FREE TO AIR
The Flying Miners, ABC, 8.30pm
It's easy to forget that behind the so-called "mining boom" there is an army of individuals whose lives are intimately bound up with the industry. Just as China's seemingly insatiable appetite for our minerals is having a massive effect at a national level it is also distorting and influencing the lives of the workers who dig it out of the ground. The combination of the FIFO "lifestyle" and the huge rewards on offer amount to a massive social experiment on the 100,000 or so workers involved.
The parts of Flying Miners that document the working day of workers such as Nick Dametto and Mark Lynch are interesting enough in themselves, but it becomes fascinating when they start to discuss the psychological effects of the job. Over and again they talk about being "trapped" by the money. Typically, new recruits will intend to work a couple of years in the mines. And, typically, they stay on and on, seduced by the cash. And, of course, it can't last forever. What happens then is anybody's guess.
Bad Education, ABC2, 10pm
This is the opener for the second series of a show that has come in for a certain amount of flak for allegedly perpetuating stereotypes – i.e. the over-the-top gay kid who loves to dance and the fat kid who is targeted by bullies. Only you, dear viewer, can decide whether it is a delicious and clever send-up of school dramas in particular and prejudice in general or whether it's merely a lazy, by-the-numbers sitcom. Personally, I'm going with the former, encouraged by the fact that it is genuinely funny (to this reviewer at least). And not only is it funny it is also funny almost all the time. There are no flat spots, or awkward set-ups leading to the next laugh.
Much of this is down to the writing with lines such as this (directed at teacher Alfie's new haircut by Mitchell): "At least I don't look like an Amish rent boy". In this episode, Alfie discovers Rosie has a new, female partner ("I didn't think the idea of lesbians could make me so miserable"). Yes it's puerile. Yes it's a touch offensive and yes it made me laugh. A lot.
Nurse Jackie, Eleven, 10.50pm
Jackie decides to detox at home: cue a series of wild, wacky and very confusing dream/hallucination scenes. You'll having trouble sorting reality from what's happening inside Jackie's very mixed-up head. It's worth persevering with, though.
Nick Galvin
PAY TV
The Leftovers, Showcase, 8.35pm
You might think the sudden disappearance of 2 per cent of the world's population would send Americans flocking to their churches. And perhaps it has – but not to the quaint little Episcopalian church of Matt Jamison (Christopher Eccleston). The shrinking of Jamison's flock might have something to do with the fact that he's trying to prove that the disappearance wasn't the Rapture predicted by certain evangelical eschatologies. He's trying to do this by printing a scandal sheet detailing the sins of the disappeared.
Tonight the latest edition of his scandal publication earns him a brutal beating in front of the few parishioners who remain. It's the first of many insults and injuries he suffers as he sets out on a desperate and almost surreal attempt to save his church from repossession and secure a future for his comatose wife. Eccleston is magnetic in a fine episode of a strange but enthralling series.
Brad Newsome
MOVIES
A Damsel in Distress (1937), ABC, 1.35am (Wednesday)
In season five of the divine Downton Abbey, Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) is still in deep fret over whom she should marry. Perhaps she – and her creator, Julian Fellowes – should take solace from this similarly plotted comedy from director George Stevens (The Talk of the Town) and writer P. G. Wodehouse – with eight George Gershwin songs. It stars Fred Astaire (who never made a film you shouldn't watch), George Burns and Gracie Allen.
The Secret Garden (1949), TCM (pay TV), 6.55pm
In one of cinema's most astonishing opening sequences, the camera tracks towards a wooden door in a garden wall. Awoman's hand reaches out to insert an old key and turn a handle, and then reveal what is beyond ... But you will have to wait until much later in the story to discover what is actually there and what it all means, in this charming, sweet and very touching children's film.
Based on the classic novel of Frances Hodgson Burnett, Fred M. Wilcox's sublime film is about a free-spirited 10-year old, Mary Lennox (Margaret O'Brien), who, after being orphaned in British India, is sent to live with her reclusive and stone-hearted uncle, Archibald Craven (Herbert Marshall), in a rural mansion of Thornfield Hall-like dimensions and oppressiveness. Her life would be intolerable were it not for the friendship of a housemaid's little brother (Brian Roper), who tells her about a secret garden, and a bed-ridden cousin (Dean Stockwell).
Being good and uncontrollable children, they will let no adult command stop their desire to unlock that forbidding wooden door. And, as in all good cinematic adventures, they will be profoundly changed by what they experience on the other side – and help others to change, as well. This is a film that resists analysis, a masterpiece of such sensitivity and uniqueness that attempts to describe it risk undermining its magic. Simply surrender to the enchantment.
Scott Murray
