ScreenScribe

Tonight’s season premiere of The Vampire Diaries (TV2, 10.30) coincides with news of star Claire Holt (Rebekah) landing her own spin-off series, The Originals. The backdoor pilot for the sister show will be Diaries’ April 25 episode in the US; Joseph Morgan (Klaus) and Phoebe Tonkin (Hayley) will co-star. According to the publicity, “The Originals centres on the [...]

Sky Movies Greats: Unforgiven (Sky 22, 8.30, 5.1) Clint Eastwood’s multi-Oscar-winning western shoots accepted conventions full of holes and takes no prisoners when it comes to telling the truth. Rarely has a western redressed the inaccuracies and exaggerations of fiction and film with such steadfast and sometimes amusing authenticity. Yet underlying Unforgiven’s stark revisionism is the genre’s [...]

SoHo Highlight: The Promise (Sky 10, 8.30, 5.1) Reading about the dramatic events in her grandfather’s diary, Erin is determined to resolve the mystery surrounding the fate of his charwallah friend Mohammed. This is part three of a four-part epic The New Statesman hailed as “a reflective and excruciatingly well-researched series that throws light on a [...]

SoHo Cinema: Iron-Jawed Angels (Sky 10, 8.30, 5.1) The inspirational true story of how two young suffragists, Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, dared to make a stand for women’s rights and ended up shaping the future of America. Said the US TV Guide: “All the elements for a splendid film about the early days of the women’s [...]

SoHo Cinema: Bernard and Doris (Sky 10, 8.30, 5.1) HBO’s 2008 dramatisation of  tobacco billionairess Doris Duke’s relationship with her gay butler, to whom she left her fortune, was given white gloves treatment by critics. “Susan Sarandon is at her scrappy, sexy best as tobacco heiress Doris Duke — think Paris Hilton with brains and genuine hotness,” [...]

SoHo Highlight: One Nation Under Dog (Sky 10, 8.30, 5.1) A look at the sobering realities behind our relationship with dogs, showing how far some dog lovers will go, and how far we have to go to treat all dogs humanely. “Well into One Nation Under Dog, HBO’s revealing but difficult documentary about our deep bonds with [...]

SoHo Cinema: The Laramie Project (Sky 10, 8.30, 5.1) Ten years after it first aired on HBO, this docudramatisation of how 21-year-old Mathew Shepard was murdered in Wyoming because he was gay at last screens here in HD. It re-enacts what happened when director Moses Kaufman and his Tectonic Theatre Project Troupe went to Laramie [...]

Season Finale: Glee (TV3, 7.30, 5.1, F) Graduation is finally here, as McKinley High’s class of 2012 looks to the past and present while contemplating the future. “It turned out to be a solid, at times fantastic, season-closer where some of Glee’s general weaknesses turned out to be strengths,” Time magazine said. But Rolling Stone thought otherwise: “With a [...]

Season Premiere: Supernatural (TV2, 10.35, 5.1) Assuming his new role as God, Castiel sets out to right some of the wrongs in the world; Dean decides to bind Death in order to stop him. According to website 28 Days Later, ”Supernatural’s season seven premiere is looking promising as long as the series’ writers know where to focus the tale. [...]

New Zealand’s definitive free-to-air guide to what’s airing nightly in 1080i: Saturday TradeZone Gone Fishin’ (TV3, 5.30) Hyundai Country Calendar (TV One, 7.00) ITM Fishing Show (TV3, 7.00) Judy Bailey’s Australia (TV One, 8.30) Ice Road Truckers (TV3, 7.30, 5.1) CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (TV3, 8.30, 5.1) The Mentalist (TV2, 10.00, 5.1, R) Sunday Pretty Little Liars (TV2, 5.30, 5.1) The War [...]