Show of the Week: Parenthood, Seven, 10pm

The sixth and final season in the messy lives of the extended Braverman clan begins with two ticking time bombs that promise to fuel the strained exchanges that have characterised this drama for some episodes to come. Amber (Mae Whitman, Arrested Development), on the cusp of her gap year, is single and pregnant. And patriarch Zeek (Craig T. Nelson, Coach), suffers an ominous fainting spell during his surprise birthday trip to Las Vegas with his daughter, Sarah (Lauren Graham, Gilmore Girls).

At the opposite ends of the life span, serious questions must be answered and uncomfortable realities faced. Their respective plights subtly bookend the rest of the troubles plaguing this typically modern family. Kids caught in the middle of adult break-ups and hook-ups, former partners slinking about in the shadows of lives that can never completely move on – Parenthood holds a mirror to commonplace real-world   issues.

Through the passionate parenting approach of Kristina (Monica Potter, Boston Legal) and Adam (Peter Krause, Six Feet Under), we see the lengths some people will go to protect their offspring and give them the best possible chance at a successful life. In response to the schoolyard bullying of their now teenage son Max (Max Burkholder), who has Asperger’s syndrome, Kristina and Adam have decided to open their own boutique-style school for the socially different. The problem is, they forgot that people with Asperger’s generally like to know what’s going to happen before it happens, and failed to ask Max how he felt about his own school being  run by his parents. On   the panicky eve of the school’s opening, it’s looking as if its motivating pupil might be a no-show.

For all the captivating plotlines and relevant themes explored in Parenthood, sometimes the improvisational acting style pulls focus from what is really going on. So intent is everyone on making the dialogue sound real, with characters constantly interrupting each other and talking over the top of each other – as is the preferred mode of communication among people related to each other – that moments begging for a bit of dramatic weight too often fly past in a gabble of very realistic, but ultimately unsatisfying chatter.

This is especially true in the exchanges between new partners, Sarah and Hank (Ray Romano, Everybody Loves Raymond). Romano is desperately trying to shake off his famous sitcom alter-ego, but a leap that far from such a loved and recognisable character requires more than a few laugh-lines and a permanent five o’clock shadow. As Sarah’s awkward,   nervous, boyfriend, he is essentially still Raymond, but without the punchlines.

When the quiet moments do eventually come, as they do tonight when Amber drops her bombshell to the elder women in her life, they do stand out from the relentless squabbling. But while the silence is in stark  contrast to the rest of the drama, it’s not quite enough to be powerful.It will be interesting to see how the final season of Parenthood plays out, and whether there will be more cause for pause and reflection amid the frantic talking as the Bravermans muddle through life’s challenges together.
Bridget McManus

Tashi, ABC3, 4pm

While it’s not quite Toy Story or Despicable Me, there is plenty for the littlies to enjoy in this whirlwind 12 minutes of animation based on Anna Fienberg’s books. Tashi is at home in his fantastical, colourful world of dragons, ogres and general mayhem. His cousin Jack, however, is something of a city slicker who has never quite come to terms with the whole dragon thing. Extended scene-setting not being big among five-year-olds, we’re plunged straight into the action, which involves a dragon with a toothache, a bad-tempered giant and, unaccountably, a giant eel skin that doubles as a hose. All’s well that ends well and, thankfully, there is no overt moralising other than the sage advice that one should ‘‘never lend an ogre your pingo-pango rackets’’. Wise words to live by.

Richard Hammond’s Wild Weather, SBS One, 7.30pm

‘‘Weather – one of the most astonishing forces on earth, capable of both devastating power and spectacular beauty.’’ With these words, straight out of a year-10 essay, Hammond sets the tone for this  Top Gear-meets-Mythbusters hybrid. The clue is in the title. This is all about Hammond himself, with any real science coming a very distant second. Intercut with file footage of storms backed by portentous music and more goofy voiceovers, Hammond skips around the world indulging himself in a range of ‘‘experiments’’ that show ... er ... not much at all really, other than the fact that wind can get jolly windy indeed. Without the pillock-in-chief, Jeremy Clarkson, to egg him on, Hammond is a little more restrained than in Top Gear, but we still get all those familiar jokey/blokey asides as well as loads of gratuitous gadgets. The climax involves an American storm chaser with the unlikely name Reed Trimmer. Reed has a car called Dominator 3 – I’m not making this up, I swear – and his ambition is to fire a probe into a tornado. Or, as Hammond puts it, ‘‘straight into its heart’’.

Gallipoli, Nine, 9pm

There’s no bigger story for modern Australia than Gallipoli. At times, the tragedy seems dangerously close to collapsing under the weight of expectation and significance invested in it. Co-producer John Edwards said this version of the story would ‘‘tell it straight’’ and, wisely, that seems to be what we have got so far in this compelling production.

Nick Galvin

PAY TV

Coronation Street, UKTV, 6.50pm

It’s not for nothing that Corrie is still going strong, 54 years into its extraordinary run. Far from being the dreary old soap  you might imagine, it’s an exquisite blend of affecting drama, mordant humour and out-and-out silliness. Tonight’s episode, which aired in Britain just a couple of weeks ago, is a fine example. In the Rover’s Return the locals are busy  bending their elbows and it sounds as though Michelle (former Hear’Say singer Kym Marsh) and Liz (Beverley Callard) are talking about disciplining a naughty toddler. They’re actually talking about Steve (Simon Gregson), a formerly comic character who has lately sunk into a poignant depression.  Steve, as it happens, is over at the minicab office, where Eileen (Sue Cleaver) is rationing her sympathy while talking in flippant deadpan about staring into the abyss. Eileen’s lines are a nice bit of writing that sends a shaft of light through the existential gloom.

The Walking Dead, FX, 8.30pm

Maggie and Sasha march friendly stalker Aaron into the barn, where he promptly invites the whole group to ‘‘audition’’ for a chance to move into his fortified village. Rick is almost homicidally suspicious, but Michonne leads a sudden, forceful challenge to his authority. A pivotal episode, perhaps, and one with a flash new method of zombie killing.

Brad Newsome 

MOVIES

The Expendables 2 (2012),Go!, 9.30pm

Sylvester Stallone’s original Expendables – a film about the only group of mercenaries in America not working as security contractors in Iraq for Blackwater – had an inconsequential appeal, based on a combination of nostalgia for action heroes past their prime and the sheer chutzpah of Stallone’s retro vision of hand-to-hand combat and big explosions. The sequel, co-written by Stallone but directed in a cleaner, less entertaining manner by Simon West (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, ConAir), added a raft of familiar faces, including Wesley Snipes as an unpredictable member of the Expendables fraternity and Jean-Claude Van Damme as a plutonium-seeking villain, with creaking cameos by Chuck Norris and Arnold Schwarzenegger. But despite the budget and the extravagant cast, the film is almost anodyne in its action sequences, the story is paved with cliches, and the dialogue is groan-worthy. You can understand why Hong Kong superstar Jet Li provides little more than a cameo for this not so wild bunch.

Priceless (2006), Masterpiece Movies (pay TV), 10.20pm

French director Pierre Salvadori’s  Priceless nods to the comedies of Ernst Lubitsch, the German expatriate who made some of the wittiest, yet touching, Hollywood numbers of the ’30s and ’40s (try Ninotchka and To Be or Not to Be on for size). The irrational quest for the unobtainable invariably sets in train  events in Salvadori’s world, where coincidence is often fateful and the struggle to make amends just digs a deeper hole. The locus in this case is Irene (Amelie’s Audrey Tautou), a beautiful charmer who lives on the indulgence and wealth of her various keepers on the French Riviera. But when she mistakes Jean (Gad Elmaleh), a put upon bartender, for her next mark, they’re both evicted from the world of luxury hotels they exist on the fringe of. Salvadori has a light but sure touch, adding just enough harshness to let you see that he’s made a comedy about humans as disposable commodities.

Craig Mathieson