FREE TO AIR
Commando School, SBS One, 8.30pm
The publicity material for Commando School touts the setting – the Royal Marines' Commando Training Centre in Devon, England – as "arguably the most arduous basic military training program in the world". I'm not sure what the next two episodes have in store, but if the first is any indication, the claim appears exaggerated. Although the show might try to paint drill instructor Corporal "Froggy" Chauffour as a dictator, the giggles that escape the soldiers during a final inspection tell a different story. Why anyone would want to sign up for a life of meticulously ironed sheets, polished shoes and punishing drills is beyond me, but as one marine explains: "You get hooked on the bravery and the lifestyle ... it's become an obsession." As we're only two weeks into the 32-week program, it will be interesting to see if he changes his tune.
Opening Shot: Crack Up, ABC2, 9.30pm
We all know that sometimes the best way to deal with a bad situation is to make light of it. In Amelia Paxman's directorial debut, a group of people with mental illnesses are united in a common goal: to create a comedy skit over the course of 12 weeks, and present it at Federation Square in front of 150 people. The rewards involved in such a pursuit are obvious: the interaction with those dealing with similar challenges, the confidence gained through public speaking, and the healing power of humour. The course convener, Canadian comic and counsellor David Granirer, has firsthand experience in dealing with severe depression and his obvious enthusiasm makes him the strongest presence here. Less is gleaned from the aspiring comics, other than the clear sense that projects such as these create a feel-good ripple effect.
Bones, Seven, 8.30pm
I like that Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and Booth (David Boreanaz) properly have it out on this show, just like a real-life couple. Less plausible is the idea that recently widowed Daisy Wick (Carla Gallo) would be allowed to perform an autopsy on her husband, FBI psychologist Lance Sweets (John Francis Daley), but we shouldn't let that get in the way of a good story. Sweets' death has affected the entire team and makes this episode's mission of finding his killer – who is also one of the people behind the conspiracy that sent Booth to prison – all the more pressing.
Annabel Ross
PAY TV
The Truth About Us: Russell Crowe, Monday, Bio, 8.30pm
A surprisingly engrossing and emotional start to a series in which famous antipodeans bring non-famous friends in for a chat with journalist Angela Pulvirenti. The friendship between Russell Crowe and his personal costumer, Mickey Castellano, seems as close and intense as it is unlikely. They met in 1995, when the 29-year-old Kiwi was not yet the superstar he would become and the 52-year-old New Yorker had already lived enough to fill at least a couple of lifetimes. The story of how Crowe cemented their friendship is startling, but it's Castellano's stories that are most fascinating. His mafia-boss uncle making him a bodyguard for Frank Sinatra is just the start.
Jane the Virgin, Fox8, 8.30pm
Here's the pitch: a sweet 23-year-old virgin goes in for a pap smear but her hysterical lesbian gynaecologist accidentally impregnates her with the last drops of sperm from a rich hotelier who has been rendered infertile by cancer. Oh, and it's a romantic dramedy series based on a Venezuelan telenovela. And there's a narrator with a Latin accent and an arch tone to explain the myriad connections between said virgin (Gina Rodriguez), her libidinous mother, her super-religious grandmother and a bunch of other characters. If you'd green-light that you'll series-link it.
Brad Newsome
MOVIES
Red Riding Trilogy: 1974 (2009), SBS Two, 1.20am (Tuesday)
David Peace's quartet of novels, about monstrous acts and the police corruption that flourishes around and eventually in the very midst of them over a decade in Yorkshire, became a trilogy of films, each with a different director and lead actor, but they add up to something inexplicable. A brief shot of an ambitious young journalist, Eddie (Andrew Garfield), at a press conference for a missing child at the beginning of the first film is repeated at the end, as if he – and thus we – have known all along that everything is fixed and that trying to change that will result in doom. Peace's writing, driven by sustained monologues, is turned into sardonic exchanges and bittersweet assignations, especially when Eddie falls in with Paula (Rebecca Hall), the grief-stricken mother of a previously abducted child. Many interior shades of brown and housing estates that look post-apocalyptic suggest a damaged world, bereft of hope but nonetheless hypnotic thanks to director Julian Jarrold.
The Untouchables (1987), Thriller Movies (pay TV), 6.25pm
David Mamet's first draft of the Hollywood remake of the 1950s television show about the nascent FBI and prohibition reportedly took all of four weeks and it pretty much had everything that allowed the producers and director Brian De Palma to cast a young Kevin Costner (as FBI agent Eliot Ness), Robert De Niro (as crime boss Al Capone) and Sean Connery (as Ness's mentor, veteran beat cop Jimmy Malone) as their leads. More than a quarter century on, it remains a rattling, righteous update of the cops and robbers genre, with great blasts of chewy dialogue from Mamet that both DeNiro and Connery delight in. During production, however, Mamet started work on his own directorial debut, the crooked psychological study House of Games, and wouldn't write another line for the film. De Palma came up with visual solutions: watch De Niro's face in a scene in which an opera drowns out the dialogue delivering good news. That picture really is worth a thousand words.
Craig Mathieson
