ABC2's blog

7:15am – Friday, November 16 on ABC2

Preschoolers can now watch a double dose of their favourite, loveable, cheeky little piggy, Peppa, daily at 7.15am on ABC4Kids. Going on adventures with her younger brother, George, Mummy Pig and Daddy Pig, Peppa learns lots of new and exciting things and her adventures always end happily with loud snorts of laughter.

Series 5, episode one: Potato City – Friday, November 16 at 7.15am on ABC4Kids Peppa and her family visit a new theme park called Potato City. Peppa’s unsure if she’ll like the theme park but once they arrive she thinks it’s fantastic! Plus all her friends have come along too.

At the theme park, Peppa and her friends ride the potato rocket rollercoaster, ride on mechanical dinosaurs and discover that the magic of vegetables never ends.

Series 4, episode four: Freddy Fox – Friday, November 16 at 7.21am on ABC4Kids Peppa and her friends are playing hide and seek, but it’s Freddy Fox with his super smelling nose who is the best at playing that game.

9:00pm – Tuesday, November 13 on ABC2

Suspicion and jealousy are rife at ISIS as Krieger nears completion of a top-secret project, and Archer brings beautiful – and mysterious – former KGB agent Katya Kazanova home to meet Malory… who reacts about like one would expect.

Archer is an animated half-hour comedy set at ISIS, an international spy agency, where global crises are merely opportunities for its highly trained employees to confuse, undermine, betray and royally screw each other.

9:30pm – Friday, November 16 on ABC2

Sixteen-year-old Jon is a typical teenage boy in all respects except one: he was born a girl.

Brought up as Natasha for 15 years, Jon can remember feeling male since he was only five years old. He eventually confided in his mother Luisa, who supported him in seeking help from his GP and subsequently a gender specialist.

Jon was diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a condition that affects over 100 British children every year, and is embarking on an extraordinary journey of transition. This program follows mother and son through the first three months of Jon’s life-changing treatment as the testosterone pushes his female body into male puberty.

For Jon the changes that follow are things he’s always wanted. But for Luisa, this means coming to terms with the enormous loss of her daughter.

The Boy Who Was Born a Girl is a sensitive, moving and remarkable film about one teenager’s determination to be true to himself and the extraordinary love and support of a mother.

9:00pm – Thursday, November 15 on ABC2

Pete Helliar has been one of Australia’s favourite comedians since he first appeared on our screens on Rove back in 1999. His first love was stand up and despite the attractions of the screen (both big and small) the stage has always been his native environment.

In this Warehouse Comedy Festival show, Pete has realised Snazzy is not about the threads, it’s an attitude.

9:35pm – Wednesday, November 14 on ABC2

After cooking up a storm with some of Australia’s most surprising politicians in the first series of Kitchen Cabinet, Annabel Crabb has come back to ABC2 with a second helping.

Each week our veteran political journalist invites herself over to the home of a sitting member offering dessert in exchange for dinner.

Annabel Crabb is ABC Online’s chief political writer, and columnist for ‘The Drum’. She is a regular guest on ABC News 24′s 6pm current affairs show The Drum, and on ABC TV’s Sunday morning politics program Insiders. She writes a weekly column for the Sun Herald, Sunday Times (Canberra) and Sunday Age, and is a panellist and keen competitor on ABC1′s Randling. (Favourite word: Preposterous) In the series final, Greens Leader Christine Milne talks to Annabel about her part in making Tasmania one of the more progressive states in Australia. Politicised over the fight to save the Franklin River this former school teacher did a short stint in jail with her fellow activists before taking on a power-sharing role in the Tasmanian state parliament. After a quick visit to the local produce store Milne drives Annabel back to her beautiful home overlooking the harbour. Over an onion and goats cheese tart Milne talks about gun control laws post-Port Arthur, what it was like to be called ‘the mother of teenage sodomy’ and her harsh approach to a particularly recalcitrant passionfruit tree.

8:40pm – Wednesday, November 14 on ABC2

In tonight’s final episode of Don’t Blame the Dog, British hairdresser Amy lacks the confidence when it comes to controlling her basset hound, while student drop-out Tyler refuses to take responsibility for walking, feeding and cleaning up after his dog. Amy and Tyler leave their dogs behind and travel to Alaska to spend a week working with dogs that race sleds for a living.

These Brits can barely look after their own dogs but here they will have to look after more than 80 dogs, making sure they are fed and kept clean in the extreme cold. They will train to enter a real race across the frozen Yukon – an event that will push them to the limit. Will the experience help them re-evaluate their own lives and become better pet owners?

9:30pm – Tuesday, November 13 on ABC2

A hot, naked Scandinavian named Lola (Adele Perovic) fetches up on Coolum beach, and causes quite a stir. Banks (Toby Truslove) thinks she is a lost backpacker and sets about to help her. Gregor (Barry Crocker) assumes she is a mermaid, with a potent siren song. When Lola takes a liking to Banks, Gregor is fearful for his friend – he’s convinced Lola wants to eat Banks for dinner.

Gregor’s extreme attempts to convince Banks that Lola is a killer mermaid cause a rift between our pair and Gregor is evicted from the van.

Drowning his sorrows at a local pub, Gregor encounters a local youth with a terrifying tale that supports his theory. He races back to the caravan to save Banks… but he’s too late.

Banks and Lola are already at the beach, and Lola is tempting Banks into the water. Gregor arrives for a sandy showdown.

9:30pm – Monday, November 12 on ABC2

Riley (Karla Crome) reluctantly agrees for Mia (Chloe Sevigny) to take Leonie (Roma Christensen) to a ballet class. Surrounded by real mothers Mia feels out of place.

John (Vincent Regan) puts the smallholdings up for sale. Levi’s (Reece Noi) efforts to confront John are laughed off for he is only a boy.

Frustrated and angry Levi blames Mia for the house being sold and calls her a freak. Mia leaves, struggling to cope with her identity and this new family she has inherited. Meanwhile a strange man lurks around the smallholdings. Watching the house.

Watching the kids.

Mia wants to be part of their family and offers the money for her operation to buy the house. When John refuses to sell to her, Eddie (Peter Wight) suggests using his name on the paperwork instead. Wanting to make Ryan (Jorden Bennie) happy Mia agrees but worries that her personal and professional life is becoming too close.

Ben (Jonas Armstrong) asks Mia out on a date. Eddie is wary of this relationship as he doesn’t want anyone coming between Mia and the job. Celebrating the prospect of owning the house the family have a party and slowly begin to warm to Mia.

8:30pm – Monday, November 12 on ABC2

Louis Theroux spends some time locked up with the inmates of one of the largest jails in the world – Miami’s mega jail.

Holding 6,000 prisoners and processing more than 100,000 people a year, Miami’s mega jail is a transitory place for those not yet sentenced and those awaiting trial and charges; a twilight between court and prison.

Mega jails are a new phenomenon in America as the country struggles to process its growing criminal class. Conditions are tough, dark and uncompromising. There are 25 prisoners to each cage. Some are just drunk and disorderly; others are fresh from a murder. Depending on the nature of their crime, some are in and out in hours and others might be there for years.

From the men on death row awaiting their appeals to those waiting for their first sight of a court room, Louis meets a collection of people thrown together – some innocent, some guilty and none proven yet, either way.

In the first episode of this two-part series, Louis spends time in one of the most notorious sections of Miami County Jail – the fifth and sixth floors where many of the most volatile inmates are incarcerated.

Up to 24 men are held in large cage-like dwellings where they have developed a strange and violent jail culture. The men, who remain in the cells almost all the time and may only leave for yard time twice a week, live under the sway of a gladiatorial code. They fight each other for food, for status, and often just to pass the endless hours of confinement. Trips to the infirmary are a frequent occurrence as inmates are viciously attacked and beaten, but the guards say they are powerless to end the abuse.

9:30pm – Sunday, November 11 on ABC2

Five emerging filmmakers are giving an OPENING SHOT.

OPENING SHOT is an initiative between Screen Australia and ABC TV that gives voice to a new generation of filmmakers – with stories to match.

Five filmmaking teams, all with a director under 35 years old, have been given the opportunity to create a prime time half hour film that not only develops their long form filmmaking skills, but also fires an (opening) shot into the national conversation about Australia today.

From the moral minefield of modern reproductive science to online hacktivism, these films share the voice of a generation tackling the issues that are important to them, and that have consequences for all of us.

What they collectively demonstrate is that while today’s younger generations may be disengaged from traditional party politics they are not disengaged from the issues that matter.

Are you ready to give them a shot.

Can you eat meat and really care about the animals on your dinner plate? In this second OPENING SHOT doco, Meatwork, documentarian and meat-eater, Madeleine Parry wants to find out. So she enlists to become an abattoir meat-worker, and works her way up the production line toward the ‘killbox’. With unparalleled access to a slaughterhouse, she explores the experiences of the animals we eat and the men who kill them. As she truly becomes part of the industrial meat production process, she faces the reality of killing hundreds of animals a day. Maddie wants to know the truth, but can she stomach it?