FREE TO AIR
Please Like Me, ABC, 9.30pm
When Josh Thomas’ show debuted in 2013, there was a minor ruckus that it was bumped from the main channel to ABC2; conspiracy theorists thought it proved Aunty was a bit scared of all that gay business. Now here we are, coming back for season three with the most out-and-proud episode yet, and it’s on the main channel. So, what’s changed? Well, we’ve had the Girls effect. We’ve got the inexorable pride march to same-sex marriage rights. We’ve had the show’s increasing US success. All of which makes Please Like Me seem close to a mainstream proposition now. Mind you, this season opener is rather raunchy, as Josh (Thomas) finally snares his man, Arnold (Keegan Joyce). There’s wooing over baby chickens, a drunken “I love you”, and a tender love scene in which Arnold proves to have the romantic inclinations of a 16-year-old girl (a source of both mirth and joy to Josh). It’s touching, real, and occasionally very funny. The squeamish can rest assured that next week we’re back in safer territory: self-harm, depression, infidelity. Phew.
Family Guy, 7Mate, 9.30pm
Cleveland has been scratching around since his return from out of town (aka his own, now-cancelled, sitcom), and listening to him dispense advice and make empathetic grunting noises in the Drunken Clam, Peter thinks he’s found the answer: Cleveland should become a therapist. And hey, why not sort out Lois first, so she stops wanting Peter to do weird stuff like talk and help around the house. Things, of course, go pear-shaped when Cleveland works out the problem in the Griffin house is Peter.
Inside Amy Schumer, ABC2, 10.15pm
In which our heroine invokes God’s help when she fears she’s contracted herpes, and He (Paul Giamatti, in white pants and pullover) appears in her living room to tell her yes, she does have it, and he can only undo it by creating balance in the universe. “I’d have to kill off an entire village in Uzbekistan,” he says. “Yeah,” she responds. “Whatever you think is best, do it.” That’s the genius of Amy Schumer: she wields a massive and very pointy skewer but she’s not afraid to turn it on herself. Not everything works, but when it does it is hysterically funny, uncomfortable, and absolutely spot-on.
Karl Quinn
PAY TV
The Leftovers, Showcase, 8.30pm
Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof isn’t making it terribly easy for casual viewers to keep track. As season two began last week – four years after 2per cent of the world’s population vanished into thin air – small-town police chief Kevin (Justin Theroux) and his newly reconstituted family arrived in the creepy Texas town from which nobody disappeared. But just as we were starting to get intrigued by the menacing vigilante firefighter (Kevin Carroll) who seems to rule the place with an iron gumboot, Lindelof yanks on the whipsaw and we’re pulled back in time and back to upstate New York. There we see how Kevin and new missus Nora (Carrie Coon) came to adopt their new baby, how Kevin dealt with the suicide of Guilty Remnant leader Patti (Ann Dowd), and how Patti continues to haunt him now. Back in Texas there’s little doubt that bad things are going to happen, and the atmosphere is all the more intriguing for being so ominous.
Brad Newsome
MOVIES
First Knight, (1995) Eleven, 9pm
The story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table has fascinated humans since the legend’s origins in the 9th century. Devout Arthurians tend to be mostenthralled by the writings ofChretien de Troyes, others by T.H. White’s fantasy novel, The Once and Future King, and its spinoff, the Lerner and Loewe musical Camelot. The film version of Camelot, which controversially opted for Richard Harris and Vanessa Redgrave over Broadway’s original stars, Richard Burton and Julie Andrews, was what started me on an Arthurian obsession. It has led me to read all I can find, and even trudge across the English countryside to visit Arthur’s ‘‘birthplace’’ at Tintagel andseek possible locations for Camelot itself. However, what is clearly more important to many people than anyhistorical or archaeological basis, more than the nobility of theknights and their quest for theHoly Grail, is the adulterous affair of Arthur’s wife, Guinevere, and Arthur’s noblest knight, Lancelot. It is this marital betrayal, one that potentially undermines allthat Camelot stands for, that thrills people, with a desire for Lancelot and Guinevere to run offand live happily ever after.
In Camelot the film, we believe absolutely in Guinevere’s passion for Lancelot, played by Franco Nero, and it was no surprise that Redgrave actually left her husband (Tony Richardson) for Nero during the filming. Their affair was so scandalous the new couple were even denounced by the Pope. Director Joshua Logan, despite thecondemnation, endured for replacing Burton and Andrews, andgot it 100 per cent right. One just can’t see Burton and Andrews dashing off to live in the Tuscan countryside together. In First Knight, the casting also looked good: Richard Gere as Lancelot and Julia Ormond as Guinevere, but between intention and completion many films fail, and First Knight does. At the time, Ormond was a major star (Legends of the Fall, Sabrina), and she is undoubtedly aconsummate actress, but she andGere never spark in a film in which foreign accents (American and Scottish) get in the way of believability. Worse is the film’s Franklin Mint kitschy prettiness. One could easily imagine the fake Camelot being turned into a china clock with party lights all around.
Riding Giants (2004) SBS Two, 9.30pm
This surfing movie isn’t from Australia and isn’t just handsome youth on the beach and blokes riding waves, but a history of the surfing culture over the decades.
Scott Murray
