THERE are two things that epitomise winter: restaurant specials, and great TV. It’s a win-win, whether you decide to stay at home, or go out. M-Net 101 has a particularly excellent line up of international series for June, beginning tonight with Tulsa King at 9.10pm.
It stars Sylvester Stallone in his first scripted television leading role, and is created by Taylor Sheridan (Yellowstone, Sons Of Anarchy as an actor, and Texas Cowboys Hall Of Fame inductee) and Terence Winter (The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire, Wolf Of Wall Street) so naturally our expectations should be sky high. Stallone plays a Mafia capo just out of prison and who is sent to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he begins to set up a criminal organisation. It premiered on November 13, 2022 in the US and was renewed for a second season shortly thereafter. It has a 79% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Woody Harrelson, Justin Theroux, Lena Heady, Kiernan Shipka, and Kathleen Turner are just some of the big names leading White House Plumbers (June 12, 8pm). Created by Veep writers Peter Huyck and Alex Gregory, it’s described as a satirical political drama miniseries, in which Watergate masterminds and President Richard Nixon’s political operatives E Howard Hunt and G Gordon Liddy are part of the “White House Plumbers” aka the Plumbers, the Room 16 Project, or more officially, the White House Special Investigations Unit, a covert White House Special Investigations Unit established within a week of the publication of the Pentagon Papers in June 1971. Charged with plugging press leaks by any means necessary, they accidentally overturned the Presidency they were trying to protect.
Colin From Accounts (June 16) is currently holding a 100% RT rating; it’s an Australian comedy series created and written by husband-and-wife team Patrick Brammall and Harriet Dyer, who also star as the show’s main characters – two singles who are brought together by a car accident and an injured dog. Personally, I’m not crazy about Aussie series but respect the opinions of The Guardian, which says: “This unfailingly funny, perfectly acted Australian sitcom features a lead that’s neither a hot mess nor a manic pixie dream girl. It’s honest, kind and goes from strength to strength.”
Rounding out M-Net’s June slate is 1923, the second prequel to Yellowstone and sequel to 1883, following directly in the Thursday 9pm slot from June 22. Harrison Ford (in his series television debut) and Helen Mirren star as Jacob and Cara Dutton, as this series follows another generation of the Dutton family during a time of various hardships including Prohibition, drought, and the early stages of the Great Depression, which affected Montana long before the 1929 Stock Market Crash. 1923 has been renewed for a second season so the Yellowstone Universe isn’t going anywhere any time soon.
