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The World’s Greatest Food Markets, SBS One, 8.30pm
Roger Barton is The Bastard of Billingsgate, a tough-as-nails, sometimes dodgy, feared-by-all stall-holder at London’s Billingsgate market. In this series the 50-year-veteran fish seller tests his skills at markets around the world. First stop is New Fulton fish market in New York’s The Bronx. If The Bastard thought London was tough, here he’s a babe in the woods, easy pickings for some truly hard operators and out-of-the-box characters. Never has fishmongering been so interesting.
Hiding, ABC, 8.30pm
As security slip-ups mount, the Swift family increasingly finds that anonymity under the witness- protection program is not so easy to maintain. The bad, bad people are still after them – Brazilian people traffickers, represented locally by the sinister Nils Vandenberg (Marcus Graham) – and danger inches ever closer as everything seems to be falling apart. Lincoln Quigg’s (James Stewart) inability to dish quality dirt on the bigwigs means John Pinder (Stephen Curry), the cop running their protection operation, has to pull his support. And mum Maree (Kate Jenkinson) has been unstitching their security measures to meet the daughter she and Lincoln adopted out 20 years earlier. A final confrontation sees an unexpected climax to the series. As a story of a family under pressure, dealing with the tension of new identities in a new city after being ripped away from the life they knew, Hiding has been a gripping ride. Despite a few odd plot choices (Dr Lincoln Swift – really?), the narrative has held together well. And apart from a bit of flashback overload, the only stylistic quibble would be with the extravagant experimentation with depth of field. It’s a great tool to go in close on a face while the rest of the world is blurred but it gets a bit much after the 10th time. That aside, a great series, with terrific performances and classy direction.
Portlandia, ABC2, 9.55pm
The fifth season of this innovative series opens with Candace and Toni – high-flying corporates in the publishing world battling it out to head the “Chick Lit Department” of their merged company. Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein (Saturday Night Live) are brilliant as the bookish bitches. Low-key character-driven comedy at its best.
Gordon Farrer
PAY TV
B.O.R.N. to Style, Thursday, Style, 8.30pm
This sassy fashion makeover show is fun and educational – and the only way it could possibly be more camp is if they filmed it in a Ray’s Outdoors store. Tonight New York boutique owner Jonathan Bodrick and his staff are helping real-estate broker Savitri, who dresses too young for her job. Savitri wants a look inspired by Victoria Beckham, which sends Bodrick’s boys swooning at the thought of David Beckham. Eventually, Savitri gets a brilliant makeover, a lesson in fashion basics and a helpful make-up tutorial.
MOVIES
Laurel Canyon (2003), Romance Movies (pay TV), 4.35pm
Lisa Cholodenko’s study of creative freedom and fidelity revolves around Jane (Frances McDormand), a famous Los Angeles record producer who has focused on getting the music right to the detriment of those close to her. It’s the reason her son, Sam (Christian Bale, prior to becoming an inviolate action hero), fled eastwards to the Ivy League and just the thought of his conservative fiancee, Alex (Kate Beckinsale), a fellow medical student, meeting his mother terrifies him. But when Sam returns to intern at a hospital, Alex proves to be more receptive to Jane’s world, hanging around the studio as her future mother-in-law tries to make a record with a typically diffident British band, whose vocalist, Ian (Alessandro Nivola), is her latest beau. Laurel Canyon is evocative but unformed. The film doesn’t need Jane to confess, ‘‘I haven’t been a very good parent; I know that’’; that should be obvious. Perhaps the Californian scent of money, pot and psychobabble overwhelmed Cholodenko.
Mean Girls (2004), Eleven, 9.30pm
The best teen films aren’t really made for their target audience, whether it’s the sensationalist reportage of Rebel Without a Cause or the black satire of Heathers. Mean Girls, directed by Mark Waters and written by Tina Fey (who also has a supporting role as a very Liz Lemon-like teacher), aspires to the latter, but its quotable pithiness and occasionally tart non sequiturs cannot hide the fact genre rules plays an increasingly influential role in this cafeteria comedy. Lindsay Lohan went from tween to teen figurehead with her portrayal of Cady Heron, a 15-year-old American girl home-schooled by her academic parents in Africa her entire life. Enrolled in a clique-ridden US high school, Cady is completely lost. ‘‘She’s like a Martian,’’ marvels the imperious Regina (Rachel McAdams), the queen bee of the ruling Plastics, who treats her underlings with the kind of cruel attention favoured by African dictators having a night in. Cady comes to understand her new environment as a version of the jungle – complete with predators – and inspired by a pair of friendly outcasts, not to mention the hope of attaining a dreamy but totally hot boy, she becomes a Plastic in order to destroy them. Of course, like the undercover cop too long amidst the mob, her mission and the milieu start to blur together and her noble intentions fade. Watch for Amy Poehler’s scene as Regina’s ‘‘hip’’ mum, whose desire for camaraderie and cool is excruciatingly funny.
Craig Mathieson