Neighbours, Eleven, 6.30pm

It’s good to be reminded from time to time that behind the oversharing and the histrionics, the improbable weather events and even more unlikely access to incendiary devices, a quality soap is often home to a whole lot of genuine talent: in its writers, directors, producers and, of course, actors. In this special episode, both the script and the performers are tested when the whole half-hour is given over to one storyline and three players: Brad (Kip Gamblin), Terese (Rebekah Elmaloglou) and Lauren (Kate Kendall). Fans will know this awkward love triangle has been on the simmer for some time. On Monday night it came to the boil; tonight we get the fallout. Kendall, in particular, delivers scenes that transcend the genre.

Restoration Australia, ABC, 8.30pm

The first instalment of this ambitious new factual series (it was shot over more than two years) has a lot going for it, but for many of us the lingering aftertaste will be of the passive-aggressive, irrational and controlling petty bureaucrats. They’re all smiles and soft voices. But as a rather wonderful Canadian expat attempts to rebuild a Victorian goldfields manor house stone by stone, largely by hand, and create a liveable home for his family they seem determined to make the process as difficult as possible, for no clear reason. It’s  obvious that if Clay hadn’t become involved, the  building would now be a pile of rocks – it was kind of that way when he bought it.  Fortunately he and his  wife persevere, and a rather beautiful piece of Australian history is preserved.

The Notorious, SBS2, 8.30pm

If we must have a reality series about violent meat-heads, thank goodness it’s one about violent Irish meat-heads. This series tracks the fortunes of up-and-coming martial arts champ “The Notorious” Connor McGregor and we’re certainly obliged to be impressed by the fitness and skill involved in this much-maligned sport. (Indeed, if you’re one of the cohort reflexively appalled by the idea of “cage fighting”, it’s worth checking out just to see what the discipline actually entails.) What makes this most fun to watch, though, is the beautiful gift of language even the most meat-headed of this crew seem to be blessed with. Every piece of ordinary to-camera commentary is enlivened by delicious turns of phrase. 
Melinda Houston

PAY TV

Man Up, Style, 8.30pm

British comedian Olivia Lee (who you might remember from Balls of Steel Australia is back home working to address the great British masculinity crisis. Tonight’s beneficiary is 36-year-old virgin Atul, who sleeps in a single bed in his mum’s house and who spends his Saturdays with a group of lovelorn blokes who get together to try their luck approaching – and frequently frightening – women on the street. Lee arranges Atul a little lingerie party in order to ascertain just how hopeless he is with the ladies, then puts him through a more helpful curriculum of psychological counselling, confidence-building exercises and wardrobe makeover. It’s all well intentioned and quite touching in parts.
Brad Newsome

MOVIES

Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion (1997)Comedy Movies (pay TV), 8.30pm

Two friends from high school (Mira Sorvino, Lisa Kudrow) discover the success they have long hoped for is still eluding them years later and they take determined action. Buried within the dross are at least 10 great minutes and Sorvino is wonderful.

Lost in Translation (2003) Eleven, 9.30pm

Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) lies pensively on her bed in a Tokyo hotel room. She is in Japan with her husband, a celebrity photographer, but things are not going well. She is no longer sure that he is the one. Ageing Bob Harris (Bill Murray), an actor well past his prime, is also in Tokyo, receiving $2 million for telling the world how great a 17-year-old Japanese whiskey is. He knows he is debasing his talent, but it pays the bills and also feeds his self-loathing. Bob and Charlotte meet in the hotel bar and, as such things regularly happen, a romance of sorts between two disparately lost souls begins. The third film of Sofia Coppola – if one counts alongside The Virgin Suicides the fabulous Life Without Zoe from New York Stories, which Coppola wrote at 14 and helped her dad Frank direct – made her an international name. Even her performance in Mario Puzo’s The Godfather: Part III was forgiven. And quite right, too, because Lost in Translation is fresh, delightful and deeply melancholic, capturing a moment many an adult has –  or nearly has – experienced.

In a film that tenderly celebrates the fragility of connections between people, where possibilities are impetuously taken or let slide, Coppola shows herself to be a real filmmaker. She is rightly more interested in images, their textures and emotions, than expository dialogue. Each will read and experience this film differently, as they should. But I, for one, don’t believe how the relationship between Bob and Charlotte develops – or, indeed, in the resolution between Charlotte and her husband. Because of the age gap between Bob and Charlotte (34years in actors’ terms), some may feel it goes too far. I don’t feel it goes far enough. The set-up is there, but a  believable conclusion is not.  To me, this represents a failure of nerve (as in Wong Kar-wai’s Inthe Mood for Love, where Wong cut out what we all know happened, but left in a shot of ruffled and enseamed sheets that gave the game away). One can tell from the deleted scenes of Lost in Translation on the DVD that Coppola, like Wong, wasn’t ever quite sure how to tell and  finish the story. But why complain? Most of it is entrancing.
Scott Murray