TV highlights: Wednesday, August 22
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 22
THE EMPLOYABLES
Series premiere ★★★
8.30pm, SBS
Having thankfully skipped through the boot camp at which the participants in this morale-boosting exercise were selected, this three-parter leaps straight into the task of turning disadvantaged jobseekers into entrepreneurs. Guided by Creel Price, co-founder of global start-up generator Investible, the group, which includes a single mum, an amputee, a refugee and a legally blind former chef, collaborate and clash. It's a worthy project but the presentation feels a bit rushed.
ANH'S BRUSH WITH FAME
Double episode ★★
8pm, ABC
Anh Do seems genuinely chuffed when a living piece of Australiana, folk singer-songwriter, John Williamson, tells him he's a real True Blue bloke. While reflecting on the success of that song, mainly as a dirge, the latter reveals that he might have found a better rhyme for "face" than the one he used. His is a pleasantly nostalgic story of a country childhood, one that informed his notion of the quintessential Australian man. Next up: basketballer Lauren Jackson.
DEEP STATE
Series premiere ★★★★½
9.35pm, SBS
A sort of Mission Impossible without the Tom Cruise and the fanciful stunts that even James Bond wouldn't attempt, this sophisticated espionage drama partially directed by Australia's Robert Connolly (Romulus, My Father) delves into some very dark deeds supposedly done in the name of world peace. The action switches unnervingly from a domestic idyll somewhere in the French countryside to the war-ravaged streets of Iran and Beirut, then back to corporate London.