What's on TV this week: OITNB, Dead Lucky, Pointless and more

IF I’M honest, the only thing I care about this week is Patrick Melrose.

It’s one of those all-engrossing, prestige dramas that makes every other TV show you’re watching look like trash. But with only one hour to sustain us until next week, I guess we’ll have to fill in those other hours somehow.

Or maybe watching Benedict Cumberbatch in a drug-fuelled fit of mania isn’t your idea of a fun time, which is a perfectly valid life choice. I won’t judge (too much).

DEAD LUCKY

(SBS — Wednesday, July 25 at 9.30pm)

I’m not sure where Dead Lucky went wrong because when the trailer first dropped for this local crime drama, it looked so promising. I mean, the inestimable Rachel Griffiths wouldn’t choose a dud? Surely. Alas, Dead Lucky is, at best, a run-of-the-mill story about Sydney cops trying to catch a serial killer who killed one of their own. When he starts his reign of terror again, the cops are ready to pounce, well, maybe ready.

Griffiths plays Grace, a seasoned detective who’s partnered with Charlie Fung (Yoson An), a junior detective-in-training. There’s the usual personal drama (she feels resentful of her ex’s new partner’s influence over her daughter) and a cadre of characters whose lives will inevitably clash. While it’s a credit to the series to feature a cast of diverse actors, some of our better known talents are all too guilty of “Acting”, resorting to simplistic caricatures rather fully fleshed performances.

PATRICK MELROSE

(BBC First on Foxtel and Fetch — Monday, July 23 at 9.30pm)

Painful but darkly funny, manic but thoughtful, terribly sad but deliciously watchable, Patrick Melrose has everything you want in a prestige drama. Benedict Cumberbatch gives a career-defining performance as the titular character in this miniseries adapted from Edward St. Aubyn’s books.

Following the saga of Patrick, the only child of his cold, British upper class father and his flighty, rich American mother, his traumatic childhood manifests in a life of addiction and pain. But that’s not too say this series is heavy and burdensome — it delights in the absurdity and rot of the elites.

Beautifully composed and bitingly written, what brings Patrick Melrose together is the superb performance from Cumberbatch, who was clearly destined to play this complex and meaty role.

POINTLESS

(Ten — weeknights at 6pm)

Admit it, you’re curious. And anything that forced Family Feud off our screens (hopefully forever) can’t be a bad thing. Where Family Feud rewarded mediocrity, Pointless rewards ingenuity. Plus we’ll take the very funny Mark Humphries over the aww-shucks Grant Denyer any day — I’d be uppity over that Logie win if I thought the Logies were worth something.

If you don’t get how Pointless works, you’re not alone. The best I can make of it is it’s like a reverse-Family Feud — you still have to get the correct answer but whereas before you had to try and guess the most common response from 100 people who had nothing better to do than sit in a studio audience for Family Feud, now you need to pick the answer other people are the least likely to guess. Like, if you were asked to name a Shakespeare play, don’t just shout Romeo and Juliet, try The Two Noble Kinsmen.

AMERICAN HORROR STORY: CULT

(Showcase on Foxtel — Thursday, July 26 at 9.30pm)

American Horror Story is back to shock, titillate and confront. Now in its seventh year, the anthology series has decided there’s nothing more horrifying than our current political reality. Set in the days after Donald Trump’s 2016 election, the latest AHS incarnation, in all of its campy glory, sees the return of its stellar cast in terrifying new roles, including Sarah Paulson and Evan Peters with the latter called on to don six characters.

In a small Michigan town, two political opposites Ally (Paulson) and Kai (Peters) embody the political paranoia of our era, which Cult lampoons with glee. Ally finds herself attacked by clowns (real or imagined) while lone wolf Kai expertly recruits vulnerable targets in his extremist campaign in the age of MAGA.

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK

(Netflix — Friday, July 27 from 5pm AEST)

If you thought Orange is the New Black was getting long in the tooth, you’d be right. OITNB is Netflix’s second oldest show (five months younger than House of Cards) and it’s showing its age. After spending the entirety of its previous season on a days-long prison riot, it’s wisely restructured this new chapter — or maybe it’s returning to the old structure — by not wasting 13 episodes drawing out one event. The writing just wasn’t good enough to sustain it.

With the Litchfield inmates now facing new challenges and foes in maximum security, expect a bit of a change-up but not enough to make it shiny and new, though it has, at least, culled its increasingly unwieldy ensemble cast. There are still flashbacks, though they’re less compelling and narratively necessary than they use to be. Honestly, you should watch GLOW instead.

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