TV reviews: Andor, Vera, The Rehearsal and MasterChef among this week's best

Daily Telegraph

23-04-2025

We've sifted through the latest offerings from TV and streaming platforms to find the best shows you should be watching this week.
Ben Mendelsohn is back as Director Orson Krennic in season two of Andor.
ANDOR
NEW EPISODES TUESDAYS, DISNEY+
It's a strange irony that the best of the Star Wars TV spin-offs is in many ways the least Star Wars-y of them all. And yet in its second and final season – told in 12 episodes released in three weekly blocks to feed directly into the events of Rogue One – Andor continues to be that show. Rather than leaning heavily into the titanic good versus evil struggles of Jedi v Sith, with flashing lightsabres and the Force, creator and writer Tony Gilroy is more interested in mining history – and indeed current events – for the grey areas and ambiguities when a rebellion takes hold and the personal cost of rising up against an oppressor. If it meanders a bit early on, as Diego Luna's charismatic thief turned freedom fighter Cassian Andor continues the fight against the Empire, it's mostly because of the scale of the immaculately produced show as it attempts to show the fight from many angles, from the highest levels of society to distant farms, with sometimes very different groups trying to unite with a common purpose. All that said, it's also still a whole lot of rollicking fun. It's a pleasure to see Aussie Ben Mendelson back as the demanding and dangerous Death Star supremo Orson Krennic – and just as fearsome is Stellan Skarsgard's Rebel leader Luthen, for whom nothing matters but the cause.
This year's Anzac Day will also mark the 80th anniversary of the end of WWII.
ANZAC DAY 2025
FRIDAY, 4.20AM, ABC, CHANNEL 9
With the 80th anniversary of Victory In Europe Day, the milestone date for the end World War II, fast approaching this year's Anzac Day celebrations will have a special resonance for many. Coverage will commence at 4.20am with the Dawn Service live from Sydney, followed by the Dawn Service from the Australian War Memorial in Canberra from 5.30am. Local coverage of marches in all state territory capitals will begin from 9am. Overseas events including the Gallipoli Dawn Service from Turkey will begin from 12.30pm, followed by a service from the Australian National Memorial in Villers-Bretonneux, in France, from 1.30pm. Lest we forget.
What They Found, directed by Sam Mendes, is a confronting but important documentary about the Holocaust.
WHAT THEY SAW
SBS ON DEMAND
This month also marked the 80th anniversary of the end of one of the darkest chapters in human history, when the full scale of the Nazis' Final Solution was uncovered by the liberation of concentration camps across Europe. One such camp was the infamous Bergen-Belsen, which was liberated by English troops on April 15, 1945, and among them were British soldier-camera operators Sgt Mike Lewis and Sgt Bill Lawrie, who documented the scarcely believable discovery. Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes has used their harrowing footage as well as interviews recorded by the Imperial War Museum in the 1980s to assemble this documentary which makes for extremely confronting viewing. But in an era with anti-Semitism on the rise and those who would deny the unspeakable evil of murder and violence on an industrial scale, their first-hand footage and accounts are more important and compelling than ever.
House of Wellness is a lighthearted take on health and wellness.
HOUSE OF WELLNESS
FRIDAY, 8.30PM, CHANNEL 7, 7TWO
Former footy star Shane Crawford and ex-morning show host Mel Doyle make for a fun and engaging team in a new show that bills itself as being for people who are sick of health and wellness being so serious. With the help of medical experts as well ridiculously shredded fitness guru Sam Wood, singer-actor Josh Piterman and one-time Goggleboxer Yvie Jones, they make light work of serious subjects such as screen addiction (there's a wake-up call for the 10 per cent of people who apparently like to check their phones DURING sex), while also investigating fitness trends including cold showers and ice baths and the pain-resistant benefits of swearing.
Brenda Blethyn as DCI Vera Stanhope and David Leon as DI Joe Ashworth in the final series of Vera.
VERA: THE FINAL SERIES
SATURDAY, 7.30PM, ABC
After 14 seasons, 56 episodes, countless murders solved and even more cups of tea consumed, it's finally time to farewell one of the best loved and most acclaimed British crime shows in a very crowded field. Oscar-nominee Brenda Blethyn dons the trench coat and bucket hat one last time as the gruff, no-nonsense, tenacious DCI Vera Stanhope with a typically complex case that kicks off with a dead body found in a river and stretches out over two satisfying movie length episodes that remain true to everything that's come before. As she sets about solving the murder – and the disappearance of a teenage girl – she's also pondering the merits of a promotion and an uncertain future, while wrestling with some ghosts from the past and the complicated relationship she had with her father. Stick around after Sunday's second episode for the farewell doco, Goodbye Pet.
Chernobyl: A Bomb That Keeps Ticking is a sobering documentary about the nuclear disaster.
CHERNOBYL: A BOMB THAT KEEPS TICKING
SATURDAY, 8.30PM, SBS VICELAND
With the benefits and drawbacks of nuclear power still very much being debated in Australia, this documentary (like the outstanding dramatisation Chernobyl) remains a sobering reminder of the worst case scenario of the still evolving technology. Produced and directed by Australian based contamination expert Dr Allen Dobrolovsky it re-examines the events from nearly 40 years ago when Soviet hubris and carelessness contributed to what he calls the biggest man-made and avoidable disaster in history, when a reactor exploded and spewed radioactive matter into the surrounding air, forests and waterways. At some personal risk, he heads back to the exclusion zone in Ukraine where he had worked in the aftermath of the disaster to examine how the deadly effects are still being felt, and worse still, how the still highly toxic site was weaponized by the Russian army after their 2022 invasion of the country.
Jim Jefferies hosts a special Ladies Night episode of the 1% Club.
THE 1% CLUB
SUNDAY, 7PM, CHANNEL 7
In his parallel career as a no-hold-barred stand-up comedian, Aussie Jim Jefferies has often been accused of misogyny – a charge he has always rejected – so seeing him front Ladies Night with his game show host hat on was always going to be interesting. But as it turns out, most of the jokes are at his own expense as 'the only bloke in the house', as he observes that women have won almost four times as much money as men on the quiz show that whittles down 100 contestants hoping to win a hundred grand to just one with increasingly difficult maths, logic and other puzzles. Now in his third season, Jefferies has grown into the host role in the family friendly format, with his innuendo, good-natured teasing and bad puns put to good use without completely dulling his comedy edge.
The Rehearsal creator Nathan Fielder has air travel safety on his mind for season two of the docu-comedy.
THE REHEARSAL
NEW EPISODES MONDAYS, MAX
The first season of Nathan Fielder's docu-comedy – in which he helped average Joes prepare for difficult situations or conversations by role playing them with hired actors – was one of the most original and acclaimed shows in years. But it also left him with a dilemma for this second season: he was being offered a large amount of money to create more comedy gold, but was also plagued by the thought that 'when enough people see you as a joke, a part of you starts to believe it's all you have to offer'. His quest to weave laughs around something more serious is fused with his desire to improve air travel safety – and specifically the sometimes dangerous disconnect between pilot and co-pilot – by recruiting a real pilot and recreating his own airport with actors to test out various scenarios.
This season's crop of MasterChef contestants have all played before.
MASTERCHEF: BACK TO WIN
MONDAY, 7.30PM, CHANNEL 10
If you're feeling a bit of deja vu ahead of this new season of the long-running and much loved reality cooking show, there's a good reason for it and the clue is in the title. All the contestants have been here before and have returned for a second – and some cases third – shot at the culinary crown. But rather presenting as lazily reheated leftovers for judges Andy Allen, Poh-Ling Yeow, Jean-Christophe Novelli and Sofia Levin, the contestants vying for the $250K prize have brought back a staggering amount of experience, with many having gone on to open restaurants, write books and even become judges themselves. And they will need every bit of creativity and technique too – not only is the competition fierce, they are also greeted for the first episode by the slightly terrifying Gordon Ramsay, who dishes out pithy but practical advice as only he can when they are split into three teams to cook for 30 hungry frontline responders.
Melanie Bracewell and Tim McDonald return to The Cheap Seats
THE CHEAP SEATS
TUESDAY, 8.40pm, CHANNEL 10
Having just wrapped up a successful season of her excellent stand-up comedy show A Little Taste at the Adelaide Fringe and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (coming soon to Sydney and Brisbane – catch it if you can), Melanie Bracewell is on fire right now. The netball loving Kiwi is reuniting with co-host Tim McDonald for another season of the current affairs comedy show that looks back at the oddest and funniest moments from the previous week. The pair – alongside cultural correspondent Mel Tracina and a roster of guests – reconvene just in time for the final stretch of our federal election campaign but with the global news cycle as wacky and unpredictable as it's ever been, there will be no shortage of material in the weeks and months to come.