TV reviews: top shows to watch this week include a Cold Chisel doco, more Strife and Tina Fey's Four Seasons
The veteran rockers in Cold Chisel are going harder than ever at 50.
COLD CHISEL: THE BIG 5-0
SUNDAY, 8PM, CHANNEL 7
If you were one of the 250,000 or so people at one of the 23 sold-out Cold Chisel shows to celebrate the revered Australian band's 50th anniversary last year, you'll already know what joyous, adrenalized, quasi-religious experience it was. For anyone else with even a passing interest in one of the greatest bands this country has ever produced, this live show from Melbourne's Sidney Myer Music Bowl is the next best thing. It captures an astonishing band – one that has always been greater than the sum of its parts – in full flight and having an absolute blast in delighting a devoted crowd with high octane hits like Standing on the Outside, Cheap Wine and Goodbye Astrid, to more contemplative moments with Flame Trees, Four Walls and Plaza Hotel. There are also candid interviews with the band, as front man Jimmy Barnes shares his astonishment at reaching the big milestone, guitarist Ian Moss reflects on the band's bumpy journey, chief songwriter Don Walker reveals his favourite creation, bassist Phil Smalls remembers the tough times, and some touching archival footage of the band's late drummer Steve Prestwich.
Timothée Chalamet and Monica Barbaro in A Complete Unknown.
A COMPLETE UNKNOWN
WEDNESDAY, DISNEY+
Timothee Chalamet was well worth his Oscar nomination this year for his uncanny portrayal of the great Bob Dylan in director James Mangold's expertly-crafted biopic. Rather than trying to cram the music great's entire life into a couple of hours, A Complete Unknown focuses on Dylan's early years after arriving in New York City, during which he outgrew his folk roots to become an unlikely heart-throb and music sensation. Dune star Chalamet trained for five years to learn to sing and play guitar and harmonica like Dylan, and is hugely impressive in the live and studio scenes as the singer expanded his creative horizons – and defied backlash – in the lead-up to his now legendary electric performance at the Newport Folk Festival.
Asher Keddie is back as Evelyn Jones in Strife.
STRIFE
THURSDAY, BINGE
Six months after the events of the first season and Asher Keddie's new media entrepreneur Evelyn Jones is struggling. Former staffer Christine is about to launch her rival website (amusingly titled Whoman – the H is silent), her business is battling financially after expanding too rapidly and contemplating entering the world of podcasting, and she's desperately trying to hide her rage and self-pity, both of which are fuelled by an online stalker, who is bad for Eve's reputation but excellent for engagement. The always watchable Keddie remains the best thing about this home grown comedy-drama, finding laughs and pathos in Eve's blend of strength and vulnerability as she juggles the responsibilities of family, business, love and modern feminism.
Multiple Cynthia Erivos and Natasha Lyonne in Poker Face.
POKER FACE
THURSDAY, STAN
Wicked fans can see a whole lot more Cynthia Erivo – playing five different roles – in the series return of Rian Johnson's (Knives Out) hugely entertaining, star-studded murder-of-the-week comedy drama that tips its hat knowingly to classics of the genre from Columbo to Murder, She Wrote. With Natasha Lyonne's ex-cocktail waitress Charlie Cale still on the run from the mafia and speeding around the country taking odd jobs and avoiding hit men, she pitches up at an apple farm, where she makes friends with a former child star, one of a set of quintuplets. When their nasty mother and former manager dies, Charlie becomes tangled up in the squabble for her fortune, using her uncanny ability to know when someone is lying to unravel an outlandish and hilariously complex plot.
Georgie Tunny narrates House Hunters Australia.
HOUSE HUNTERS AUSTRALIA
SUNDAY, 8.15PM, CHANNEL 10
There's nothing especially new or startling about this real estate reality TV series narrated by the lively Georgie Tunny, but anyone looking to break into the property market – or partners who recall the stress and bickering of finding the perfect pad – will relate to the lighthearted, brisk viewing. In this first episode, new parents Billy and Bronte are exploring Sydney's Shire to find a property that will cater to the needs of their growing child as well as balancing his taste for a vintage, lived-in look with her demands for something clean and low maintenance. The show then shifts to a regular home at 7.30pm on Fridays, with older Central Coast couple Bridget and Paul looking to downsize after growing tired of stairs and cleaning three levels.
Sam Pang, Tom Gleisner and Ed Kavalee from Have You Been Paying Attention.
HAVE YOU BEEN PAYING ATTENTION
MONDAY, 8.40PM, CHANNEL 10
With six Logie Awards in a row and a reputation for celebrating and giving exposure to some of Australia's best stand-up talent, comedy-news quiz show Have You Been Paying Attention has become an absolute powerhouse from its humble beginnings. Now in its 13th season, quiz master Tom Gleeson and his reliable team captains Sam Pang and Ed Kavalee are back to pick apart the events of the previous week for maximum laughs and possibly even some accidental learning. In the wild media world of 2025, there will be no shortage of material.
Tina Fey as Kate and Will Forte as Jack in The Four Seasons. Picture: Netflix
THE FOUR SEASONS
NETFLIX
As creator, star and co-writer, the brilliant Tina Fey is the driving force behind this outstanding eight-part remake of Alan Alda's (who also makes a fitting cameo) 1981 movie of the same name. It follows three couples who have been friends for three decades as they catch up for their regular holiday getaways over the course of a year. There's uptight Kate (Fey) and her affable but slightly hopeless husband Jack (Will Forte), suave architect Danny (Colman Domingo) and his flamboyant Italian husband Claude (Marco Calvani), and mega-rich Nick (Steve Carell), who is about to dump his wife Anne (Kerri Kenney-Silver) for the much younger Ginny (Erika Henningson) and throw the tight-knit group into chaos. As it explores the changing nature of love, marriage and friendship it's by turns laugh-out-loud funny and heart-wrenching, but ultimately a deeply satisfying and uplifting experience. More please!
Claudia Karvan finds some family surprises in Who Do You Think You Are.
WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE
TUESDAY, 7.30PM, SBS
Logie-winning actor Claudia Karvan is the first celeb delving into the past for the return of this emotional and rewarding genealogy documentary. With her unconventional childhood – her parents split before she was born and she was raised by her bohemian mother and stepfather in Sydney's Kings Cross – she says she knew little about her forebears and wasn't especially interested, but changes her tune as she travels to England, Cyprus and New Zealand to track down records from both sides of the family. There are tears and gasps as she uncovers sad and moving stories of ancestors raised in orphanages, another who was tortured by WWI PTSD with tragic consequences, a trailblazing feminist and the black sheep who was shunned after bringing the family into disrepute.
The behind-the-scenes staff for the super rich in Billion Dollar Playground.
BILLION DOLLAR PLAYGROUND
TUESDAY, BINGE
Fans of the Real Housewives and Below Decks franchises – and anyone looking for a weirdly voyeuristic glimpse into the life of the uber-rich and entitled one-percenters – will get a kick out of this new reality show about mega-mansions for rent and the people who service them. These week's first episode serves as an introduction to the crew as they prepare for the arrival of the wealthy guests at a harbour-view pad in Sydney's Rose Bay who expect to have their every whim catered too, no matter how ridiculous. There's fiery lead concierge Salvatore, who's created a rod for his own back by appointing two rival deputies, JB the outrageously French butler, 'good-looking brothers who can cook' George and Matthew, and Jay, the Fabio-esque pool guy who has a side hustle as a model for romance book covers. With caviar bumps, missing Dom Perignon and pampered pooches, these are first-world problems of the highest order – but the views are nice.
Mark Coles Smith returns to his childhood home in ABC doco The Kimberley.
THE KIMBERLEY
TUESDAY, 8PM, ABC
Award-winning Mystery Road star and Nyikina man Mark Coles Smith is the perfect guide for this stunning three-part nature doco that spotlights the startlingly varied seasons in some of Australia's most spectacular, inaccessible and unforgiving terrain, the 400,000 sqkm Kimberley Region in northwest Australia. In this week's first episode, he retraces his childhood steps on the Martuwarra/Fitzroy River to uncover the incredible array of wildlife – some of which doesn't live anywhere else – from the dangerous, stealthy and ancient saltwater crocodiles to majestic white bellied sea eagles and how they adapt to the harsh conditions. He also explains the river's deep spiritual connection to the many Indigenous nations along its length, and their ongoing vigilance to protect it from invasive and potentially destructive mining, water extraction and fracking.
Seth Rogen get his hero moment in The Green Hornet.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT …
THE GREEN HORNET
Streaming on Tubi
As far as unlikely superheroes go, they don't come more unlikely than Seth Rogen. Known for playing loveable louts in films such as Knocked Up and Superbad, Rogen puts his signature wisecracking and dishevelled spin on the superhero genre in this 2011 film. He plays Britt Reid, a wealthy publisher who dreams of crime fighting and so enlists his mechanic, Kato (Jay Chou), to become his karate-kicking sidekick. Thankfully, none of this requires Rogen to don Lycra because Reid's alter ego, the Green Hornet, is more a fedora and three-piece-suit-wearing sort of good guy. And, in typical Rogen style, he's secured a love interest who would normally be well out of his league, in the shape of Cameron Diaz.
tubitv.com
Originally published as What to watch on TV this week: Cold Chisel rocking hard at 50; Asher Keddie back in more Strife
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Australian author Belinda Lyons-Lee's 2021 debut novel, Tussaud, was based on the life of Madame Marie Tussaud, who was forced to make wax death masks of those guillotined during the French Revolution. Her new literary historical fiction explores the relationship believed to have inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's masterpiece, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Told in the voice of Robert's wife Fanny, this gothic saga blending biography and macabre murder mystery is set in 19th-century France and Scotland and follows Robert's friendship with the seemingly charming Eugene Chantrelle, who was tried and hanged for murdering his wife. Brandon Jack. Summit Books. $34.99. The son of Balmain Tigers rugby league legend Garry Jack and younger brother of Sydney Swans legend Kieren Jack, Brandon Jack played 28 AFL games for the Swans - 28 being the title he gave his bold 2021 memoir about a footy dream thwarted. Now Jack parlays those experiences into his debut novel, a satire of a professional football club full of towering egos, toxic machismo, painkillers and perverse rituals, where fringe players Fangs, Stick, Squidman and Shaggers chase on-field adulation - if they can survive the locker room. "Nothing like this has ever happened at a footy club. Honest," the back cover blurb winks. Read Michael Robotham's new crime saga The White Crow and Helen Trinca's Looking for Elizabeth. Helen Trinca. La Trobe University Press. $36.99. The acclaimed Australian novelist Elizabeth Harrower was in full command of her craft when, after the publication of her fourth book, The Watch Tower, and suffering from writer's block, she stopped writing and faded from view. Harrower's withdrawal from literary life after missing out on the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 1967 earned her frequent admonishments from her irascible friend Patrick White, but it wasn't until decades later that she permitted her final novel, In Certain Circles, to be published. Trinca explores Harrower's sense of abandonment and how, even 70 years after the fact, she still described herself as "a divorced child". Kate Marvel. Scribe. $36.99. Climate scientist Kate Marvel offers a refreshingly different perspective on our changing planet by anchoring her thoughts in emotions. Each of the nine chapters uses a different feeling - from wonder to grief and love - to illuminate the complex realities of climate change. Drawing on science, memory, and even moments of humour, Marvel blends intellect with intimacy to reveal the personal stakes of a global crisis. "The future remains uncertain," she writes. "But I'm sending my children there, and they are never coming back. I think about it every day. And then, I feel." An eloquent discussion about a shifting world. Dr Rami Kaminski. Scribe. $32.99. Are you the awkward odd one out at parties, but completely comfortable - even energised - when socialising over dinner with a friend? You're definitely not an extrovert, but how can you be an introvert? You don't crave solitude, so what's going on? Psychiatrist Rami Kaminski examined his own "non-belonging" and coined the term "otrovert" to describe someone who looks "neither inward nor outward: our fundamental orientation is defined by the fact that it is rarely the same direction that everyone else is facing". Kaminski discusses abandoning the urge to fit in and the advantages of a life "off the communal grid". Julian Kingma. NewSouth Books. $49.99. This is an incredibly confronting book. It is also an incredibly intimate and important book, because it is about voluntary assisted dying. It tells the stories of people courageously facing the final day of their life on their own terms. Photographer Julian Kingma spent a year documenting VAD, meeting those with incurable conditions, their relatives and carers, and the doctors, pharmacists and palliative specialists who are part of the process. His black-and-white photographs and the words that accompany them are powerful tributes to their subjects, whose stories will help others to understand. With essays by Andrew Denton and Richard Flanagan. Michael Robotham. Hachette. $32.99. First introduced in Michael Robotham's hit 2021 crime thriller When You Are Mine, PC Philomena McCarthy is a devoted London cop whose father and uncles just so happen to be old-school crims. In this new saga, PC McCarthy is called to a jewellery store robbery when she discovers a child in pyjamas wandering the street whose family has been targeted in a violent home invasion. The links between the two crimes, and evidence suggesting her father is involved, thrust our heroine into a gang war; her career in jeopardy and her family dangerously outgunned by a vicious new underbelly boss. P.A. Thomas. Echo Publishing. $32.99. Byron Bay-based P. A. Thomas, who studied medicine in Newcastle and now works as a specialist at a Brisbane public hospital, follows his 2024 debut The Beacon with another Byron-set murder mystery featuring Jack Harris, a reporter at the local newspaper, The Beacon. When forensic pathologist Nicola Fox arrives for a long-overdue break at her beachside holiday house she's shocked to discover someone sunbaking on a sun lounge in the backyard - and the bloke's been dead for some time. When police suggest she is their prime suspect, Nicola teams up with journalist Jack to investigate the who, want, when, where and why. The Haunting of Mr and Mrs Stevenson Belinda Lyons-Lee. Transit Lounge. $34.99. Australian author Belinda Lyons-Lee's 2021 debut novel, Tussaud, was based on the life of Madame Marie Tussaud, who was forced to make wax death masks of those guillotined during the French Revolution. Her new literary historical fiction explores the relationship believed to have inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's masterpiece, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Told in the voice of Robert's wife Fanny, this gothic saga blending biography and macabre murder mystery is set in 19th-century France and Scotland and follows Robert's friendship with the seemingly charming Eugene Chantrelle, who was tried and hanged for murdering his wife. Brandon Jack. Summit Books. $34.99. The son of Balmain Tigers rugby league legend Garry Jack and younger brother of Sydney Swans legend Kieren Jack, Brandon Jack played 28 AFL games for the Swans - 28 being the title he gave his bold 2021 memoir about a footy dream thwarted. Now Jack parlays those experiences into his debut novel, a satire of a professional football club full of towering egos, toxic machismo, painkillers and perverse rituals, where fringe players Fangs, Stick, Squidman and Shaggers chase on-field adulation - if they can survive the locker room. "Nothing like this has ever happened at a footy club. Honest," the back cover blurb winks. Read Michael Robotham's new crime saga The White Crow and Helen Trinca's Looking for Elizabeth. Helen Trinca. La Trobe University Press. $36.99. The acclaimed Australian novelist Elizabeth Harrower was in full command of her craft when, after the publication of her fourth book, The Watch Tower, and suffering from writer's block, she stopped writing and faded from view. Harrower's withdrawal from literary life after missing out on the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 1967 earned her frequent admonishments from her irascible friend Patrick White, but it wasn't until decades later that she permitted her final novel, In Certain Circles, to be published. Trinca explores Harrower's sense of abandonment and how, even 70 years after the fact, she still described herself as "a divorced child". Kate Marvel. Scribe. $36.99. Climate scientist Kate Marvel offers a refreshingly different perspective on our changing planet by anchoring her thoughts in emotions. Each of the nine chapters uses a different feeling - from wonder to grief and love - to illuminate the complex realities of climate change. Drawing on science, memory, and even moments of humour, Marvel blends intellect with intimacy to reveal the personal stakes of a global crisis. "The future remains uncertain," she writes. "But I'm sending my children there, and they are never coming back. I think about it every day. And then, I feel." An eloquent discussion about a shifting world. Dr Rami Kaminski. Scribe. $32.99. Are you the awkward odd one out at parties, but completely comfortable - even energised - when socialising over dinner with a friend? You're definitely not an extrovert, but how can you be an introvert? You don't crave solitude, so what's going on? Psychiatrist Rami Kaminski examined his own "non-belonging" and coined the term "otrovert" to describe someone who looks "neither inward nor outward: our fundamental orientation is defined by the fact that it is rarely the same direction that everyone else is facing". Kaminski discusses abandoning the urge to fit in and the advantages of a life "off the communal grid". Julian Kingma. NewSouth Books. $49.99. This is an incredibly confronting book. It is also an incredibly intimate and important book, because it is about voluntary assisted dying. It tells the stories of people courageously facing the final day of their life on their own terms. Photographer Julian Kingma spent a year documenting VAD, meeting those with incurable conditions, their relatives and carers, and the doctors, pharmacists and palliative specialists who are part of the process. His black-and-white photographs and the words that accompany them are powerful tributes to their subjects, whose stories will help others to understand. With essays by Andrew Denton and Richard Flanagan. Michael Robotham. Hachette. $32.99. First introduced in Michael Robotham's hit 2021 crime thriller When You Are Mine, PC Philomena McCarthy is a devoted London cop whose father and uncles just so happen to be old-school crims. In this new saga, PC McCarthy is called to a jewellery store robbery when she discovers a child in pyjamas wandering the street whose family has been targeted in a violent home invasion. The links between the two crimes, and evidence suggesting her father is involved, thrust our heroine into a gang war; her career in jeopardy and her family dangerously outgunned by a vicious new underbelly boss. P.A. Thomas. Echo Publishing. $32.99. Byron Bay-based P. A. Thomas, who studied medicine in Newcastle and now works as a specialist at a Brisbane public hospital, follows his 2024 debut The Beacon with another Byron-set murder mystery featuring Jack Harris, a reporter at the local newspaper, The Beacon. When forensic pathologist Nicola Fox arrives for a long-overdue break at her beachside holiday house she's shocked to discover someone sunbaking on a sun lounge in the backyard - and the bloke's been dead for some time. When police suggest she is their prime suspect, Nicola teams up with journalist Jack to investigate the who, want, when, where and why. The Haunting of Mr and Mrs Stevenson Belinda Lyons-Lee. Transit Lounge. $34.99. Australian author Belinda Lyons-Lee's 2021 debut novel, Tussaud, was based on the life of Madame Marie Tussaud, who was forced to make wax death masks of those guillotined during the French Revolution. Her new literary historical fiction explores the relationship believed to have inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's masterpiece, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Told in the voice of Robert's wife Fanny, this gothic saga blending biography and macabre murder mystery is set in 19th-century France and Scotland and follows Robert's friendship with the seemingly charming Eugene Chantrelle, who was tried and hanged for murdering his wife. Brandon Jack. Summit Books. $34.99. The son of Balmain Tigers rugby league legend Garry Jack and younger brother of Sydney Swans legend Kieren Jack, Brandon Jack played 28 AFL games for the Swans - 28 being the title he gave his bold 2021 memoir about a footy dream thwarted. Now Jack parlays those experiences into his debut novel, a satire of a professional football club full of towering egos, toxic machismo, painkillers and perverse rituals, where fringe players Fangs, Stick, Squidman and Shaggers chase on-field adulation - if they can survive the locker room. "Nothing like this has ever happened at a footy club. Honest," the back cover blurb winks.
