THE GOOD WIFE
FREE TO AIR
★★★★☆
Wednesday 9.35pm, Ten
The last season of The Good Wife was excellent. This season is even better. Sadly, like so many shows screening on Ten at the moment, it is being ignored by most viewers, but it remains one of the cleverest, classiest and most meticulously constructed dramas on television right now. Far from being a shark-jumping moment, Alicia's split from Lockhart Gardner has given everything a new lease of life and brought a fresh intensity to relationships - and the general emotional temperature - that feels completely credible. It is edge-of-your-seat stuff but The Good Wife has also maintained its sly sense of humour and plenty of quieter quotidian moments to keep everything grounded. The writing here is awe-inspiring. The dialogue's a delight, a big cast of characters is comprehensively realised, but it is the way the stories are assembled that truly impresses. There is always a lot going on, but all the threads remain taut, and all lead somewhere satisfying. It can be dizzying, but always in a good way. And then there's the attention to detail so minute you almost don't notice it but which adds so much. Tonight, for instance, Will and Alicia are both remembering a previous case on which they worked at the height of their affair. In Alicia's flashbacks, she's wearing a blue dress, sober and professional. As Will remembers it, Alicia's dress is scarlet. At the time, Alicia's hair was long. As she relives the scene, present-day Alicia unconsciously pushes her now much shorter hair back off her shoulders. These little touches add a wonderful depth and intensity to all the key scenes. A sixth season has been commissioned, but this is feeling like something of a swan song. There's just a vibe that absolutely everything's being poured into every moment, and that The Good Wife is never going to be this good again. Catch it while you can.
MANHUNT: NEW SERIES
PAY TV
★★★★☆
Reality, Tuesday 6.30pm, Discovery
Man v Wild meets The Fugitive in this rollicking boys' own adventure, and proceedings get under way this evening in slightly unusual style, with a ''making of'' episode introducing us to the concept and the main players. It is an interesting gambit, and an effective one. A show such as this inevitably raises a lot of questions (doubts that almost sank the original Man v Wild) and many of them are answered here. Here's the shtick. Former Navy SEAL Joel Lambert finds life a little dull after retiring from the armed forces, so he volunteers to test himself against the world's best manhunters, including an anti-poaching team in South Africa, a counter-drug task force in Panama, and South Korea's police special forces. Lambert sets out onto the savannah, into the jungle, onto the streets of a major city, or whatever the terrain is for the manhunters du jour, and attempts to elude capture. You have to feel sorry for the film crews travelling with both the hunters and the hunted as they dodge lions, wade through croc-infested rivers, and plunge into sewers - but it certainly makes for some exhilarating viewing. Indeed, this prelude is full of nice touches, discovering Lambert's bachelor pad includes a liquor cabinet situated in convenient proximity to a safe full of weapons; and that it is possible to be mortally wounded by a flying fish. Full of thrills, spills, and fun.
OUTSIDE CHANCE
New series
★★★☆
Tuesday, 9.30pm, ABC2
This terrific documentary series will hopefully give pause to the lock-'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key brigade. In WA's Wooroloo low-security prison, a new program is using Aussie rules to help rehabilitate inmates. Narrated confidently by former Collingwood star Andrew Krakouer (who went through the program himself after being jailed for assault), it's a bittersweet story of a bunch of blokes finding the courage to do things differently.
LUKE NGUYEN'S FRANCE
New series
★★★☆
Thursday 7.30pm, SBS One
This new series from the charming Mr Nguyen starts a bit shakily, but once he starts hitting the restaurants, markets and provedores of Paris, we're all back in the groove. He might not have on-the-ground knowledge of the City of Lights, but his curiosity, enthusiasm and knowledge of food more than make up for it as he takes us to some of the more quirky corners of the capital, including a French Vietnamese restaurant run by his cousins.
CALL THE MIDWIFE
Series return
★★★
Thursday 8.30pm, ABC1
The twee tone tends to wear a bit thin but there's always a nice dash of substance to Call the Midwife, and so it proves as season three gets under way. Tonight, Dr Patrick gets to the bottom of two babies' "failure to thrive" and puts a name to a disease that continues to break mothers' hearts today. And there's something particularly enjoyable about Chummy's complete domestic incompetence and her concomitant excellence as a working mother.
MAD MEN
★★★☆
Monday 4.30pm, 8.35pm, Showcase
Don and Betty, Pete and Peggy, Joan and Megan all returned last week for their last hurrah, as conflicted and tormented and stylish as ever. In typical Mad Men style (nothing ever happens in a hurry on this show - unless a lawnmower is involved) we are getting the first seven episodes of season seven this year and the final seven next year. While it would be nice to think Mr Draper might finally get his act together, that is not looking likely.
JUNK GYPSIES
★★★
Tuesday 8.30pm, Lifestyle Home
Sweet home-reno series made all the more adorable by the appalling outcomes Texan sisters Amie and Jolie produce for their clients. Tonight a couple of ranchers want their bedroom tizzied up to combine both the feminine and the masculine. What these girls come up with has to be seen to be believed. The couple is delighted and there is something to take away from the sisters' recycling and repurposing, even if no one would want to sleep in a room like this.
