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Outback ER, ABC, 8pm
A guy gets thrombolysed tonight on Outback ER. Also known as clot busting, it’s a process by which blood clots are broken down pharmacologically, and our patient receives the treatment after he fails to respond to less drastic procedures. In a city hospital he might get more immediate and comprehensive care, but at the Broken Hill Base Hospital Emergency Department where Outback ER is shot, the remoteness and lack of resources mean patients don’t always get what they need. The opening episode of this observational documentary series isn’t the most gripping, but it does offer a discomfortingly intimate look at rural families dealing with grief and the medical team struggling under trying conditions. Keep an eye out for the finger injury if watching during dinner – it’s not for the squeamish.
Glee, Eleven, 8.30pm
Glee’s sixth and last season doesn’t exactly start with a bang, but the foundations are laid for a tantalising final stretch. Rachel Berry (Lea Michele) is down in the dumps after her TV pilot, That’s So Rachel, flopped, but things get worse when she receives more unpleasant news at home. Kurt (Chris Colfer) dumps Blaine (Darren Criss) and suffers some unexpected consequences, and principal Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) is back to her usual maleficent self after a brief spell of kindness. I’ve never been a fan of Glee’s frequent, overwrought musical numbers (Alanis Morissette’s Uninvited and Let Her Go from Frozen among them tonight), but I’ve got a soft spot for the Dalton Academy Warblers, and they do a good job with an Ed Sheeran number here.
Hiding, ABC, 8.30pm
The second episode of this fast-moving eight-parter sees the Quigg family trying to come to terms with their new identities, arranged by witness protection. Troy Quigg (James Stewart) is now a post-doctoral fellow in criminal psychology – an interesting choice of cover for a minimally educated guy. Less plausible still is that the police would have provided the wrong student records for his children at a new school. If you can suspend disbelief – a lot of it – Hiding is still watchable, largely thanks to the bang-on performances of the teenagers (Lincoln Younes and Olivia DeJonge), and Stephen Curry’s convincing tough-as-nails Detective John Pinder.
Annabel Ross
PAY TV
America’s Next Top Model, Fox8, 8.30pm
Tyra Banks’ relentless rejigging of format and personnel hasn’t done much to refresh a show that’s now plodding through its 21st season. This season is another girls-versus-boys one, with the ostensible attraction of a room in which newly hooked-up couples can sleep together under the gaze of the camera lens. If it sounds a bit tawdry, well, it is. It’s great to see J.Alexander back as a judge, but without Jay Manuel and Nigel Barker the show has lost most of its original magic and family feel. Breaking up the old band was the biggest mistake Banks ever made. At least the once-insufferable Kelly Cutrone is now providing an essential service in bringing male contestants to heel when they start treating Banks like a sex object. It’d be great if Keith or Harry could start doing that for J-Lo on American Idol.
Brad Newsome
MOVIES
The Wolverine (2013), Premiere Movies (pay TV), 10.50pm
Wolverine, the mutant from the X-Men comic book series that has become Hugh Jackman’s signature role, got his own film with 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a dour film that lacked the operatic pop of Bryan Singer’s original X-Men movies. A vituperative soldier who can recover from any injury with an enhanced metallic skeleton, Jackman’s character spent the film fighting despite a distinct lack of risk. The sequel, set in Japan and doused in samurai mythology by director James Mangold (Heavy, Knight and Day) finds reason to lessen his strength, thus creating drama through vulnerability, as Wolverine, who doesn’t age, returns to the country where he was a prisoner of war during World War II. Sometimes it’s as if the snarling warrior has too much history for the movies to make sense of, but this sturdy comic book offering at least has a shadow of past failings to colour the clash of sword on metal claw.
The Breakfast Club (1985), Eleven, 9.30pm
Teenagers had never heard versions of themselves speak on celluloid as they do in John Hughes’ signature film, where a quintet of high school students spending Saturday morning in detention initially converse with all the warmth of a Cold War prisoner swap before the realities of youth and the presence of disdainful adult authority break down the divisions between them in ways melodramatic, ludicrous, touching and funny – which is to say merely the messy daily reference points of adolescence. Hughes, in the midst of his golden era as a writer and directing to boot, begins with stereotypes – the princess (Molly Ringwald), the athlete (Emilio Estevez), the brain (Anthony Michael Hall), the outsider (Ally Sheedy), and the troublemaker (Judd Nelson) – and effortlessly teases out everything they have beneath the brittle surface of their schoolyard clique. I could do without Nelson’s John Bender punching the air in closing triumph, but nonetheless this is a victory. Albeit one Hughes ultimately squandered.
Craig Mathieson