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The Sixties, SBS One, 7.30pm
The final episode of this 10-part, Tom Hanks-produced series is a fitting end to the decade that changed the world – "Sex, Drugs and Rock'n'Roll" documents the counterculture popularised by the baby boomers, and its related music and politics that ushered out the 1960s. From the beatnik and folk music scene to the psychedelia of Woodstock and Haight-Ashbury, tonight's episode features – as has the entire series – some extraordinary archive footage as well as present-day interviews with some of the voices of that generation, among them author and journalist Tom Wolfe, musicians Graham Nash and Grace Slick and a clutch of historians. See the dream rise with the "first" singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and LSD advocate Timothy Leary, to the seeming death of the hippie scene with Charles Manson giving the "longhairs" a bad name, and the Hells Angels at the Altamont Speedway concert with the brutal stabbing murder of a concertgoer.
Kitchen Cabinet, ABC, 8pm
He might have been accused of being an "economic girly man" (sadly, that was evidently after this episode was already shot), but Opposition Leader Bill Shorten proves tonight he can whip up a mean ratatouille in his lovely Moonee Ponds home. Although it's actually a recipe from his wife Chloe's mum (no less than the former governor-general Dame Quentin Bryce), who protectively guides him throughout the recipe. Annabel Crabb gets Shorten to open up – although somewhat guardedly – about the difficulties of a marriage played out in public, his brief stint in the Army reserves and his shift of allegiance to Kevin Rudd in the 2013 Labor leadership ballot. And dessert? Strawberry shortcake, of course.
Scandal, Seven, 10.15pm
A bit like its trashy counterpart Revenge, Scandal is one of those series where you can miss several episodes and still follow the thread. Tonight Olivia (Kerry Washington), still searching for answers about her mother's death in the plane that was shot down – an order that may or may not have been given by her own father. Seriously. She "drunk dials" him and confronts him with this burning question, only for him to fob her off with "the past is the past and it's best you leave it there". Meanwhile her team takes on Congresswoman Josie Marcus (the still-hard-to-not-think-of-as-Phoebe Lisa Kudrow) as a client.
Kylie Northover
PAY TV
Outback Rangers, Nat Geo Wild, 8.30pm
This new documentary series about park rangers in Kakadu gets off to a good start tonight. As a new dry season begins, one group of rangers has to try to catch a big saltwater crocodile that has taken up residence near the base of Jim Jim Falls. The falls are a big tourist attraction, but tour operators won't be able to take anyone out there until the croc is caught. Unfortunately for everyone concerned, the beast is proving elusive. Elsewhere there are invasive weeds, feral pigs and another problem croc to be dealt with. The rangers are a pleasant lot, their work is interesting andthe scenery is gorgeous. Wellworth a look.
Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, TLC, 9.30pm
TLC last week cancelled Here Comes Honey Boo Boo amid reports that Mama June had begun dating a convicted child molester who sexually abused her daughter, Anna, more than a decade ago. The news came as a shock to viewers who had warmed to Mama June and her high-spirited family. Tonight, June is sad because 19-year-old Anna is moving out and taking baby Kaitlyn with her, but it's not enough to carry the episode, so we get a sub-plot in which June briefly tries working in her sister's bakery, while Sugar Bear puts on an apron and plays house husband.
Brad Newsome
MOVIES
Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), ABC, 12.30am (Wednesday)
Feeling that they needed to catch up with the seismic changes in American culture that had somehow seen Richard Nixon elected and a quick B-movie about hippie bikers called Easy Rider become a huge hit, Esquire magazine put Two-Lane Blacktop on the cover of its April 1971 issue, declaring it the movie of the year and publishing in full Rudy Wurlitzer's screenplay before the road movie was even released. Not surprisingly, Monte Hellman's movie couldn't meet such expectations, revealing a story of vehicular disaffection as a pair of drifters in a souped-up Chevrolet (Dennis Wilson and James Taylor) roll west on Route 66, drag-racing for profit. They fence with an older revhead (Warren Oates) and interact with a female character whose motivation is as deep as hername – The Girl (Laurie Bird).The movie's moments of clarity are matched by inchoate detachment.
Die Hard 2 (1990), Action Movies (pay TV), 10.50pm
The exemplary action film lessons of John McTiernan's Die Hard were forgotten for the sequel, which this time had Bruce Willis' caustic New York police detective, John McClane, confronting faceless mercenaries out to free an arrested drug boss during the holiday season panic at an airport. Director Renny Harlin, the Finn who left a trail of bad movies through Hollywood (Cutthroat Island and Mindhunters spring to mind, many others follow), replaced the unlikely but nonetheless offhand charm of the original with a snarling, boorish machismo. In his book Monster, a memoir of his screenwriting experiences with wife Joan Didion, the late John Gregory Dunne recounts a meeting with Harlin on a never made film project. Harlin was obsessed with oversized action set pieces – "whammies" was the trade term for them– and when asked when he wanted the couple to rewrite for him he replied: "First act, better whammies. Second act, whammies mount up. Third act, all whammies." That sums him up.
Craig Mathieson