What to watch on ABC iview – quick links
ABC iview: new this week
Judgment: Cases That Changed Australia – 14 April
Series. Judgment takes viewers inside the High Court of Australia, where many of our toughest questions are asked and where ordinary citizens seeking justice challenge the laws that have shaped the nation.
Across four of the most high-stake cases – Gay Rights & Marriage, Equality, Mabo, Immigration Detention and the Right to Vote – Judgment charts the personal battles that have become constitutional turning points driving change in the course of history.
Through unrivalled access, rich archive and carefully crafted drama-documentary storytelling, Judgment reveals not only the legal reasoning behind these often-brilliant arguments and decisions, but the courage, strategy and conviction that drive them.
Grand Designs UK Season 23 – 16 April
Series. This new series of Grand Designs features a remarkable range of self-build projects, exploring cutting-edge aquatic design, the nerve shredding restoration of a building on the verge of collapse and an astonishingly bold and ambitious home for someone in their later years.
Frankie Drake Mysteries Seasons 1-4 – 19 April
Series. Set in 1920s Toronto, the series follows the adventures of Frankie Drake (Lauren Lee Smith) and her partner Trudy Clarke (Chantel Riley) at Drake Private Detectives, the city’s only all-female detective agency, as they find themselves fighting crime in the age of flyboys, gangsters, rum-runners, and speakeasies.
ABC iview: recently added
Wild Isles With David Attenborough – 12 April
Series. David Attenborough explores Britain’s mountain, woodland, grassland, freshwater and ocean habitats to reveal globally important wildlife and places, as spectacular as any he has seen in the world.
Caper Crew – 10 April
Amelia and Kai Delaney’s quiet lives are upended when their con-artist grandmother Queenie teaches them the art of the grift – sparking their hunt for the priceless Woodspring Nug.
Secrets At Red Rocks – 10 April
Twelve-year-old Jake is drawn into a world of mythical creatures and adventure when he finds a sealskin hidden on the rocky shores of his father’s seaside home in Wellington, New Zealand. Can he protect his family from the danger he’s unleashed?
Foreign Correspondent: The Mamdani Effect – 7 April
When a young Muslim Asian American who proudly called himself a democratic socialist was elected Mayor of New York City, the world took notice. Zohran Mamdani has quickly become America’s newest political star.
In the richest city in the country, where an affordability crisis is now impacting the middle class, his message of tax increases for the rich, rent freezes and free childcare have been embraced by a city that had had enough.
Australian Story: The Westall UFO Mystery – 6 April
On April 6, 1966, a Melbourne school was thrown into chaos when strange objects appeared in the sky. It remains the largest mass UFO sighting in Australian history, witnessed by more than a hundred students in broad daylight.
Sixty years later, through the eyes of the now-adult witnesses, Australian Story examines the enduring impact of that day and the efforts to make sense of it that followed.
‘It was large, easily visible, circular, silver and clearly under some form of control,’ says retired school principal Ken Stallard, who was 15 at the time.
Australian Story: The Leyland Brother – Mal Leyland – 30 March
TV legend Mal Leyland is preparing for his final outback trip. Aged 81 and suffering from moderate dementia, the co-star of the long-running Ask the Leyland Brothers series will host a convoy of four-wheel drive enthusiasts on a journey from the west to east coasts of Australia.
The month-long trek will commemorate the 60th anniversary of Mal and Mike Leyland’s groundbreaking continental crossing of Australia in 1966 and raise money for a planned Mal Leyland museum in Cairns.
‘Having dementia is interesting because it depends a little bit on what it affects,’ Mal tells Australian Story.
‘If you’ve got a good memory of the good things in life, the good things are far more important.’
At the peak of their popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, the Leyland Brothers’ travel documentaries were among the top-rating programs on Australian television. They’re often credited with sparking the boom in camping and four-wheel driving, with the phrase ‘doing a Leyland Brothers’ becoming shorthand for an extended outback holiday.
But the brothers fell out when a shared business venture went bust, and their relationship never fully recovered.
Mal was diagnosed with dementia two years ago and is being cared for by his only daughter, Carmen.
‘The hardest thing has been watching this man that I idolised my whole life, slowly disappear in front of my eyes,’ she tells Australian Story.
