MARCH 10 2018 LISTENER 67
RAINBOW MIRROR: In lieu of any dedicated gay
programming of our own, we’ll have to make
do with Canada’s OUTtv, which is now available
on TVNZ OnDemand. Shows include Rough or
Smooth, a travel series in which hosts Paul du
Toit and Terence Bridgett present luxury versus
intrepid getaways, and The Boulet Brothers:
Dragula, a sort-of RuPaul’s Drag Race, except
with drag monsters: tinyurl.com/NZLOuttv.QUITE HOKEY: It’s a shame that format franchis-
ing wasn’t a thing when It’s in the Bag was on
our screens, because we think it would have
been a worldwide hit. In honour of our cover
story on quiz shows, here’s an early episode of
the Selwyn Toogood-hosted show, filmed at
Dunedin’s Mayfair Theatre in 1974. One of the
prizes is a knitting machine: tinyurl.com/NZLInthe-
Bag. We have had a go at creating a format to
sell overseas; remember The Chair? Its first epi-
sode in 2002, hosted by Matthew Ridge, is also
on NZ On Screen: tinyurl.com/NZLTheChair.TVNZ OnDemand: Deception
(Monday) features a Las Vegas
magician (Brit Jack Cutmore-
Scott) who works with the FBI
to solve all their illusion-based
crimes. Of course he does. To
be fair, it’s a comedy crime
caper that also stars Vinnie
Jones. Documentary series
Mafia’s Greatest Hits looks at all
the movers and shakers of the
US Mafia and arrives online on
Thursday.
THURSDAY MARCH 15Our Dream Hotel (TVNZ 1,
8.30pm). Is it a help or a
hindrance to have The Hotel
Inspector’s Alex Polizzi docu-
menting your newbie attempt
to set up a hotel or guest-
house? At least they’re in some
interesting locations, such as
Orkney, Grenada, rural Turkey
and France.
The Looming Tower (SoHo,
Sky 010, 8.30pm). Bold claims
have been made about this
9/11 mini-series before it even
debuted in the US: it “could
be the key to understanding
our national paranoia”, said
Vanity Fair, for one. Based on
Lawrence Wright’s 2006 book,
the mini-series dramatises the
lead-up to the attack on the
World Trade Center in New
York in 2001 and, in particular,
the failure of communication
between the CIA and the FBI.
Documentarian Alex Gibney
directs actors for the first time
in the first episode, although
he uses plenty of news foot-
age, such as an ABC interview
with Osama bin Laden from- Jeff Daniels plays the
larger-than-life FBI agent John
O’Neill, who was pushing
for a deeper investigation
into al Qaeda and bin Laden;
Peter Sarsgaard is a CIA agent
unwilling to share intelligence;
and Alec Baldwin plays CIA
boss George Tenet.
Onlineby FIONA RAE
Catch of the Week
discovery of the toe-bone of
an allosaur and his student
work in the 1970s.
Historian Alice Garner meets
a man who was on Cheviot
Beach, Victoria, on December
17, 1967, when Prime Minister
Harold Holt disappeared while
swimming. Oliver explores
Phillip Island, famous not only
for the motor-racing circuit
but also for the little penguins
that were threatened with
extinction by a subdivision.
Most spectacularly, Oliver
takes a helicopter ride to Skull
Rock, a large island structure
that has been cut off from the
mainland for 18,000 years.
There’s so much to explore:
subsequent episodes cover
northern NSW, the southwest
of Western Australia, Torres
Strait, Norfolk Island, southern
NSW and, finally, the Pilbara in
northern WA, where there is
the highest concentration of
rock art in the world. lSVOD HIGHLIGHT: What’s
good in subscription video
on demand. Sean Bean
famously dies in just
about everything, so it’s
nice to know he is finally
likely to survive, in The
Frankenstein Chronicles
on Netflix, although his
character, a police officer,
does have syphilis. Just
madness, then. It’s a dark 19th-century tale in
which he investigates crimes possibly motivated
by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Anna Maxwell
Martin appears as Shelley and Tom Ward plays
Sir Robert Peel.The Boulet Brothers: DragulaThe Frankenstein
ChroniclesRillington Place, Monday.