This is The Times’s pick of the latest big TV series on the streaming platforms, chiefly iPlayer, ITVX, Channel 4, Sky/Now, Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, Apple TV+ and Paramount+. It will be updated every Friday afternoon.
While there are hundreds of great older shows available, to stop this list from becoming endless we are sticking largely to those that are recently available, but you can also find some hidden gems here. We also have our platform-specific guides to the best Netflix TV shows, the best Prime Video TV shows, the best Disney+ shows, the best Apple TV+ shows, the best shows on BBC iPlayer plus the best shows to watch on Sky and Now.
And, of course, feel free to leave your recommendations in the comments below.
Those About to Die
Prime Video
Merely the mention that Anthony Hopkins is in this latest Roman TV epic piques one’s interest. And rightly so — he’s often the best thing about Those About to Die, Roland Emmerich’s ten-parter, offering his craggy gravitas to all the swords-and-sandals politics and violence, the lashings of sex and the daggers held threateningly to throats. Hopkins is Emperor Vespasian, who is ruling in AD79 having prevailed in the turmoil after Nero’s suicide. Aside from Hopkins’s presence, the big draws are the spectacular Ben Hur-style blood and sport in front of the baying mob at the Flavian amphitheatre (the series is based on the 1958 book that inspired Ridley Scott’s Gladiator). James Jackson
The Bear
Disney+
One of the most feted shows on TV returns for a third series, and life for Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) and co in the Chicago restaurant isn’t getting any less stressful – not now it’s a high-end eaterie with standards to be maintained. The series itself is becoming evermore refined alongside the food, apparently reaching for Michelin-starred heights. Specifically, the first episode is almost avant garde in its lack of dialogue, being a half-hour symphony of beautiful cinematography. From there, the series picks up, with Carmy’s mission to change the menu every single day providing the requisite fireworks. JJ
Read our full The Bear review
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The Sommerdahl Murders
Channel 4 streaming
A Danish series with a great twist in its detective-duo set-up. DCI Dan Sommerdahl (Peter Mygind) discovers towards the end of the first episode (and it’s no spoiler to say) that he has a rival for his wife’s affections. The things is, it’s his work partner, and they must continue working together. It makes for a series as much about relationships as crime — and Mygind, familiar from Borgen and The Killing, is always very watchable. JJ
Douglas Is Cancelled
ITVX
Steven Moffatt’s cancel-culture comedy-drama follows the plight of Douglas Bellowes (Hugh Bonneville) – a trusted news host about to be torn down by a social media pile-on. That’s because he has made a poorly judged joke (“sexist, not misogynist!” he keeps clarifying) while sloshed at a wedding. Being Moffat, questions are kept dangling, there are twists — and it feels a series that will divide viewers. But Bonneville is as reliably good as you’d expect.
Read our full Douglas Is Cancelled review
We Were the Lucky Ones
Disney+
Based on a novel by Georgia Hunter, this sweeping drama is inspired by the true story of one Jewish family separated at the start of the Second World War, and their attempts to evade the Nazis. Things start off in Radom, Poland in 1938, and perhaps the most conspicuous character is Halina (Joey King), the vivacious lab scientist youngest daughter, and Addy (Logan Lerman), the son who is a composer resident in Paris. It may take you a while to figure out who the various people are, but once you do, you really are swept along by their various epic adventures, and it build to a powerfully moving climax. JJ
Peacock
BBC iPlayer
As big a prat as the any British sitcom male is the hapless personal trainer Andy Peacock, played by Allan “Seapa” Mustafa, just back in the second series of this gym-bro comedy. He is so ham-fisted in his macho bravado, that there are moments — such as when he’s desperately scrambling together a “body-positive” gym class to impress a new colleague — you can barely watch for cringing. Yet, as is the way with sitcom idiots, you find yourself sympathising with him. Being from the team behind People Just Do Nothing, this is a series where every performance feels amusingly real. JJ
Presumed Innocent
AppleTV+
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As Succession and A Man in Full have shown, when it comes to TV dramas there’s little that’s more compelling than watching alpha males squaring up against each other, snarling sweary dialogue, and playing for the highest stakes. And so it is with the latest glossy streaming series, this one a juicy eight-part legal thriller from David E Kelly and JJ Abrams, which remakes the 1990 Harrison Ford film. Jake Gyllenhaal’s prosecuting attorney, Rusty Sabich, discovers that his beautiful colleague has been murdered – and it’s no real spoiler to say he was having an affair with her, so before long the finger is pointing at him. The deepening murk is helped enormously by having such reliably watchable character actors as Peter Saarsgard and Bill Camp firing up the dialogue. JJ
More of the best shows on AppleTV+
Becoming Karl Lagerfeld
Disney+
The latest streaming series set in the world of high fashion starts in Paris in 1972. At this point, Lagerfeld, played by Daniel Brühl, is an unknown fashion designer, but one who seems to understand that the first step to becoming a legend is acting like a legend. Meanwhile, his friend Yves Saint Laurent is the head of the most prestigious fashion house around. Things are, of course, about to change. The key moment arrives in a low-lit nightclub, when Lagerfeld encounters a young dandy named Jacques de Bascher, which kick-starts a long-term platonic relationship. Yet what happened when Jacques and Yves start an affair in 1973? JJ
Meet the It-girl playing Karl Lagerfeld’s muse
Star Wars: The Acolyte
Disney+
In this spin-off, set some 100 years before Luke, Leia and Darth, the Jedi are in charge of a galaxy far, far away. Yet it’s not all peaceful serenity, because a female, Force-sensitive assassin Mae (Amandla Stenberg) is targeting Jedi masters. She’s operating not just on a personal revenge mission but at the behest of a mystery villainous master with a red lightsaber. A manhunt is on the cards, and integral to it is her twin sister Osha (also Stenberg). Coming from a new showrunner Leslye Headland, this is so far looking like a fresh and ambitiously different entry to the ever-expanding Star Wars universe, but also badly paced — even as it’s punctuated by nifty Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon martial arts scenes. JJ
Read our full The Acolyte review
Walter Presents: The Silence
Channel 4 streaming
A girl has drowned in the River Drava in the Croatian city of Osijek. Another one has overdosed. A third one was killed by a car. No one can identify them and an investigation is on the cards — one that will take an inspector, his sidekick, a scruffy journalist and a government minister’s wife into a dark world of child trafficking. Which sounds an unappealing prospect but this drama is based on the acclaimed fact-based books by the investigative journalist Drago Hedl and is done with an edge of class. JJ
Eric
Netflix
What to make of Abi Morgan’s darkly emotional six-part psychodrama, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as a New York father in the grip of a breakdown after his nine-year-old goes missing? The British star is on top form here, starting off abrasive enough as the creative mind behind a Sesame Street-style puppet show, but then careering off into full-blown hallucinatory meltdown as his anguish escalates. But other strands emerge, and almost take over things, as Morgan makes bigger points about homelessness, homophobia, police corruption and more — 1980s New York is her own character here, and she’s not pretty. All this rather sprawls under the weight of its ambitions, but whenever Cumberbatch is on screen it’s gripping. JJ
The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live
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Sky/Now
The world’s biggest zombie franchise ran (or shuffled) for 177 episodes until 2022. But you can’t keep a good army of the undead down, and now, rising from the TV grave, here is a spin-off set after the events of the original series, with the return of Andrew Lincoln as the former sheriff Rick Grimes and Danai Gurira as Michonne. They are “kept apart by distance and an unstoppable power” so must embark on an “epic love story”. This could get grisly, but fans will need no further convincing. JJ
Kafka
Channel 4 streaming
One hundred years on from his death, the word Kafkaesque is still used — overused even — to describe being trapped in a dystopian labyrinth of bureaucracy. A relief then, that this handsomely mounted six-part dramatic mini-series is anything but nightmarish. Instead this has an irreverent edge as it jumps about non-chronologically. At its heart are Kafka’s love affairs and his close friendship with Max Brod, also a writer. A bit of an oddity, but worthy of investigation. JJ
The Outlaws
BBC iPlayer
As series three of the crime caper-thriller arrives — continuing to follow the motley group of small-time offenders doing community service — there is still the quality of the cast: if it’s not Darren Boyd stealing scenes as the (newly zen) blowhard John, it’s the wannabe police officer played by Jessica Gunning (aka Martha in Baby Reindeer). The likes of Richard E. Grant, Claes Bang, Christopher Walken are still popping up. Then there is the sharpness of Stephen Merchant’s jokes (“it’s about as convincing as a Melania Trump orgasm”), which tends to come as a relief given the way things keep swinging into gangster territory. There’s an edge of rudeness, too: Eleanor Tomlinson’s influencer Gabby is enjoying her newly rampant libido in what we’ll call scenes of a risque nature. JJ
Insomnia
Paramount+
Most people approach turning 40 with a slight sense of dread, but it’s particularly acute for Emma Averill (Line of Duty’s Vicky McClure) in this new psychological thriller. Her mother suffered from insomnia in the weeks leading up to her 40th birthday, eventually having a violent psychotic breakdown on the night of the landmark day. And history seems to be repeating itself as Emma starts experiencing severe insomnia, dark hallucinations and flashbacks that reveal a troubled past. This wouldn’t be out of place on ITV, and while the twists are bananas, McClure is reliably good as a woman on the edge. Joe Clay
Read our full review of Insomnia here
The Beach Boys
Disney+
The story of the Beach Boys — one of sibling success, harmonies blessed with the divine, troubled genius Brian, lawsuits, tragedy and the rest — is a well-told tale, but it bears repeating and this rock doc is a concise (and clearly band-endorsed) canter through the history that refuses to get bogged down in the bad vibrations. Full of great clips, it presents a balanced view. It doesn’t go into Brian’s breakdowns in much depth although we do hear Al Jardine’s unique recollection that “I started getting indications that Brian was taking LSD … he drove me around the parking lot about 20 times explaining about this great trip he’d just taken”. JJ
Read our full review of The Beach Boys here
Rebus
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iPlayer
Of all the redoubtable Scottish detectives — from Taggart to Jimmy Perez — Ian Rankin’s DS John Rebus is perhaps the most complex and intense, or rather, the one willing to go beyond the law when the end justifies the means. This quality is present in a new incarnation in a series that’s less an Endeavour-style prequel, more a reboot. Played by Richard Rankin (no relation to Ian), this Rebus is some years younger than Ken Stott (the last actor to play him on television) and indeed than the Rebus of the novels. This Rebus is a physically robust reimagining, with a fresh new story and the signs here are promising: Rankin has a darkly brooding quality and the whole thing is, of course, distinctively Edinburgh. JJ
Bridgerton
Netflix
Series three of the raunchy Regency hit, and this time it’s primarily about the friendship (or something more?) between Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan) and Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton). The shy Penelope, lest we forget, had overheard the dishy Colin telling a group of young men: “Are you mad? I would never dream of courting Penelope Featherington! Not in your wildest dreams!” Poor Penelope. She wants a husband but the only one for her is the one man who wouldn’t dream of her. Or does he…? Dearest gentle reader, the course of true love is unlikely to run smoothly. Coughlan’s charming vulnerability keeps you watching. Four episodes of series three are out now, with four more on June 13. JJ
Read our full review of Bridgerton season 3 part 1
The Big Cigar
AppleTV+
Here’s one of those hip 1970s-set dramas that come with a superfly soundtrack, split-screen montages, cocaine-addled men with bad hair in wide-lapelled suits — think Boogie Nights or Blow. It tells the (mostly) true story of how the Black Panther founder Huey Newton (André Holland) escaped the FBI to Cuba with the help of the Easy Rider producer Bert Schneider (Alessandro Nivola) — it involved a fake movie production. This caper barrels along, vividly evoking a time when Hollywood revolution collided with social revolution. JJ
A Man in Full
Netflix
Quite a pedigree with this one. Based on the 1998 novel by Tom Wolfe, this six-part drama has been adapted by David E Kelley (he of Big Little Lies), and with a cast led by an imperious Jeff Daniels as the swaggering property mogul Charlie Croker. Charlie’s heading for trouble, though. A bruiser of a bank chief (Bill Camp) wants to bring down Croker; and in the middle there’s a tangle taking in a dweeby turncoat employee, his ex-wife (Diane Lane) and a police racism side-plot. It fair swaggers along, packed with full-frontal displays of machismo (quite literally at one point) and is one to be filed under ‘solidly entertaining’, certainly when held against the brilliance of the comparable Succession. JJ
Suits
BBC iPlayer
Having become the most-streamed show of last year (in the US) thanks to Netflix, now BBC1 is splashing out on the shark-infested legal drama (which originally ran from 2011 to 2019). So is it worth watching? Certainly for the first couple of seasons — less for the presence of Meghan Markle, more for the figure of Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht), the attorney famed for being a “closer” at his New York corporate law firm. It’s a bit legal-case-of-the-week, a bit soap opera, but always smart and pretty addictive. JJ
The Responder
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BBC iPlayer
“I’m worried about Chris. Is he getting better… or is he getting worse?” That’s the question stalking series two of The Responder, Chris being the Liverpool night-response policeman teetering on the verge of a breakdown. He is played by Martin Freeman in a gritty drama that’s been acclaimed for the authentic realism of its writing (by ex-copper Tony Schumacher), its streak of bleak humour and, yes, Freeman’s tour de force — increasingly gaunt, the lines of stress worn deep into his face. This unpredictable nocturnal odyssey is not for the faint-hearted. JJ
Fiasco
Netflix
A French comedy following a hapless director called Raphaël (Pierre Niney) whose directorial debut becomes a disaster when a member of the team tries to sabotage his film. It’s an enjoyable caper that shows once again how en pointe our friends across La Manche can be when they go behind the cameras and delve into the viscera of movie making. However this lacks the subtle refinement of Dix Pour Cent (Call My Agent) and is much broader and sillier. Because when a director should “cut” in this world, there’s a good chance it means that a stuntwoman’s leg has been cut off. Ben Dowell
Shardlake
Disney+
England, 1536, and in a monastery steeped in candlelit atmosphere, a knife flashes in the dark. A man is murdered. A Tudor sleuth is required — and that’ll be Matthew Shardlake, a humpbacked lawyer, assisted by Jack Barak, a wisecracking henchman of Thomas Cromwell. Both will soon arrive at the monastery to work out the secrets of the monks.Fans of the novels of CJ Sansom – who sadly died this week – will know all this. A long-awaited TV adaptation arrives with an intense Arthur Hughes in the title role, Anthony Boyle as Barak and Sean Bean as a robust Cromwell. It is pacier than Wolf Hall’s glacial immersion in Henry VIII’s England, happy in its skin as a cracking whodunnit reminiscent at times of The Name of the Rose. JJ
Read our full review of Shardlake here
• CJ Sansom’s Shardlake novels changed the literary world
Clarkson’s Farm 3
Prime Video
There’s a downbeat start to the third series following Jeremy Clarson’s adventures in farming. It’s August 2022, and while on the surface everything looks bucolic and lovely, behind the scenes “everything that could go wrong, has gone wrong,” Clarkson explains. Clarkson has a brainwave — can he farm the 500 acres of land he’s not farming, where there are apples, berries, wild garlic and deer. Kaleb Cooper is promoted to farm manager (“you’re fired” he immediately tells Clarkson), and then Clarkson comes up with another idea — breeding pigs. It’s as entertaining as ever, while giving us a deep and unusual insight into the realities of UK farming. JC
• Kaleb Cooper: ‘I’ve taught someone three times my age to do a better job’
The Tattooist of Auschwitz
Sky/Now
A prestige adaptation of Heather Morris’s 2018 novel about Lali (Jonah Hauer-King), a Slovakian Jew deported to Auschwitz who falls in love with fellow prisoner Gita (Anna Prochniak). Their story is framed by the elderly Lali, played by Harvey Keitel in conversation with Morris herself (Melanie Lynskey). It gradually builds in power and doesn’t shy away from the utter horrors of the concentration camp. The series has been rather dividing critics, although The Times’s Carol Midgley gives it four stars. JJ
Read our full review of The Tattooist of Auschwitz here
Red Eye
ITVX
Turn off your phones (and your brains), observe the fasten seatbelt sign and settle in for an aeroplane thriller in which Richard Armitage is Dr Matthew Nolan — arriving back home at a London airport only to be taken aside by police only to be sent straight back to Beijing on suspicion of murder. The plane ride will hit turbulence… Red Eye is just the kind of straight-faced, preposterous thing you might want as zone-out evening viewing — a man in handcuffs on a plane, one on which you’re not sure if this passenger or that stewardess might be carrying a gun, and where a conspiracy is undoubtedly going to make its presence felt. Like all plane thrillers from Air Force One to Hijack, it will surely be a hit — because no one seems to mind being shown the most alarming possible outcome for their next holiday flight. JJ
The Red King
Sky/Now
Almost every inch of Sergeant Grace Narayan’s pub guest room is covered with unwelcoming imagery. But what’s to be scared of? It’s not as though she’s going to end up inside a giant wicker idol. Is it? Folk horror abounds in Toby Whithouse’s new thriller (showing on Alibi; but available on demand on Sky), in which the out-of-favour cop Narayan (Anjli Mohindra) is posted to the remote island of St Jory, full of pagan religion, to investigate an unsolved crime. The locals have a chronic disdain for her; then a fearsome storm cuts off the island from the mainland… Toby Earle
Read our full review of The Red King
Feud: Capote vs the Swans
Disney+
Gossip can be a dangerous thing. Just ask the socialites who found themselves on the wrong end of Truman Capote’s pen in the mid-1960s. Or Capote himself, when they turned on him in revenge. It was an epic high-society spat, and in this eight-part saga, vitriol spills over at every luncheon, funeral or other immaculately dressed event. Tom Hollander positively feasts on the role of Capote here, opposite Naomi Watts, Diane Lane and Chloe Sevigny in a roll-call cast as the betrayed “swans”. The feel is as elegant and potent as a well-mixed Manhattan — one with a slug of arsenic. JJ
Read our full review of Feud: Capote vs the Swans
Wisting
BBC iPlayer
Not the best known, but certainly one of the premier-league Scandi crime dramas. This time the hulking, well-meaning, granite-faced detective William Wisting (Sven Nordin) is looking into the murder of a young woman called Rosa, who was babysitting an English boy called Clifford Greenwood when he disappeared from a luxury hotel owned by his grandfather. Was Rosa an unfortunate victim of a planned kidnapping? Early clues, such as the furtive behaviour of Clifford’s father (played by the British actor Rupert Evans) and the rather abrupt way that Rosa is treated before her lifeless body is found dumped in nearby shrubbery, look decidedly fishy from the off. The summer sun never seems to stop shining, although, as fans will know, the criminality in Wisting world can be quite grisly and unpleasant. BD
Baby Reindeer
Netflix
Richard Gadd is a Scottish writer and comedian and Baby Reindeer was his one-man play that won two awards at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2019. Now it’s a dark Netflix comedy drama from the makers of The End of the F***ing World. Based on his real-life experience, Gadd plays Donny Dunn, a struggling comedian whose act of kindness to a vulnerable woman sparks a suffocating obsession that threatens to destroy them both. JC
Read our interview with Richard Gadd
Franklin
AppleTV+
December 3, 1776 — Benjamin Franklin arrives on the Brittany coast for a mission shrouded in secrecy. He is known for his “world famous” electrical experiments. Yet his diplomatic mission comes at a crossroads during the American Revolution. How fortunate that Franklin has such fame, wit and charm — he will need it to persuade the French monarchy to support America’s fledgling democracy, outmanoeuvring British spies, French informers and hostile colleagues in order to do so. Michael Douglas clearly revels in the title role of “a bit of a rascal” (as Douglas has described Franklin), and he’s reason enough to give this game of diplomatic chess a go. JJ
Read our interview with Eddie Marsan
Fallout
Prime Video
The latest video game to be adapted into a television series, and as with The Last of Us, it is set in a post-apocalyptic world, this time in the aftermath of a nuclear event in an alternate history of Earth. 219 years later, Lucy is forced to leave the vault, where she was born and raised, to venture out into the superbly-realised irradiated hellscape of Los Angeles. It’s from the writers of Westworld, and the cast includes Kyle MacLachlan as Lucy’s father and Walton Goggins as Cooper Howard, a noseless bounty hunter known as The Ghoul, physically and mentally mutated by prolonged exposure to radiation. JC
The Regime
Sky/Now
Terrified underlings doing the bidding of an unpredictable and dangerously unhinged dictator proved fertile territory for Armando Iannucci in The Death of Stalin. Now, HBO has had a go, casting Kate Winslet as Elena Vernham, the glamorous chancellor of a fictional eastern European country that she rules like a cross between Uncle Joe, Putin and Eva Perón. It is a comedy in which the dark and the daft registers jostle, although not always convincingly. Winslet approaches the role with gusto though, with a fantastically plummy English accent and slight speech impediment as she sends out executive orders designed either to flirt with her people, crush dissent or assuage her constant hypochondria. Andrea Riseborough’s turn as Vernham’s sharp-eyed, world-weary housekeeper Agnes is also hugely enjoyable. BD
Read our full review of The Regime
Curb Your Enthusiasm
NowTV
The tuba and mandolins of the theme tune Frolic that have opened every episode of this show have fallen sadly silent, but at least there are 12 series of this peerless comedy to enjoy. The final series followed a delicious narrative arc in which Larry David’s alter ego faced criminal charges for giving his friend Auntie Rae water at a polling booth. Of course our man found a way of moving from darling of liberal America and celebrities like Bruce Springsteen and Sienna Miller to villain of the piece, in a series which took in a racially offensive garden ornament, arguments at his golf club and his final showdown before the judge. We’re missing him already. BD
Read our full review of the finale
10 best episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm ranked
Scoop
Netflix
One of the most hotly anticipated TV films of 2024 arrives, promising to give a revealing account of how Newsnight landed the scoop of the year, if not the decade: the Prince Andrew interview in 2019. Rufus Sewell plays “Randy Andy”, with Gillian Anderson as his grand inquisitor Emily Maitlis. Both took great care to offer faithful representations (with Sewell spending three hours a day in make-up), and the script is based on the book by Sam McAlister, the producer who secured the royal interview. Billie Piper plays McAlister, wearing an £11,000 blonde wig, while Keeley Hawes is Andrew’s private secretary, Amanda Thirsk. It’s a fascinating take on how the prince made the fateful decision to do the interview in the first place. JJ
Read our full review of Scoop
How accurate is Scoop? The inside story of Prince Andrew’s interview
Ripley
Netflix
Ripley is the third go at Patricia Highsmith’s thriller The Talented Mr Ripley, after Plein Soleil (Purple Noon) in 1960 and Anthony Minghella’s version in 1999. Judiciously, it tries something different. Steven Zaillian’s inventive directing comes in a stylised black and white — almost like a living work of art — and with an oddly minimalist feel, as the grifter Tom Ripley (Andrew Scott) is hired to travel to Italy to convince the wealthy Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn) to return to his family business. The early scenes in 1960s New York have an immersive feel, but when Ripley arrives in Italy, at times it can feel as if you’re watching scenes from a play. Yet almost by stealth, his game of fraud, deceit and murder draws you in until you can’t take your eyes off it. JJ
Read our full review of Ripley
Sugar
Apple TV+
Colin Farrell slips coolly into the role of a gumshoe on the case of a Hollywood mogul’s missing granddaughter in this contemporary noir drama. John Sugar is a well-groomed, crisply suited private detective of discerning taste. He speaks several languages (including, at one point, fluent Arabic to a random chauffeur), drinks neat Scotch at the bar but never gets drunk, and can spot when someone is lying at 50 paces. Oh, and he has a very stylish vintage car. The editing can be offbeat, flipping in and out of black and white and slipping in cuts of old films. So is everything as predictable as it seems? It appears that Sugar may also be hiding something . . . about himself. JJ
Renegade Nell
Disney+
After Happy Valley and Gentleman Jack, the screenwriter Sally Wainwright turns to something a bit different: a fantastical, more family-oriented historical romp. Set in 1705 England, Renegade Nell starts like a highway-robbers adventure but soon bungs into the mix a superpower and an evil magical plot against the queen. Our hero is Nell (Louisa Harland), who finds herself framed for murder; luckily, she has a sprite (Nick Mohammed) popping up to offer advice and make her nigh-on invincible in a fight. You need this when the devil is also on your tail… All this bustles along at a fair crack. JJ
Steve! (Martin): A Documentary in 2 Pieces
Apple TV+
Before he was an international movie star, Steve Martin was America’s biggest stand-up comedian – he didn’t bother with politics, he just went for full-on silly. That was “Then”, also the title of the first of a pair of new profile documentaries. It chronicles his rapid rise via numerous clips that remind you how incredibly daft his clowning was. The other film, “Now”, hears from Martin about his more settled life today, taking in clips of his film career. “How did I go from riddled with anxiety in my thirties, to 75 and really happy?” JJ
A Gentleman in Moscow
Paramount+
Ewan McGregor is the luxuriantly moustached marquee casting for this handsome adaptation of Amor Towles’s bestseller about Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, who in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution finds himself banished by a Bolshevik tribunal to the Hotel Metropol in Moscow. The count has dodged execution, but if he sets foot outside the hotel he’ll be a dead man. It’s a strange sort of imprisonment — his room is a bare attic on the seventh floor, but the rest of the hotel is a place of opulent splendour and his daily routine includes a fillet of sole for lunch in the restaurant, accompanied by a Château de Baudelaire. Not quite a gulag, then. McGregor is so watchable here — his Rostov a witty and capable gentleman full of charm. JJ
Read our interview with Ewan McGregor
Coma
My5
If you enjoy dramas about ordinary people who get sucked into a world of unhappiness, criminality and terror — think a cheap British version of Breaking Bad — then this decent four-part thriller is your appointment to view. Jason Watkins is Simon, devoted husband and proud father to his young daughter. However, he has work problems, and as the action begins he has a horrid sequence of luck that includes being terrorised by a gang of local ne’er-do-wells. A single moment of red mist from Simon leads to an impossible, ever-worsening tangle of lies. The supporting cast do a good job with sequences that, while tightly plotted, have cartoonish moments, but at its heart is Watkins and he’s the compelling presence you’d expect. BD
Read our review of Coma
3 Body Problem
Netflix
You’ll need your wits about you to follow the plot of this complex eight-part sci-fi opus from the Game of Thrones showrunners DB Weiss and David Benioff (and The Terror’s Alexander Woo), based on a dystopian novel by Liu Cixin. Set in a world where the laws of science are unravelling, there are two timelines, one in China during the cultural revolution of the 1960s and another in the UK in the present day. But what is causing the planet’s particle accelerators to generate results that make no sense? Why is the universe winking? As that sounds, the ideas come thick and fast, and you need to invest your attention; if so, it’ll be rewarded with something highly original. JC
Read our review of 3 Body Problem
The Dropout
iPlayer
There are many ingredients that go into the making of an entrepreneur now serving jail time for her audacious fraud involving a product that promised multiple health checks using just a single prick of blood. And this biopic, now on iPlayer after its release in 2022 on Disney+, about the Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes not only finds Amanda Seyfried on superb form, but packs many of the likely explanations for her crimes into its first 15 minutes. In early flashbacks we see her coming last in a school run and later watching her father broken by redundancy. An unusual teenager heading to Stanford University, she soon assumes a steely glint beneath a huge poster of her hero, the Apple founder Steve Jobs. It is never less than fascinating. BD
Read our review of The Dropout
The Dry
ITVX
Nancy Harris’s sharply-observed Dubin-set comedy drama was rather lazily dubbed “the Irish Fleabag” after its first run last year. Now it’s back for a second series and our protagonist, Shiv (Roisin Gallagher), is six months sober. Once the black sheep of the family owing to her alcoholism, she now seems relatively functional compared to the rest of them. Relatively. As the series begins, it’s Shiv’s 36th birthday and Finbar (Michael McElhatton), her mum Bernie’s new “friend”, has a surprising announcement at her party. It feels authentic, full of smart black comedy, plus it has the always great Ciaran Hinds as the father. JC
Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer
Apple TV+
Tobias Menzies is the excellent actor you may recognise from Outlander or The Crown (he played Prince Philip in middle age) and his flinty gaze works to good effect in this fine, solid re-creation of the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, an astonishing bit of history you may not be familiar with. Menzies takes the lead role of Edwin Stanton, the man who organised the manhunt of John Wilkes Booth (who was a well-known actor, you may have forgotten). It’s based on James L Swanson’s bestseller and all the early signs are that it’ll be just as engrossing. AppleTV+ James Jackson
Mary & George
Sky/Now
DC Moore’s salty, sexy and sweary series about the efforts of Mary Villiers (Julianne Moore) to ingratiate her dreamily handsome son George (Nicholas Galitzine) into the affections of the King James I might have you reaching for the smelling salts. Moore commands the screen as the flinty, charismatic matriarch, who loathes her husband (a superbly repulsive turn from Simon Russell Beale) and realises that her son is her entrée into society and power. “If I were a man and I looked like you I’d rule the f***ing planet,” she tells him. And she means it. Extremely rude, yes, but it is also rollicking good fun, written and played with gusto. BD
Read our review of Mary & George
Mary & George — orgies, ruffs and pansexual royals
The Gentlemen
Netflix
Guy Ritchie’s big new TV series once again involves aristocrats caught up with gangsters. It centres around Eddie Halstead (Theo James), a British Army officer summoned back from peacekeeping duties abroad after his father, a duke, has a fall. Eddie soon discovers that he is to be the new duke, passing over his older brother Freddie (a wildly over-the-top Daniel Ings) on account of the latter being a hopeless coke-addict. He also finds the family estate contains a vast underground warehouse growing marijuana. The usual Ritchie fare, then (cockneys on the make, Vinnie Jones, boxing scenes), but no faulting the cast, which also includes Joely Richardson and Ray Winstone. JJ
Read our review of The Gentlemen
Shogun
Disney+
Disney’s high-class new version of James Clavell’s doorstopper novel, famously made into a series in 1980, is the very definition of prestige drama. It transports us to Japan in 1600, a place of feudal rivalries where a power struggle is brewing and codes of honour and acts of brutality (notably a casual beheading) go hand in hand. Into this world arrives a rugged Englishman, John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis). It’s beautifully rendered, the co-creators Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo layering in treacherous machinations and unfolding adventure (a dramatic shipwreck scene; a vertiginous cliffside rescue) within more expansive themes about religious conflict and self-identity. JJ
Under the Banner of Heaven
ITVX
Inspired by Jon Krakauer’s bestselling 2003 true crime novel, this powerful seven-part drama (originally on Disney+) tells the story of Brenda Wright Lafferty and her 15-month-old daughter, Erica, who were brutally murdered in their home in a suburb of Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1984. Andrew Garfield heads the cast as Detective Jeb Pyre, a devout Mormon and honourable man who starts to question everything as he investigates the events that transpired within the Lafferty family. The action livens up considerably during flashbacks featuring the extended Mormon clan. The cast includes Sam Worthington and Rory Culkin. JC
Prisoner
iPlayer
If you like Scandi Noir crime dramas for their bleakness, try this Danish series set in a failing prison for size. Filmed in wobbly camera style in a real jail, this is authentic storytelling full of grim, violent and shocking scenes. Happily, though, it stars Sofie Grabol, the captivating actress whose work in The Killing got many of us on this side of the North Sea into Danish drama and she is on excellent form as the well-meaning Miriam. She is one of many conflicted screws trying to make the best of a grim lot as the threat of closure intensifies the pressure for everyone in this cracking ensemble. BD
Breathtaking
ITVX
This three-part Covid drama is not an easy watch, but it’s an important one, written with precision, panache and some anger by Line of Duty’s Jed Mercurio, the former doctor Prasanna Puwanarajah and the palliative doctor Rachel Clarke, on whose Covid memoir it draws. As well as being important it’s packed with jeopardy, dramatising scenes that feel uncomfortably close to what it was like inside a Covid ward at the height of the pandemic. We see most of the action through the eyes of Dr Abbey Henderson (Joanne Froggatt). The jagged camerawork under Craig Viveiros’s assured direction makes this feel like a war zone for much of the time, and for those who experienced more than just an unpleasant brush with the wretched virus it may be too much. BD
Read our interview: Rachel Clarke was a Covid doctor. Trolls still call her a ‘killer’
Formula 1: Drive to Survive
Netflix
The hit series taking us behind the scenes of Formula One returns and entering the fray is Aston Martin’s new owner, the Canadian tycoon Lawrence Stroll, as he aims to supercharge the team to compete in 2023. While we have sit-down interviews with team bosses, it’s the overheard snatches of conversations that intrigue, while the cockpit views of the racing drama give things the real juice. JJ
The New Look
AppleTV+
The New Look is a period saga depicting the birth of modern fashion. It starts in 1955, intercutting between two press conferences: one given by the reigning king of couture, Christian Dior (Ben Mendelsohn), in a vast theatre, the other given by the fallen queen, Coco Chanel (Juliette Binoche), in a hotel room to a handful of journos. But as things spool back to Paris in 1943, with its backdrop of Nazi psychopathy, this isn’t just a story of a rivalry. Dior would come to be criticised for the fact that he sold his designs to Nazi wives, yet he also sheltered his sister, who was a member of the French resistance. Meanwhile, Chanel had a Nazi lover. Nothing is black and white in this interwoven biopic with John Malkovich, Claes Bang and Glenn Close entering the mix. JJ
Read our full review of The New Look here
The Grand Tour: Sand Job
Prime Video
The Grand Tour is vrooming towards its terminus — reportedly just two more specials and it’ll be done. This instalment is a real scorcher as it has Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May reuniting in Mauritania, a remote west African country. It is four times the size of the UK, and two thirds of it is Sahara desert wilderness (or as Clarkson declaims, “The biggest desert … in the world”)? Into this “gigantic sea of superheated emptiness” arrive our trio to follow in the footsteps of the Paris-Dakar rally. The vehicles are not high-tech Dakar racers, but cheap modified sports cars not immune to breakdowns. The usual petrol-fuelled mishaps ensue through this Mad Max-ish landscape, and great fun it is too. JJ
Read our full review of The Grand Tour: Sand Job here
Kin
BBC iPlayer
There are two series available of Peter McKenna’s blood-soaked Dublin noir, both telling a saga of family against family. In the first, the central clan, the Kinsellas take on the outfit headed by feared gang boss Eamon Cunningham (Ciarán Hinds) and in series two their foes are a rather frightening Turkish clan called the Batuks. This is an impressive, high-energy and rather brutal drama full of greed, cunning, murder and the unbreakable ties of family. It’s stacked full of strong performances, with particularly capable turns from Aidan Gillen as Frank Kinsella and Clare Dunne as the family’s steely bookkeeper, Amanda. BD
Read our full review of Kin here
Reindeer Mafia
Channel 4 (on demand)
As suggested by the title, this is a Scandi series about mobsters who live in the Arctic. And as these Walter Presents shows go, it’s a superior, slow-burn crime series. Early on we are introduced to Brita, a mafia matriarch who has cancer and knows that her number is up. Her extended family assemble. But they are going to be torn apart when Brita’s will is read and long-kept secrets about the family’s rise to wealth are revealed. It’s something of a relief to have a crime series that’s not about a dead girl’s body found in a forest and a troubled detective. Instead, as this powerful family conflict unravels, the plot asks how far will each member go to get what they want? JJ
One Day
Netflix
David Nicholls’s One Day is a great romantic page-turner, much talked-about for its structure: each chapter being the same day a year on, starting when the handsome, privileged southerner Dexter meets the headstrong northerner Emma at Edinburgh University in 1988. Spanning 19 years over 14 episodes, this TV adaptation has room to capture Emma and Dex’s fluctuating friendship, something helped by charming turns from Ambika Mod and Leo Woodall along with a nostalgic, often dreamy soundtrack that’s instrumental in giving the series its wistful feel. And it packs a real emotional wallop. JJ
Read our full review of One Day review here
• Can Netflix capture the original magic of One Day for the small screen?
Mr and Mrs Smith
Prime Video
Donald Glover (fêted for his role in the series Atlanta) and Maya Erskine take the title roles previously played by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in the 2005 blockbuster. Having been co-created by Glover, it’s a series that walks to its own beat, all a bit hipper and (initially) more lowkey than the action thrills of before. Here, the characters are a pair of agents for some shadowy company who have to pretend to be a married couple; they gradually discover they have a rapport while they navigate missions. Watch, too, for the guest stars, among them Paul Dano, Michaela Coel, Sharon Horgan and Alexander Skarsgard. JJ
Read our full Mr and Mrs Smith review
Masters of the Air
Apple TV+
From the producers of Band of Brothers (Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks among them), here’s a Second World War drama freighted with high expectations. And with a budget rumoured to be upwards of $300 million, an eyecatching cast led by Austin Butler (the star of Elvis) and a decent book upon which to base its action (by Donald L Miller), this series lives up to the anticipation. Following the men of the 100th Bomb Group (the “Bloody Hundredth”) during their raids over Nazi Germany, we get a vivid sense of the frigid conditions, lack of oxygen and sheer terror of combat conducted at 25,000ft in the air. Butler plays a navigator with dreamboat looks, and among other familiar faces showing up are Callum Turner (The Capture), Barry Keoghan (Saltburn) and Ncuti Gatwa (Doctor Who). This is old-fashioned storytelling, full of American heroism and pride, and very watchable with it. JJ
Read our full Masters of the Air review
• How accurate is Masters of the Air? Inside the show’s true story
Expats
Prime Video
Another Nicole Kidman-led series on Prime Video (after 2022’s Nine Perfect Strangers), this elegant psychological drama is set around the lives of three female residents of Hong Kong. Kidman’s Margaret is steeped in ennui about her life and it’s clear she’s suffered some terrible personal trauma when we meet her, although it takes a while to discover exactly what that is. Two other women, Hilary (Sarayu Blue) and Mercy (Ji-young Yoo), are clearly connected and deeply affected by the tragedy. Things unfold slowly — this can have a numbed, studied feel, yet it sucks you into its drama of privilege and cultural identity. JJ
The Artful Dodger
Disney+
One hundred and forty years is some time to wait for a sequel (of sorts), but then this of course is no Dickens, rather an irreverent romp imagining the further adventures of the Artful Dodger and Fagin down under. Thomas Brodie-Sangster plays the top-hatted former urchin, now carving out a living by carving off legs as a surgeon, but also up to his neck in debt. Then a face from the past shows up: Fagin, played with the usual grinning relish by David Thewlis, and escapades ensue. It has a sunny, funny feel, which puts it a long way from the damp murk of Newgate. JJ
Criminal Record
AppleTV+
A new crime drama set in east London that’s essentially a double-header for Cush Jumbo and Peter Capaldi. Jumbo is DS June Lenker, who is making few friends by dredging up the past after a desperate woman phones in with a dark allegation about an old case. No one is less happy about it than Peter Capaldi’s DCI Daniel Hegarty, ostensibly on the same side as Lenker but clearly harbouring murky secrets. “Dan is one of the good ones,” Lenker is told by her boss. Really? He doesn’t look “good”, with his brooding, scowling demeanour. It’s grittier than you’d expect from a US streamer such as Apple and, with its themes of race and institutional failure, often bleakly powerful with it, most evident during Jumbo and Capaldi’s tense scenes together. JJ
Darby and Joan
UKTV Play
Do you have room in your life for another incongruous sleuthing duo? When they are played by Bryan Brown and Greta Scacchi the answer is a resounding yes. The chipper retired cop Jack Darby (Brown) and the no-nonsense English nurse Joan Kirkhope (Scacchi) collide (literally) in the Australian outback. Joan is seeking answers after her husband’s mysterious death, but the pair are soon entangled in another murder mystery at a beachside paradise. And, of course, their bickering belies a growing attraction. JC
• Greta Scacchi on ageing and turning down Basic Instinct
Julia
Sky/Now
A long way from Happy Valley, Sarah Lancashire won over American audiences with her portrayal of Julia Child, the US cook whose series The French Chef ran from 1963 to 1973 on Boston public television and essentially invented food TV. Lancashire wonderfully captured Child’s eccentricity and naughtiness, and Daniel Goldfarb’s light-hearted drama is back for a second series. Julia wants to spend time in France with her co-author, Simone “Simca” Beck (Isabella Rossellini), to work on a cookbook. And while there are several side plots, the Michelin-starred action involves the sisterly bickering of Lancashire and Rossellini as they clash over cassoulet. JC
Our Man in India
Prime Video
As he wanders through a hot, bustling Mumbai street at the start of his latest travelogue, James May pauses to laugh, off-script, that he feels like one of those “soft westerners arriving for the first time… it does feel like India’s trying to beat you up.” You get a vivid sense of the place and a likeable bit of English self-deprecation with it. Throughout you learn a bit about a country that’s cutting-edge and deeply traditional, and you also admire the landscapes, from Rajasthan to the Sundarbans. None of this would work without a decent guide and, thanks to his dry humour, May is just that. JJ
Mr Bates vs The Post Office
ITVX
The real-life Horizon Post Office scandal — in which scores of sub-postmasters and mistresses were wrongly accused of fraud, theft and false accounting — gives scriptwriter Gwyneth Hughes a readymade and devastating David and Goliath tale. Our plucky hero is Toby Jones’s postmaster Alan Bates who refused to back down to the amused exasperation of his patient partner Suzanne (Julie Hesmondhalgh). While it’s not hard to pick sides, Hughes nimbly navigates the morass of detail and complex IT speak over four superb episodes as Bates rallies men and women from across the country and the fightback against faceless bureaucracy and terrible injustice begins. It’s enraging but compelling TV and a sure-fire award winner. BD
Read our feature on Mr Bates vs The Post Office
Berlin
Netflix
The Spanish crime drama Money Heist was one of Netflix’s big hits. Now here’s the prequel series. In other words, another slick heist drama. This time a motley group of young crims want to break into the biggest auction house in Paris by way of the city’s network of catacombs. Can they steal €44 million in jewels in one night? It gets complicated. There are at least two returning faces from the mother show: Berlin (hence the title), who assembles the new team, and the police investigator Raquel Murillo. Fans of Money Heist can expect a similarly stylish and sexy tone as things teeter towards the ludicrous. JJ
The Winter King
ITVX
It’s no surprise that ITV’s new Arthurian drama comes in the earthy tradition of The Last Kingdom, being based on another Bernard Cornwell bestseller. This is full of hairy, battle-scarred men covered in grime and gore, snarling at each other on battlefields and in firelit courts. It is the fifth century and tensions are raging between pagans and Christians as they face a common enemy in the Saxons. Everything here is fully committed to the gritty. As mad King Uther Pendragon, Eddie Marsan is mesmerisingly horrible as he mutters to his son Arthur: “You truly are my bastard ? you are the son of a whore,” before beating him to a pulp. That’s the Middle Ages for you. Soon enough Merlin and Mordred are in the mix, but this is a long way from Excalibur – forget magic realism or knights in gleaming armour. Expect a lot more blood. JJ
Reacher
Prime Video
The hulking military-man drifter Jack Reacher is back for a second series, turning up in town to correct injustice. He is almost superhuman in his strength — even his implacable gaze can reduce tough men to quivering jellies. As such, this is some way from social realism but it’s also great fun as Reacher (Alan Ritchson) is reunited with a trio of former team-mates to get to the bottom of a conspiracy. His casual heroism is established when he rescues a child from a carjacker — every man watching will find themselves secretly wishing they were a bit like Reacher. JJ
The Serial Killer’s Wife
Paramount+
Buoyed by a fine performance by Jack Farthing (George Warleggan in Poldark), here’s a serial-killer thriller that’s not just about a detective catching their man, rather it has as much interest in the psychology of a twisted marriage. Can Annabel Scholey’s Beth Fairchild trust her husband, Tom (Farthing), after his former work assistant’s body is found near their English coastal village? Their marital relationship already has a violent kink to it. Things come alive in this chilly four-part psychological drama during Scholey’s scenes opposite Farthing. He has a still gaze even when being accused of terrible things. JJ
John Lennon: Murder without a Trial
AppleTV+
If nothing else, this three-part documentary about the murder of John Lennon really brings back the feeling of astonished horror the world felt on hearing the news. The first episode describes his final day, hearing from the journalist who conducted his last interview (that afternoon) and his record producer Jack Douglas. But offering even more verite descriptions of the awful scene at the doors of the Dakota are a cab driver who saw the whole thing, and the building’s staff. It’s a shame that from thereon, the series becomes prone to conspiracy theorising about Mark Chapman (whether he was brainwashed). But the first episode is vividly told and horrifying. JJ
Read our full John Lennon: Murder without a Trial review
Slow Horses
AppleTV+
Slow Horses fans can rejoice — a third series adapting Mick Herron’s spy novels arrives on Wednesday and it’s as slyly humorous as ever. Once again we follow a team of agents on the scrapheap of MI5, known as Slough House — or “MI-Useless”, as its boss, Jackson Lamb, calls it. And played by Gary Oldman, Lamb is his usual slovenly self, with his lank hair and stained raincoat. He even strips off his shirt — you have to applaud Oldman’s total lack of vanity. Jaded as Lamb may be, he’s always one step ahead of his underlings. Chief among those is Jack Lowden’s River Cartwright, a beta-007 with a habit for monumental gaffes. In this series our slow horses are dragged into a conspiracy, yet unlike many spy series, the fun is less in action or labyrinthine plot than in the smaller sardonic interactions. As Lamb sighs at his team: “You lot are about as much use as a paper condom.” JJ
Read our full Slow Horses review
Fargo (series five)
Prime Video
Since its arrival in 2014, Noah Hawley’s Midwestern anthology crime drama (inspired by the 1996 Coen Brothers’ film) has morphed from absurdly thrilling near masterpiece (Season Two) to overambitious humourless slog (Season Four). Well, season five is a true return to form. Juno Temple is exceptional as Dot, the mousey stay-at-home mom with a hard-as-nails past and Jon Hamm utterly chilling as corrupt North Dakota sheriff, Roy Tillman. Without giving too much away, yes, their paths cross and, yes, the result is fraught, funny, surreal and, at times, utterly terrifying. TV crime drama at its absolute peak. Andrew Male
Archie
ITVX
To take on the role of Cary Grant must be a fool’s errand for any actor, you might think. You wouldn’t just have to capture the suave gaiety that helped to make Grant a leading man for decades, but also a less definable complexity – he was a man who, just under the surface, was having an identity crisis. And then there is that voice. Jason Isaacs seems to capture all of this unerringly in Jeff Pope’s very watchable four-part biopic. Although as Isaacs has put it, he’s not playing Cary Grant but Archie Leach, the man behind the star he constructed. So we see Archie’s unhappy childhood, his break into the movies, his failed marriages and so on. All this is seen in flashbacks from the main action, which intercuts between 1961, when he met his fourth wife, Dyan Cannon (upon whose book this is based), and 1986, the year of his death. It’s clear that Grant really was a fascinatingly troubled paradox. JJ
Read our full Archie review
• Jason Isaacs: ‘I think Cary Grant was good at sex. I’ve been told’
• ‘Childhood pain drove him’: The truth about my father, Cary Grant
The Crown
Netflix
Seven years since The Crown took the royal TV drama to another level of cinematic dazzle, the final series is upon us, split into two parts (four out now, six on Dec 14). Predictably it’s not going out quietly. The merry-go-round that now accompanies each series has been as vibrant as ever: howled outrage from some quarters, cautious approval from others, analysis from royal experts sorting what’s true in the show and what’s not. The final season’s opening four-episode suite covers the summer of 1997, taking in Diana’s romance with Dodi Fayed, the fatal car crash and its aftermath, and the villain is not the hard-hearted old firm this time, but Mohamed al-Fayed. As Diana, Elizabeth Debicki is uncannily like the doomed divorcee as she sits on the diving board of the Al Fayeds’ yacht. And as ever, tremendous attention to detail has gone into these imaginings of behind-the-palace-doors tumult. James Jackson
Read our full The Crown review
A Murder at the End of the World
Disney+
A new crime-solving mystery, the sleuth in question being Darby Hart, nicknamed out loud at one point as “a Gen Z Sherlock Holmes”. She is nothing like Sherlock Holmes. Rather, Darby (an excellent Emma Corrin) is a tomboyish, hoodie-wearing, tech-savvy amateur investigator. She is nursing a broken heart and finds herself invited to a billionaire’s Icelandic hotel hideaway alongside brilliant people from a variety of other fields. There is a death. The elliptical, slow-burn feel requires some patience, but coming from the creators of The OA, the series has plenty of ambition, not least in the way it touches on the way AI is starting to intrude into our lives. JJ
Read our full A Murder at the End of the World review
The Newsreader
BBC iPlayer
Hot from Australia, The Newsreader was a word-of mouth hit here when it arrived last year, partly for the nostalgic 1980s setting, partly for the brittle backstage dramas colliding at the News at Six studio. It was compared to Mad Men, although it’s also like an Aussie cousin of the 1987 film Broadcast News, and often a character study of Anna Torv’s anchor, Helen Norville, and her colleague/ love interest Dale Jennings (Sam Reid). He’s conflicted about his latent bisexuality, while she’s determined to succeed amid the male putdowns (“Is it me or is she just a shade too aggressive?” asks the network’s boss as he watches her bring in a scoop live on air). The strength of The Newsreader, however, is that it’s rarely simplistic: it has an eye on the micro-dynamics. In series two it is 1987 and Helen and Dale, by now a power couple of TV news, are preparing for six hours of unbroken election coverage. A bumpy ride is guaranteed. JJ
Read our full The Newsreader review
For All Mankind
AppleTV+
This decades-spanning alt-history of the space race is high-end, one of Apple’s better TV series. It started in 1969 where the Soviets are the first to put a man on the moon, and by the fourth season (out today) it’s 2003. As usual a news montage takes us through the years since the last series with a mix of real-life events (Tyson biting Holyfield’s ear) and fictional ones (John Lennon rocking the Super Bowl, North Korea putting the first man on Mars). Then we’re back with the heroic Ed Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman, made up to look in his seventies), with the personal storylines and tense space sequences taking place against the race to mine asteroids. It’s sincere storytelling, and gripping with it. JJ
Bosch: Legacy
Freevee
Bosch is the LA sleuth who just won’t quit, or rather this franchise won’t: after seven series of Bosch on Prime Video, the Legacy spin-off began last year on Freevee, and series two has been much anticipated by its fans. The excellent Titus Welliver remains tightly wound in the title role — now a rule-breaking private eye and teamed up with a disillusioned attorney, Honey “Money” Chandler (Mimi Rogers). Together they work to seek out a killer who might just find them first. But the big cliffhanger last time involved Bosch’s daughter Maddie (Madison Lintz). She’d followed in her old man’s footsteps into the LAPD, but her investigation into a serial rapist resulted in her being abducted by a masked assailant. As ever, it’s LA noir done with some style. JJ
Rise of the Nazis
BBC iPlayer
There have now been four series of the documentary series that mixes elegant reconstructions with concise history lessons about the origins of the Nazis through to their downfall. The latest, fourth series is all about the manhunt for high-ranking Nazis in the aftermath of the war. The first episode offers an account of the unsung work of British captain Victor Cross in capturing Rudolf Hoss, the commandant of Auschwitz — and this is intertwined with an account of the Nuremberg Trials (the footage of which still mesmerises your attention). The second and third episodes look at how some of the worst criminals escaped overseas before how, in the 1970s, a few diehards doggedly continued their hunt for the last of the Nazis. JJ
Read the full review of Rise of the Nazis here
Black Snow
BBC iPlayer
This taut, sultry and moody Australian drama cuts between 1994 when a teenager called Isabel Baker (Talijah Blackman-Corowa) went missing and 25 years later when the residents of her small town of Ashford, north Queensland unearth a time capsule buried by high school students in the same year. Scriptwriters Lucas Taylor, Boyd Quakawoot and Beatrix Christian certainly understand the heady appeal of the Twin Peaks formula: small town in a beautiful setting, adolescent yearning and a murdered teenager with secrets. And in James Cormack, Travis Fimmel’s charismatic, angst-ridden copper with strange masochistic proclivities, this cold case has a charismatic sleuth. However not all of Isabel’s family, who are South Sea Islander immigrants, are keen on either the cops…or disinterring the past. Ben Dowell
Fisk
ITVX & Netflix
Hot on the heels of such Aussie favourites as The Newsreader (second series on its way next year) and Colin from Accounts is Fisk. It’s a workplace comedy about Helen Tudor-Fisk, a caustic and slightly chaotic probate solicitor who joins a small suburban legal firm called Gruber & Gruber. No great bombshells occur, this is more about Helen’s blunt manner with her clients, her minor interactions with her three colleagues, and lots of funny lines. Fisk, permanently clad in a brown suit, is told, “you are blending into the chair like some sort of furniture chameleon” shortly before someone accidentally sits on her, having not noticed her she’s in the chair. JJ
Read Beyond Home & Away: how Aussie TV got really good
