Tara Ward: Reunion, The Family Next Door, George Clarke’s Homes in the Wild

Reunion  

Deaf man Daniel Brennan is leaving prison after ten isolating years inside and is now a man on a mission for revenge. Shunned by his parents and community, Brennan has nothing left to lose, until he is reunited with his estranged daughter, Carly (TVNZ+). 

 

The Family Next Door  

A stranger arrives in a Victorian coastal town, searching for answers. Her quest to solve a mystery raises suspicions among four neighbouring families (ThreeNow). 

 

George Clarke’s Homes in the Wild 

George Clarke travels across the wild coastlines and islands of New Zealand and Australia to explore extraordinary homes hidden in nature. Each episode highlights inventive designs that combine wilderness settings with sustainable, off-grid living (Sky Open).  

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to this Saturday Morning with Jack Teams podcast
from Newstalk ZB Time.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
To catch up with our screen time expert. It's Tara
Ward's job to come to us every week with three
shows to watch your stream at home, and she's here.
Now kill Totara. We're going to kick things off this
morning with a show streaming on TV and Z plus.
Tell us about Reunion Hess.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
A new British thriller made by the BBC, and in
a lot of ways, it's a pretty standard drama about
a man seeking revenge for a murder, but there's an
element of a story that really makes the show stand out,
and that's because the main character of the show is deaf.
This is about a man named Daniel who is released
from prison after a ten year sentence for murder. He
returns home to Sheffield, is ostracized by his friends and family.

(00:55):
He's not welcome because of the crime he committed, and
he becomes determined to seek revenge. It's not clear why
the crime happened or why he did it, but he's
got nothing left to lose until he reunites with his daughter,
who really needs him to stay out of prison. Because
Daniel and many of other characters in the show are deaf.

(01:15):
There's a lot of British sign language used in the show,
and the drama moves really smoothly between sign language and
spoken language. So, as I said, in lots of ways,
it's a pretty standard crime thriller, but because Daniel is deaf,
and because you see the world through his perspective, it's
telling a familiar story in quite a new, thought provoking way.

(01:35):
It's a father and daughter story. It's about the challenges
of coming out of prison, and it's also about being
deaf in a world that has built for people who
can hear. The drama itself is quite a slow burn.
It's quite dark and intense, only four episodes, but it
pulls you in and I'm really curious to see where
this one goes.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Nice okay, Cole. That's Reunion. It's on TVNZ plus on
three now. The Family next Door.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
Yeah, this is a new Australian mystery drama. It's based
on a book by Sally Hepworth and it's a little
bit like an Australian version of Big Little Lies, but
without all the wealth and glamour. This is a little
bit more suburban. It's a battle woman named Isabelle who
moves to a small coastal town of Victoria. She rents
a house on a street where everyone else knows everybody.

(02:22):
Claims to be a writer, but she's clearly there for
something else. She's secretly collecting information about each of the residents,
all of her new neighbors, who in turn becomes suspicious
of her and try and find out what she's really
doing there. And it's that time old TV drama tradition
that that idea that life is the perfect life is
never really perfect. There's always a bit of scandal hiding

(02:44):
underneath the surface, and nothing is ever what it seems.
It's just a solid Australian family drama. It's about marriage
and friendship and parenting and family and it unsolds in
a quiet, sort of intriguing way. Again, it's not in
any kind of hurry, but it's quite watchable and has
this great Australian ensemble cast, lots of familiar faces.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, Ok, Family next Door that's on three now and
George Clark's Home in the Wild.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
Yeah, I'm a big fan of George Clark shows. He's
the British architect who has a lot of TV shows
on here about building homes and quirky homes and amazing
sheds and all sorts, and Homes in the Wild is
his new show. This was filmed in New Zealand and
Australia over the summer, and this is George Clark visiting smaller,
more isolated islands like Cowell and the Raquino Island and

(03:34):
finding houses that are almost hidden in nature, that are
built to become part of these remote environments. And what
I loved about this show is that it's not about
the most expensive house or the fanciest looking house. It's
about how people have connected their homes with their environment
and used ingenuity and resourcefulness and sustainability. The first episode

(03:56):
was on Great Barrier Island and he visited three really
different homes with amazing stories and history. One of them
had to build a flying fox in the seventies across
the bay to get the bilding materials into the site.
It's some great stories in this. If you like a
good design show that isn't necessarily about what money can buy,
this is definitely worth checking out. It started last week
on Sky Open, but you could also watch it for

(04:19):
free on demand on Skygo fantastic.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
Okay, yeah that's a bit of me. I love George
Cliff and yeah, that's very much a bit of me.
So that's George Clark's Home in the Wild. That's on
sky Open and like Tarist's, you can also stream it
as well. The Family next Door is on three now
and Reunion is on TV and z Plus.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to News Talk zed B from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.