WEEK 45: Saturday 7 November - Friday 13 November 2009

TV2 starts the week with an action-packed special of Just The Job on Saturday at 9.30am, with the team looking at the different careers in the air force including, engineering officer; aircraft technician; and a communications and information system technician.

Leonard (Johnny Galecki) lucks out in The Big Bang Theory on Wednesday at 8pm, when Stuart (Kevin Sussman), a fellow comic book-loving pal of the guys, romances Penny (Kaley Cuoco). Wolowitz (Simon Helberg) proposes they take Leonard out for a night on the town to commiserate, and it just happens to be Ladies' Night.

In Smallville's gripping season finale, on Friday at 11.30pm, Clark (Tom Welling) cannot bring himself to kill Davis (Sam Witwer) despite the threat that Doomsday poses, forcing Oliver (Justin Hartley) and his team to take matters into their own hands.

Movie - RV, Sunday 8 November, 8.30pm: Starring Academy award-winner Robin Williams (Good Will Hunting) and Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm), a forced family vacation in a recreational vehicle rapidly turns into a disaster, in the TV2 Sunday Premiere movie, RV.

Overworked Bob Munro (Williams) hatches a 'togetherness' plan (which is a ruse to keep him from losing his job), taking his wife Jamie (Hines), their 15-year-old daughter Cassie (Joanna 'JoJo' Levesque) and 12-year-old son Carl (Josh Hutcherson) on a family holiday, in order to spend quality time together. After promising to take them on a family vacation in Hawaii, Bob abruptly changes plans: instead of a week in a tropical paradise, they're going on a road trip to Colorado in a recreational vehicle. Everything that can go wrong does, but adversity has a way of uniting even the most dysfunctional family, and each setback the Munros experience, inadvertently helps them become a true family again. Director Barry Sonnenfeld could not resist the idea of mining the comic potential in what could easily be a horror story. "My theory has always been; the worse the experience, the better it is when you describe it in retrospect. RV is about a family that has sort of drifted apart even though they all still live together. They've all got their own MP3 players, their own computers. So even when they're in the same room, they're apart mentally." "Forcing them to be together in this recreational vehicle at first threatens to make them grow even farther apart, but their near-disastrous experiences bring them back together in a hilarious fashion," Sonnenfeld continues. "It's through adventure and adversity that they are forced to do things together as a family again and to reconnect." With acclaimed actor Robin Williams heading the cast, the producers were challenged with finding a suitable matriarch of the disgruntled Munro family, who could hold her own with the quick-witted comedian. "When we chose Robin, we set the bar very high," says producer Douglas Wick, "so everyone we chose had to be up to his level. When we talked about who could play his wife, we knew we needed someone who possessed the quickness and intelligence to keep up with him." Casting Curb Your Enthusiam's Cheryl Hines in the part, Wicks explains, "Week after week, Cheryl is subjected to Larry David's onslaught of comedy on the show. She is always up to his level and always firing back. She seemed like a great choice." Williams agrees Hines has considerable comedic gifts. "She puts the 'funk' in dysfunctional. She is seriously funny," he says. "She can do it with or without a tight script. This was a holiday for her. There were lines, but she can riff like crazy, which is great."

Local Drama - Shortland Street, Weekdays, 7pm: Life will never be the same again for James 'Scotty' Scott (Kiel McNaughton) on Shortland Street, after the loss of his beloved wife Shanti (Nisha Madhan). Facing a future on his own, how will staunch Scotty cope with his sorrow?

Since Shanti died, Scotty has been in a state of shock and disbelief. Unsure how to deal with his immense grief, he does what he knows best - he puts his head down and soldiers on. "Scotty and Shanti were at an incredibly exciting stage of their lives, with a baby on the way. So to suddenly have that torn away from him is heartbreaking," says McNaughton. "Scotty doesn't know how to deal with his loss, so as a way of managing, he keeps busy." But friends and family quickly grow concerned by his attitude, worried that he is barely keeping it together. Trying his best to stay afloat at work, Scotty ends up taking his anger out on his co-workers. "Scotty unfairly demotes Tania (Faye Smythe) and is basically a nightmare to be working with," explains McNaughton. "Everyone around him ends up walking on eggshells, and it becomes pretty obvious that he is hanging on by a thread." With episodes being shot almost three months in advance of their onscreen date, McNaughton had a long time to keep the departure of Nisha Madhan secret. "I'm always really aware when I'm talking about the show, but I had to be extra careful about this one," says McNaughton. "There were a couple of times in public when fans would ask, 'where's Shanti?', and I was tempted to say, 'she's dead'." Will Scotty be able to face up to his emotions and deal with his heartache? Keep watching Shortland Street to find out.

Drama - ER: The Final Season, Monday 9 November, 9.30pm: The history of the emergency room is revealed, as Dr David Morgenstern (William H Macy) returns to County General, this week on ER: The Final Season.

Gates (John Stamos) and Morris (Scott Grimes) treat an older man who was assaulted on the street, unaware that the man is Dr Oliver Kosten (Rance Howard), one of the founding fathers of the Chicago ER. Shortly after he's brought in, Morgenstern (guest star William H Macy, Fargo) arrives to visit his old mentor, and his former workplace. William H Macy, who starred in the series during the hit show's initial few seasons, says that it was "pretty sweet" to be back in the show. "I'm proud to be part of something that will go down in television history," he reveals. "It's quite flattering, not only to have been a part of it originally, but to be asked back for the last season." Thinking back on his time on the show, Macy marvels at his co-star's knack for picking up the medical terminology during filming. He reveals that Noah Wyle and George Clooney (both of whom will be making a return visit to the show shortly) could, "walk the walk, and talk the talk with the real doctors". "They knew exactly what had to happen if someone came in with a head trauma," Macy says. "They had all the terms, they knew everything. Noah could have performed an appendectomy by the time he left the show." As the hospital drama reaches its conclusion, it's only fitting that viewers get a glimpse of the origin of the trauma centre at County, and through a series of flashbacks, we discover how Morgenstern's mentor, Kosten, fought to set up an emergency service back in the 60s. "You used to stand a better chance of surviving a gunshot wound in Vietnam, than a car accident in Chicago," Macy explains. "There was no 911 system, and there was no specialty for trauma - someone came up with that. [The episode] speaks to the evolution of American medicine." Elsewhere, while treating a mother thought to have late stage cancer, Dr Brenner (David Lyons) gets a shocking diagnosis from Kosten, and Sam (Linda Cardellini) gets an unexpected visit from her sister (Shannon Woodward).

Movie - Edison, Tuesday 10 November, 8.30pm: Justin Timberlake makes his acting debut in TV2's Blockbuster Tuesday movie, the gritty crime thriller, Edison.

The growing metropolis of Edison seems to hold promise for all, but the young and ambitious journalist Josh Pollack (Timberlake) must begin at the bottom. Though he'd rather launch his career as an investigative reporter at The Times, he's reduced to writing uninteresting pieces at the Heights Herald, a community paper. But Pollack soon begins to uncover police corruption on a massive scale in the town of Edison. After his life is threatened, he joins forces with his cynical mentor Moses Ashford (Morgan Freeman, The Shawshank Redemption), as well as an investigator for the district attorney's office (Kevin Spacey, American Beauty), in order to take on the criminal element in the force, which has until now been implicitly sanctioned. According to Timberlake's co-star, Oscar winner Kevin Spacey, the young popstar was determined to make a good job of his first acting role. "Justin was very serious about taking this role on," Spacey tells BBC Radio 1. "I think it was smart of him to take on the role of a journalist who hasn't proved himself yet, and I think he's being smart about wanting to carve out a career for himself after this pop idol stuff is done." Although David Burke, the movie's writer and director, had previously worked on television shows like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, he had never made a feature film prior to Edison, which made it all the more astonishing that he managed to assemble such a high-profile cast. Having experienced actors in the line-up made his feature debut shoot somewhat easier, Burke says, as it allowed him to spend more time with Timberlake, working on his performance. "Justin is spectacular," Burke says, explaining that the singer worked hard to be able to stand "toe to toe" with Freeman and Spacey. "I think his performance will surprise a lot of people."

Local Drama - The Cult, Thursday 12 November, 8.30pm: Cynthia's (Danielle Cormack) questionable medical past is brought to light, this week on The Cult, which brings some shocking revelations about what she is trying to achieve with her experiments in Two Gardens.

Having returned to the compound, an unnerved Cynthia fears her deal with Sophie (Lisa Chappell) is putting her plans in Two Gardens at risk, and she realises she must speed up her work, appealing to Edward (Latham Gaines) that they should proceed. But when an untrusting Edward is hesitant, Cynthia decides that she needs to take matters into her own hands, and takes some shocking measures to convince him. "In this episode we get a snapshot of Cynthia's past," explains story editor Yvonne Donohoe, "and it's in very unexpected and shocking circumstances. Through this story, we learn what Cynthia is trying to achieve through her work in Two Gardens - and how truly dangerous and ruthless she is." With Cynthia beginning to push Edward, he digs his heels in, and a battle of the wills becomes apparent, as Donohoe explains: "They have separate agendas that have, up until now, run alongside each other. But with the interference of the Liberators and Sophie in the workings of Two Gardens, the pressure is on and their relationship begins to fray." "The question of who is really in charge in Two Gardens is raised with neither party backing down," Donohoe continues. "They're both strong, intelligent, manipulative characters who believe completely in their ultimate goals. But it's the future of the people of Two Gardens that hangs in the balance, and by the end of this episode, we see how deadly this conflict can be." Also emerging as a force to be reckoned with, Sophie is making Cynthia nervous with the knowledge she holds. "There is also an interesting relationship developing between Cynthia and Sophie," says Donohoe. "A deal has been made which Sophie capitalises on this week, but with her motivations unclear, it's Cynthia who is on the backfoot. The real mystery developing outside the compound is who Sophie really is, why she is here and who is she working with." With Hugo (Will Wallace) missing and Ryan's (Gareth Reeves) revelation that their people didn't send the envelopes, Michael (Renato Bartolomei) and the Liberators are at a loss. They are forced to face the reality that their loved ones don't know they're in danger in Two Gardens - something that has never been clearer to the Liberators. They need to get a message to their families, but the only way is to get in to the compound, and that means trusting Sophie to help them.