effect is like a simulated memory – we don’t always remember things in order, some things seem important at the time, etc. Deschanel has played a few nutso characters, but here reins in the quirk sufficiently, and, as always, Gordon-Levitt is sympathetic and heartfelt. (2009) 8
Domestic Disturbance (Four, 8.30pm). That would be “domestic” as in “tame”, “fluffy” and “sits around doing nothing all day”. The most interesting thing about this so-called thriller is that, during filming, co-star Steve Buscemi was stabbed in a bar brawl near the film’s North Carolina set. Fortunately for him, he recovered and, perhaps even more fortunately, his character was killed off in the early stages of the film. Critically mauled, as if by a non-domestic tiger, which was bad news for stars John Travolta and Vince Vaughn. (2001) 5 – Diana Balham
The Edge of Heaven (Maori, 8.30pm). Where, exactly, heaven is in this tough, hard-hitting drama is hard to say. Writer/director Fatih Akin won the 2007 best screenplay award at Cannes for his multi-layered story about Turkish immigrants living in Germany and struggling in their home country, and there are no easy answers. (Aka Auf der Anderen Seite.) (2007) 8 – Diana Balham
Jules and Jim (Rialto, Sky 025, 8.30pm). ’Tis the season to have a season: Rialto is celebrating the films of French director François Truffaut and this is a goodie. Set between 1912 and 1933, it is about a decidedly unpointy love triangle between Catherine et les hommes of the title (played by Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner and Henri Serre), but being French, it’s all very languid and desperately short of shoot-outs (see below). A beautiful classic. (1962) 8 – Diana Balham
The Lady from Shanghai (Stratos, Freeview 21 & Sky 089, 8.30pm). Stratos’s Orson Welles season continues with this little film noir cracker set on a yacht. Welles wrote, directed and starred, alongside wife Rita Hayworth. Said to be one of his best films, it includes the famous shoot-out in the hall of mirrors but it nearly put a bullet in Hayworth’s career because Welles made her cut off her long red hair and dye it platinum blonde. Some say it was out of spite – their marriage fell apart shortly afterwards. (1947) 8 – Diana Balham
RADIO
Insight (Radio New Zealand National, 8.12am). Serious stuff for a Sunday morning: make a cuppa and a decision, if you haven’t already. In 2008, Insight looked at the Maori political landscape. Now, three years later, a new party, Mana, has joined the fray. Natalie Mankelow will again speak to the main players and ask Maori how they feel about their options today. – Diana Balham
Composer of the Week (Radio New Zealand Concert, 9.00am today and weekdays and 7.00pm Monday). RNZ Concert focuses on Frederic Mompou (1893-1987) (also known as Federico), the Catalan Spanish composer and pianist who is best remembered for his solo piano music and songs. He initially studied piano at the Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu in Barcelona, the city of his birth, before transferring to the Conservatoire de Paris, which was headed by his childhood idol, Gabriel Fauré. There he studied piano and composition, but his extreme shyness meant a career as a pianist was out of the question. However, after World War I his talent as a composer was recognised and his works were being performed regularly. In 1921, the French critic Émile Vuillermoz attended a performance of hisScènes d’Enfants by his former teacher, Ferdinand Motte-Lacroix, and proclaimed Mompou “the only disciple and successor” to Claude Debussy. In spite of this, Mompou didn’t publish any music between 1931 and 1941, when he fled the German occupation of Paris and returned to Catalonia. He produced work steadily through the decades, living quietly in his native country and marrying pianist Carmen Bravo (30 years his junior) at the age of 64. He received numerous awards during his lifetime and died at 94. After the death of his widow in 2007, some 80 unpublished works were discovered in his house and in the National Library of Catalonia, and many went on to be performed in Spain. – Diana Balham
The Sunday Feature (Radio New Zealand National, 4.07pm). Because we also have a referendum on our voting system this election, you’ll want to fire up the kettle again for the Electoral Referendum Forum, which was hosted by political scientist Nigel Roberts last month at Te Papa. The panel consisted of Jim Bolger, Michael Cullen, Ruth Richardson, Jeanette Fitzsimons, Sandra Grey (Campaign for MMP) and Jordan Williams (Vote for Change). This programme will be repeated on Tuesday, November 22, at 9.06pm. – Diana Balham
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