TV Review: Sunday Best

Sunday Best

Rating:  Various
Distributor: ABC1
Release Date: Sundays, 8:30 PM

Sunday Best is a little known gem on Aunty’s schedule. Not a single program, but a library of compelling stories added to each week.

Each Sunday host Kristy Best introduces viewers to a documentary that has earned the title ‘classic’. Titles featured so far include:

The Thin Blue Line – the story of Randall Adams, a Dallas drifter sentenced to die for a murder he did not commit, and the authorities that were determined to make the shaky conviction stick. An incredible case where the truth is too inconvenient to see the light of day.

Metallica: Some Kind Of Monster

– an unparalleled insight into the inner workings of a mega-band in crisis. Metallica has been the benchmark for metal music since the eighties but what happens when the drugs, booze and loose living aren’t enough? Enter the cardigan wearing therapists…

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Children of the Tsunami

– a culturally sensitive and intelligent look at the effects of the 2011 tsunami through the eyes of its youngest survivors. The documentary follows eight children in four countries devastated by the giant waves – India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Watch how the charity can evaporate when the media lens moves on.

The King of Kong

– Billy Mitchell has held the world record for playing the world famous Donkey Kongvideo game for more than 20 years and earned celebrity status in the gaming community for his achievement. But can unemployed Christian Steve Wiebe take the crown? Obsession, intrigue, acclaim and infamy, all in 60 minutes.

Week after week we find ourselves opened up to an understanding of how difficult, demented or dangerous the lives of other people can be, and how we can participate in either their problems or salvation. This exercise is an excellent cure for the sort of thinking that allowed the priest and Levite to walk past the wounded man on the road to Jericho. Our neighbour is anyone whom God has placed within the reach of our love, and every effort on our part to advance justice and show mercy can be an opportunity to attest to the arrival of the Kingdom of God.

Sunday Best is a reworking of a format that has succeeded in both Canada and the US, so it’s hardly original. And it’s a bit of a mystery why the ABC employed Kristy Best to deliver her stilted, highly scripted introductions – maybe someone with journalistic credibility would have been more suitable? It’s not as if the ABC is lacking in that department. But none of that can get in the way of the very real insights the series provides into cultures and subcultures we might otherwise overlook. If this series is ever released as a box set on DVD it will be a must-buy.