A room reveal pushes a Block judge over the edge in a week of tears and tantrums, as we deliver our verdict on the new season of John Cena’s Peacemaker.

Read our reviews of this week’s TV and streaming highlights.

One show. Two views

PEACEMAKER

STREAMING, HBO MAX

Siobhan Duck

When it comes to heroes, they don’t get much more flawed than Peacemaker (John Cena).

The son of a white supremacist, Peacemaker may have the bulging muscles and lurid lycra get-up of his comic book peers, but he also swears like a sailor, is partial to a line of cocaine and dabbles in the occasional orgy.

And believe it or not, this is an improvement from his behaviour in The Suicide Squad.

It’s been two years since this loveable lout got his own spin-off series; production was delayed while creator James Gunn turned his attentions to rebooting Superman.

John Cena and Shay Shariatzadeh at the season two premiere of Peacemaker. Picture: Getty Images
When season two begins, Peacemaker is still grappling with the toll of murdering his deadbeat dad and lusting after his crush, ARGUS agent Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), as he tries to join a new super crew.

Taking place after the events of Superman – with some fun crossover cameos, a cracking soundtrack and lots of irreverent humour – this return is everything fans have come to expect from a Gunn-helmed project.

James Wigney

John Cena’s Peacemaker might have made a big-screen cameo in the fun, family-friendly Superman, but make no mistake about his place in writer-director James Gunn’s fledgling DC Universe.

Like the first season, these eight new episodes are much closer to Gunn’s blood-soaked, wisecracking 2021 movie The Suicide Squad, from which the story takes some of its cues, though some of the newer characters – including Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion) and Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) – are now firmly established. Indeed, a disillusioned and downcast Peacemaker (known as plain old Chris Smith to his similarly struggling squad of crime-fighting pals) is trying to join their new Justice Gang as the action kicks off, declaring he wants to be a “real hero”.

Things don’t go quite to plan and after an eyebrow-raising bender, the alternative universe that he accesses through a door in his house (a world where his abusive father instead greets him with a warm hug) begins to look attractive for a permanent move.

Sarah Aubrey, Casey Bloys, James Gunn, and John Cena of Peacemaker. Picture: Getty Images
THE RAINMAKER

STREAMING, STAN

After getting into a slanging match with his new boss (John Slattery) on his first day working at a prestigious law firm, Rudy Baylor (Milo Callaghan) finds himself out on his ear and near unemployable. Desperate for money, Rudy goes to work for a shifty ambulance chaser named Jocelyn “Bruiser” Stone (Lana Parrilla).

While it’s not the glittering start to his legal career that he envisaged, Rudy quickly adapts to her unorthodox methods, taking on a wrongful-death suit that will have him going up against his old firm.

Already adapted once before as a 1997 film starring Matt Damon, this classic John Grisham legal thriller lends itself well to the long-form narrative of a TV drama.

Lana Parrilla, Milo Callaghan and John Slattery star in The Rainmaker. Picture: Getty Images
THE VOICE

7.30PM, Monday, SEVEN

As the lone Aussie in The Voice’s spinning chairs this year, Kate Miller-Heidke tries to work the local angle to her advantage when pitching herself as a superior coaching option to Melanie C, Ronan Keating and Richard Marx.

Describing the globally famous trio as “blow-ins from the Northern Hemisphere”, Miller-Heidke insists she will be more available to contestants than her peers. But even with the home-ground advantage, she has her work cut out for her when the international stars begin serenading contestants with their greatest hits.

They’re not the only ones showing off, with host Sonia Kruger unable to resist taking a twirl with a samba-dancing contestant.

BUTTERFLY

STREAMING, PRIME VIDEO

A drunken night at a karaoke bar proves the perfect front for former American spy David Jung (Daniel Dae Kim) to undertake his latest covert mission.

Between shots and stints at the microphone, David slips away to fight bad guys as cheesy pop tunes blare.

At the same time, in another part of the building, unflappable assassin Rebecca (Reina Hardesty) is taking down a powerful politician without breaking a sweat. These events set the two operatives on a collision course that will force them to face their past.

I never fully appreciated Kim when he starred as the stony-faced Jin on Lost, but this series gives him the chance to really showcase his action hero moves.

THE BLOCK

7PM, SUNDAY, NINE

It’s judgment day. After a week of tears and tantrums (mostly from Han and Can as they squabbled over painting procedures), judges Marty Fox, Shaynna Blaze and Darren Palmer cast a critical eye over the main bedrooms and walk-in wardrobes that the teams have created.

While some efforts have the style-savvy trio swooning with delight, others don’t make the grade, with real estate agent Fox making little effort to disguise his feelings, declaring “I hate it!” as soon as he enters one suite.

Marty Fox with his The Block cohorts Shaynna Blaze, centre, and Darren Palmer. Picture: Getty Images
GOGGLEBOX AUSTRALIA

7.30PM, THURSDAY, 10

Eager to express an opinion about the demise of And Just Like That … but don’t have the time or patience to sit through Carrie Bradshaw and co’s latest dramas?

Or perhaps you just feel so overwhelmed by all the options that you don’t know where or what to start watching.

Well, relax, because help is once again at hand. The Goggleboxers – including Melbourne siblings Tim and Leanne – are back to provide a weekly cheat sheet to the very best and worst of Aussie TV.

Sarah Jessica Parker’s And Just Like That gets the Gogglebox treatment. Picture: Marc Piasecki/WireImage
I, JACK WRIGHT

8.55PM, SUNDAY, ABC TV

When Jack Wright (Trevor Eve), the wealthy patriarch of a brickmaking dynasty, dies suddenly, his relatives, friends and colleagues assemble for the reading of his will, only to be left dumbfounded. Jack’s eldest son, Gray (John Simm) is a music producer with huge debts. First wife Rose (Gemma Jones) is secretly battling cancer.

And his widow Sally (Nikki Amuka-Bird, pictured left with Eden Hollingsworth) is preoccupied raising her teenage children.

Unbeknown to any of them, Jack had a new will drawn up that leaves some out in the cold and others wildly wealthy.

PROFESSOR T

STREAMING FROM THURSDAY, BRITBOX

Genius criminologist Jasper Tempest (Ben Miller) is back – tentatively and begrudgingly – to assist DS Dan Winters (Barney White) in solving a spate of new crimes. Both men are still grieving the death of DI Donckers in their own way when a woman is reported missing from a yacht.

Jasper, who has OCD, has retreated back into destructive patterns of behaviour, and the savant sleuth feels his days assisting the police died alongside Donckers – until his therapist (Juliet Stevenson) pushes him back into the field.

In case you missed it …

SUPERMAN

Thanks to director James Gunn’s reboot, Superman has once again taken flight at the box office with a fun blend of kitsch humour and action set to that iconic score.

Despite all this, nothing beats the original. No, I’m not taking about George Reeves, who played Superman in the 1950s TV series. I speak, of course, of my generation’s Superman, Christopher Reeve.

As both the suave superhero and his socially awkward alter ego Clark Kent, Reeve was faultless. The same could be said for Gene Hackman’s portrayal of his arch nemesis Lex Luthor and Margot Kidder’s tenacious Lois Lane.

So, if your kids loved Gunn’s film, it’s totally worth introducing them to the 1978 classic. Streaming on HBO Max.