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The Chase Australia, Seven, 5pm
Seven’s new Andrew O’Keefe vehicle is a localised version of a British quiz show that pulls in up to five million viewers and has made stars out of its regular panellists, known as “Chasers”. Contestants on The Chase are pitted against these “Chasers” (answering multiple-choice questions for cash), rather than each other. The Chasers are part pantomime villain, part quizmaster; it’s an interesting twist in a genre that has surely exploited every other twist imaginable. They’ve shipped in one of the British series’ stars, The Governess, (Anne Hegarty), “the most feared of all”, who has an 80per cent win rate (and a demeanour like Prisoner’s The Freak), then there’s the Supernerd Issa Schultz, a former winner of The Rich List and The Einstein Factor; The Shark, aka Brydon Coverdale, who scored big on Seven’s Million Dollar Minute and Goliath, Matt Parkinson, a regular expert on The Einstein Factor.
The Block, Nine, 7.30pm
We’re into the second week of ‘‘the Blocktagon’’ and there’s yet to be even a passing reference to the former Saville Motel’s seedy past (in 2002 it was the scene of the so-called ‘‘vampire gigolo murder’’) – but some of the early interior styling we’re seeing might well count as harrowing. It’s four days away from the bedroom and en suite reveal and most of the contestants are on track but Suzi and Voni, the Gold Coast former bikini models, are all over the shop. But perhaps the most controversial thing tonight is the reveal of their ‘‘narrative’’ for their build, which they’ll construct using images printed on glass.
Kylie Northover
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Eleven, 11.35pm
The late-night TV arena is a fiercely contested and highly valued space in the United States and the retirement in May of lanky and laconic chat-show icon David Letterman left a big gap and large shoes to fill, so all eyes are on Stephen Colbert as he assumes the chair behind The Late Show desk in New York’s Ed Sullivan Theater. His musical director and bandleader will be is pianist Jon Batiste (Treme) and guests mooted to appear in the first week include actors Scarlett Johansson, George Clooney and Amy Schumer, presidential aspirant Jeb Bush, tech-industry titans Elon Musk and Travis Kalanick, and bestselling author Stephen King.
Debi Enker
PAY TV
King of the Nerds, Tuesday, Channel [V], 9.30pm
We’re down to the final five, the teams have been dissolved and it’s every nerd for themselves. Tonight’s first challenge involves a go-kart track that has been turned into a real-life version of Mario Kart, but with Tron aesthetics. It’s all good fun and the nerds know how to give good soundbite, even if their every analogy involves computers, Star Trek or World of Warcraft (‘‘I just Leeroy Jenkinsed all over the breakfast table!’’). A refreshing change from the boofheaded Chads and Staceys that tend to dominate reality TV.
Brad Newsome
MOVIES
Babel (2006) Masterpiece Movies (pay TV), 8.30pm
The film that made director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Gravity) an international star, about seemingly unconnected lives and stories across nations. Brilliant, challenging and always despairing. Stars Brad Pitt.
Fatso (2008) SBS, 11.25pm
There was a time when the world was slim. If one looks at documentary footage from the early 1970s of half a million people taking to the streets in protest, there is barely a soul who isn’t slender. Magazines religiously promoted thinness as natural, attractive and healthy. It became almost a dogma as typified by the catty expression: ‘‘Only skinny should screw skinny.’’ Even the medium weighted had no right to associate sexually with the skinny. Today, open any free-to-your-mailbox catalogue and significantly large models are employed to present the new fashions. A couple of years ago they would have been labelled as obese. But as Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari pointed out in A Thousand Plateaus: Schizophrenia and Capitalism, capitalism condemns and controls ‘‘deviancy’’ (including obesity, gayness, drugs) until it works how to profit from them, in which case all stigmatisation is lifted. Thus, the planet went from ‘‘skinny is beautiful and tubby is a disgrace’’ to ‘‘large is an act of democratic independence and utterly fabulous’’. Along the way, however, while waiting for the pendulum to swing, many an overweight person suffered. But bullying and ostracisation were not always the key interests of the day.
In the Norwegian Fatso, directed and co-written by Arild Frohlich, Rino (Nils Jorgen Kaalstad) lives alone on junk food and goes into a cold sweat whenever he sees the checkout attendant, Malin (Josefin Ljungman), at the local supermarket. Rino wants to bed skinny. But terrified of asking Malin out, he sublimates his frustrated desires into secretly drawing comic strips (giving visualisation to his phobias), watching porn and having a friendship with the extrovert and patronising Fillip (Kyrre Hellum). Their bizarre relationship is in many ways at the core of a film that is funny, crude and often true. Fatso is Scandinavian-explicit about sexual issues and perceptions of self. It even helpfully looks at how people project themselves onto their objects of affection. Dr Phil will tell you this is common, but how many people actually try to stop themselves doing it? In this American Pie-style comedy many of the gags have a skilled set-up leading to a crude punch line (the opening use of melon is a classic), with Rino always beautifully played by Kaalstad, a natural comedian.
Scott Murray