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Horrible Science, ABC3, 5.15pm
This isn’t a horrible show by any means but it doesn’t quite hit the mark either. Horrible Science’s heart is in the right place – creating a playful environment in which to introduce young persons to the wonders of science. But the execution leaves a lot to be desired. One problem is the so-called “fun” goes on and on, promising to deliver actual information but endlessly delaying it. Then when the information does arrive, it’s of the most rudimentary kind. Which also raises the question: who exactly is this pitched at? The comedy seems directed at late primary school, maybe up to early teens. The “science”, though (this week centred on blood), is grade one stuff.
Dogs: Their Secret Lives, SBS, 7.35pm
Just as infants denied a parent’s love often grow up a little bit troubled, we’re now realising that trauma and deprivation in a puppy’s first weeks can have life-long effects. Which is terribly sad, but also has quite serious ramifications for the people who end up owning those dogs. Tonight’s instalment is all about aggression in dogs: what prompts it, and how to deal with it. The three case studies presented here are a good cross-section of the kinds of problems regular dog-owners have to deal with. Thor the Great Dane goes nuts every time he sees another dog. Nash the terrier loves the lady of the household, but attacks the blokes. Layla the Springer spaniel simply goes for any stranger who walks through the front door. The latter case also prompts a discussion around the whole issue of “dangerous breeds”. It’s all both thought-provoking and useful.
Homeland, Ten, 9.30pm
Homeland has many outstanding qualities but surely its most outstanding is Claire Danes. Not since Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect has there been an attractive woman so committed to not just playing a deeply unattractive character but to looking genuinely unattractive while doing so. It also makes Carrie Mathison’s internal struggles all the more compelling – they are etched so plainly on her face. At the time of writing, there weren’t even plot details available about what transpires in tonight’s instalment but – rather wonderfully – it’s entitled Better Call Saul. Now. What could that mean?
Melinda Houston
PAY TV
Wabbit, Boomerang, 5pm
Bugs Bunny has been rebooted for yet another generation. It’s a very similar looking Bugs – and he takes the same delight in casually tormenting scoundrels like Yosemite Sam – but quite a lot has changed. Bugs now has a smartphone with GPS and other apps on it, and there are a bunch of new characters in the cast alongside old favourites like Wile E. Coyote and Daffy Duck. Oddly enough, both of today’s short episodes involve Buddhist temples. In the first, Yosemite Sam robs a mountaintop temple, prompting a saffron-robed Bugs to convince him to give away all his worldly possessions in exchange for what he promises will be the greatest treasure of all. The second is a bizarre affair in which Bugs comes to the aid of new chum Squeaks the Squirrel after a nut-gathering expedition disturbs the meditation of a bunch of limbless ninja-gnome things. Something for kids and oldies to check out together.
Brad Newsome
MOVIES
Wanted (2008) Action Movies (pay TV), 6.35pm
A hugely successful comic-book adaptation, Wanted was a textbook ode to the fantasies of film geeks and sundry pop-culture nerds. James McAvoy plays Wesley, who lives a life of perpetual drudgery in a city that is allegedly Chicago. He is either exploited or abused by the women in his life, from his cheating girlfriend to his corpulent office supervisor, but he becomes the vehicle for misogynist revenge fantasies when Angelina Jolie’s Fox strolls up to him in a chemist and tells him he’s the son of a legendary assassin and that he should come with her if he wants to live (nice Terminator reworking). After much gunplay and car chases, all executed with a kind of pleasurable disregard for gravity and reality by Kazakh-born Russian filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch), Wesley is introduced to Sloan (Morgan Freeman), who runs a 1000-year-old guild of assassins and expertly delivers great slabs of exposition. The Fraternity basically makes a ‘‘real’’ man out of Wesley, toughening him up and emphasising the importance of narcissistic self-belief. Women cease to be important, with Fox herself simply one of the boys, and together they kill their adversaries in ever more improbable ways. The film takes pleasure in its ugliness, but it doesn’t relent enough to allow for self-examination, although it does culminate in an orgy of factional bloodletting that suggests the Fraternity hasn’t really got a complete grasp of the internal performance review process.
Remember the Titans (2000) 7Mate, 8.30pm
The intersection of race and professional sports is one of the culturally sharpest corners in American life, often elevating African-American teenagers out of generational poverty into sudden success and inexplicable wealth, while placing upon them a new series of unwritten judgments and one-sided commitments. Unfortunately, there’s very little of that in Boaz Yakin’s avowedly inspirational American football drama, which begins with a newly integrated Washington DC high school hiring a black head coach, Herman Boone (Denzel Washington) for their celebrated football team. His job, assisted by his white predecessor, Bill Yoast (Will Patton), is to unite the racially divided squad and avoid even the one defeat that will cost them a chance of unity and his job. His methods aren’t subtle, but Yakin has a lead capable of investing the broadest of gestures with a sense of commitment, so Washington literally runs his players – including a young Ryan Gosling as a bigoted corner – to Gettysburg for a motivational address.
Craig Mathieson