TELEVISION

MONDAY JANUARY 17

SOAP: SHORTLAND STREET (TVNZ 2, 7.00pm). The Street’s new season starts with an hour-long episode resolving the Christmas cliffhanger. Who survives Tess and Tom’s wedding? What new dramas will accompany villain Carla’s (Elisabeth Easther) return to the hospital? And how will the brutal events of the summer series, Retribution, change the characters’ lives? Retribution wraps up the day before, with a final episode on TVNZ OnDemand and a 90-minute TV special (TVNZ 2, Sunday, 9.25pm).

The history of the global drug trade is one of local stories. For) skilfully juggles interviews, contemporary news footage and re-enactments to tell Liverpool’s story of three drugs – heroin, ecstasy and crack cocaine – in respective episodes. Some of his characters are more likeable than others. Michael Showers, the ostentatious dealer who began moving heroin through the supply lines he established as a cannabis smuggler, is blithe past the point of denial, while club veterans have genuinely happy memories of the days before the inevitable economics of huge demand for an illegal drug brought guns and violence. In the end, it’s all about money.