With the Euros having kicked off, fans up and down the country will be glued to their screens. But what if you don’t like football?
Sometimes it can seem like there’s just too much of the beautiful game on our TVs.
But if you find penalty shootouts and the intricacies of the offside rule a turn-off there are plenty of shows to watch instead.
From regency romance series to dark, gritty mysteries, check out our critics’ picks of the best shows to watch On Demand right now…
House Of The Dragon (Series 2)
The dragon-packed prequel to Game Of Thrones returns for its second series
Year: 2024
Certificate: 18
Watch now on NOW
Watch now on Sky
A lot happened in series one of this Game Of Thrones prequel but the short version – stop reading now if you’re yet to catch up – is that the Targaryens are poised on the edge of war with each other, and a lot of dragons are going to be involved.
The big, single development in the finale was the death of Rhaenyra’s son Luke and that’s still driving events here, as the opening episode takes us on a tour of what’s what in Westeros. We open with a very familiar sight – the Frozen North, and the Wall – and the very familiar accent of the Starks, who tell us that ‘winter is coming’.
That’s an epic piece of scene-setting but at the core of this show is a drama about a wildly dysfunctional family who happen to be in charge of armies and dragons, and that’s what’s built over the course of the opener, as Rhaenyra mourns and rages, Daemon (Matt Smith) schemes revenge, and new King Aegon II starts to test his limits.
In between these scenes we see dragons cruising through the sky like huge airborne tanks, foreshadowing the long, bloody war to come, but this episode isn’t all about building tension and reminding us who everyone is. No spoilers here, but you’ll be wishing it was a box set drop by the time the first episode’s final scene is over. (Eight episodes)
Queenie
Sharp, honest and funny drama based on Candice Carty-Williams’s 2019 bestseller
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Channel 4
This eight-part adaptation of Candice Carty-Williams’s 2019 bestseller and British Book Awards Book Of The Year winner hits the ground running and barely catches a breath. Twenty-five-year-old South Londoner Queenie Jenkins (Dionne Brown) reacts to a break-up by throwing herself into casual dating and drinking, depicted in unvarnished and often excruciating detail.
There’s a lot of sex and self-destruction, but Queenie’s story and her inner monologues are driven by humour and punchy lines. Unfiltered and honest in her narration, Queenie finds it all but impossible to be real with the people closest to her, something even her old boyfriend struggled with. And as the darkness that haunts her slowly comes out into the open it only endears her to us all the more.
Queenie’s family – including her grandparents (Llewella Gideon and Fresh Prince Of Bel Air’s Joseph Marcell), her boss (Sally Phillips) and her friends (including best friend Kyazike played by rapper Bellah) – all bring a lot to the show, but it’s Brown’s performance that is the making of it. (Eight episodes)
Bridgerton (Series 3 Part 1)
More Regency romance in the third series of the racy high society drama
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Netflix
After just two series, Bridgerton has already become shorthand for lavish period settings and steamy sexual chemistry. Series three does nothing to alter that winning formula. Series one focused on Daphne and Simon’s romance, while series two followed Anthony and Kate. This time, loveable wallflower Penelope Featherington (Derry Girls’ Nicola Coughlan) steps into the spotlight as her search for love in the high society world of Regency England becomes the motor that drives this third run.
A certain Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton) may have agreed to help her find a suitable suitor, but is it possible that he’s developing feelings for her himself? Full of beautiful settings and equally beautiful people, this is just as swooningly romantic as previous series, with Coughlan’s step up from support to leading lady proving that there’s much more to her than perfect comic timing. (Four episodes, with four more to follow on 13 June)
Presumed Innocent
Jake Gyllenhaal stars in a steamy courtroom murder mystery series
Year: 2024
Certificate: 18
Watch now on Apple TV+
When lawyer Carolyn Polhemus is found raped and murdered, her colleague in the District Attorney’s office, Rusty Sabich (Road House’s Jake Gyllenhaal), is assigned with running the investigation into the crime. Unbeknownst to everyone, though, married man Rusty had been having an affair with Carolyn. If that fact comes out, the seemingly respectable lawyer could suddenly find himself the chief suspect in the case, so he begins twisting the investigation to divert attention away from himself.
If all that sounds familiar, then it’s probably because Scott Turow’s original 1987 book has already been filmed as a 1990 thriller starring Harrison Ford. Don’t let that put you off though – this eight-part retelling is a great twisty steamy affair with a fantastically opaque performance by Gyllenhaal as Rusty and top-flight support from the likes of O-T Fagbenle, Ruth Negga and Peter Sarsgaard – who also happens to be brother-in-law to Gyllenhaal by virtue of his marriage to the leading man’s sister, Maggie. (Eight episodes)
The Gathering
A dark mystery unravels after a girl is attacked at an illicit rave on Merseyside
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Channel 4
This labyrinthine six-part mystery drama, set on Merseyside, has a lot of pieces in play and it can be a bit confusing, but stick with it because all will become clear. We follow events leading up to a vicious assault on a teenager at an illegal gathering on a beach. At the start, we don’t know who the victim is but information is drip-fed over eight episodes, with each focusing on the perspective of a different character.
We start with Kelly and Jessica (Eva Morgan and Sadie Soverall), friends and promising gymnasts from opposite sides of the track. The two girls both have their struggles, and their respective single parents (Warren Brown’s volatile widower and Vinette Robinson’s pushy mum) have a hand in making matters worse for each of them, though for very different reasons.
You’ll definitely want to see how it plays out for Kelly and Jessica, and their assorted wider circle, which includes hard-up teens as well as shady adults. (Six episodes)
Peacock
British gym comedy about a wildly insecure personal trainer
Year: 2022-
Watch now on BBC iPlayer
If you like the BBC3 comedy People Just Do Nothing, give this gym comedy a whirl. Andy Peacock (Allan Mustafa) is an out-of-shape personal trainer at a gym who talks big, but mostly misses the mark. There’s a lot of posing, but Peacock’s ego is underpinned by insecurity and sensitivity – he wants to change, and the show follows his misfiring efforts at personal growth.
Allan Mustafa, who was also in People Just Do Nothing, is a great comic actor who excels at playing ordinary guys who are heroically deluded (a bit like The Office’s David Brent). In Peacock, you really hope he succeeds, but the problem with that is that, as soon as he does, the show will stop being funny. There’s no sign of that at the start of the second series, which starts with a similar premise to the first – Peacock is up for a promotion that, no spoilers, he is very unlikely to get. (Two series)
Lost Boys & Fairies
Tender story of a gay couple’s journey to adoption
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on BBC iPlayer
This three-part drama follows Gabriel and Andy (Sion Daniel Young and Fra Fee), a gay couple working their way through the adoption process as they deal with their own issues, too. It’s loosely inspired by writer Daf James’s experience of adopting, telling a fictional story underpinned by real and often raw emotion.
Sprinkled with allegorical fairy dust thanks to liberal references to Peter Pan, it’s also a deeply compassionate and heartfelt story about the countless boys and girls who are lost in the system and in desperate need of love and loving homes.
The first episode focuses on Gabriel, a flamboyant drag queen with a troubled past: interviews with their sparky and astute social worker (the fabulous Elizabeth Berrington, Sanditon) are punctuated by flashbacks to Gabriel’s more painful memories.
Gabriel might have fixed ideas about what he wants in a child compared to his more open and agreeable partner Andy, but the emotional energy of the show changes gear when the children enter the picture, and one little boy in particular (played by an utterly enchanting Leo Harris) wins the men’s hearts – and ours. (Three episodes)
We Are Lady Parts
Anarchic British comedy about an all-girl, all-Muslim punk band
Year: 2021
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Channel 4
OK, so a sitcom about a Muslim, all-girl punk rock band doesn’t sound like the easiest sell, but this truly original show, created by Nida Manzoor (Polite Society) is full of surprises, depicting Muslim women as funny and caring as well as rude and chaotic. It doesn’t so much defy stereotypes as kick them to the curb with a well-aimed Dr Martens boot.
Can punk group Lady Parts convince Amina (Wicked Little Letters’ Anjana Vasan), a goody-two-shoes PhD student with severe stage fright, to let loose and join them as lead guitarist? Featuring surreal set-pieces and catchy original songs such as Voldermort Under My Headscarf, it’s rare that a show can be as subversive and silly as this.
In series two, Lady Parts are on a high after completing their first UK tour – but soon they have to reckon with a rival band. Goodness Gracious Me’s Meera Syal joins the cast – and there’s a jaw-dropping cameo from Nobel Peace prize winner Malala. (Two Series)
The Boys (Series 4)
Series four of the gritty and bloody US superhero thriller show
Year: 2024
Certificate: 18
Watch now on Prime Video
Brutally violent, acidly cynical and darkly funny in equal chunks, The Boys takes the idea of real-world superheroes and shoots it full of celebrity culture, political extremism and corporate corruption. The powerful and very grown-up result may not be for the faint of heart (or stomach) but it is frequently amazing television.
As the eight-episode fourth series dawns, increasingly psychotic All-American superman Homelander (Banshee’s Antony Starr) is inches away from shrugging off his good-guy pretence and finally becoming the god-like fascist ruler he’s always dreamed of being. The only person capable of stopping him is brutal anti-superhero vigilante Billy Butcher (Star Trek’s Karl Urban), but to do so, he’ll need to persuade his team of desperate losers to accept him back. Oh, and deal with the small matter that he only has a few months left to live. Is a happy ending possible for anyone on this show? There will be one more series after this one. (Eight episodes)
Rebus
Grisly reboot of Ian Rankin’s dark Scottish detective drama
Year: 2024
Watch now on BBC iPlayer
This gritty reboot of the Ian Rankin stories – previously adapted between 2000 and 2007 starring John Hannah and then Ken Stott – reimagines the brooding Scottish detective as a younger officer, with Outlander’s Richard Rankin (no relation) in the lead role.
It’s hard to like rough DS John Rebus at first – he’s a hard-drinking, chaotic young divorcee with a messy love life who has no compunction about breaking the rules. He soon comes into his own, though, when investigating a violent stabbing in the streets of Edinburgh, alongside new detective Siobhan Clarke (Henpocalypse!’s Lucie Shorthouse), a fast-tracked detective whom Rebus treats with some disdain.
‘I think long-term fans will get a shock because they’re seeing young Rebus,’ says author Ian Rankin. ‘They’re getting the quite macho Rebus from the early books but set in contemporary times.’
Be warned, there’s violence and swearing from the outset. (Six episodes)
Eric
Benedict Cumberbatch plays a tortured puppeteer in Abi Morgan’s 1980s NYC drama about a missing child
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Netflix
There’s a lot going on in this impressive six-part drama from Abi Morgan and, as a whole, it more closely resembles her hauntingly excellent series River than either The Split and The Hour, her two more famous shows. Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Vincent, a tortured, hard-drinking puppeteer on a Sesame Street-style show in the New York of the 1980s. He’s not a great father to his son despite his best intentions to be better than his father was to him, and that leads to problems with his wife (Transparent’s Gaby Hoffmann) and plenty more besides when nine-year-old Edgar suddenly goes missing, and Vincent becomes convinced – at the expense of all else – that creating a huge walking puppet named Eric is the key to finding his son.
Vincent’s quest is the throughline for a show that also spirals off into exploring life for the gay, black detective who investigates Edgar’s disappearance and delves into the spooky subterranean life of the city as it dips into issues such as homelessness and city corruption, before returning to its central theme about the generational scars of parenting. The show brings the danger of the city to life with a dark, almost fantastical edge, and Cumberbatch, who clearly learned how to puppet for the role, is fully committed and quite mesmerising in the lead – even making you wonder if he could actually be the real monster at the heart of it all. (Six episodes)
Becoming Karl Lagerfeld
German miniseries about the rise of the iconic fashion designer
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Disney+
When the 1970s dawned, Karl Lagerfeld (Daniel Bruhl) was a little known 38-year-old creator of ready-to-wear clothes. How he went from these relatively humble beginnings to become one of the iconic figures of world fashion, known as much for his own idiosyncratic style as for the haute couture he created, is quite a story.
This six-part German drama series is a feast of ambition, jealousy and 70s excess as Lagerfeld – driven by passion, insecurity and the desperate need to prove himself – goes to war with his sometime friend Yves Saint Laurent for the title of world’s greatest fashion designer.
The period detail is fantastic and the film swims with glitz and glamour, but it’s the mesmeric Bruhl (of Rush and All Quiet On The Western Front fame ) who holds your attention throughout with a magnificently self-obsessed turn as the Kaiser of Fashion himself. (Six episodes)
The Outlaws
Stephen Merchant’s crime romp about seven misfits who meet while doing community service
Year: 2021-
Certificate: 15
Watch now on BBC iPlayer
This laugh-out-loud production about a group of smalltime offenders who meet on community service in Bristol was the BBC’s biggest comedy launch of 2021. The Outlaws is the brainchild of The Office’s Stephen Merchant, so it’s no surprise that viewers loved the programme for its mix of deadpan humour and prison drama tropes.
In the first series Merchant’s character, Greg, a newly divorced lawyer who’d been caught in a compromising position with a prostitute, starts community service with a mismatched group of petty criminals. An all-star ensemble cast, including Oscar-winner Christopher Walken and Poldark’s Eleanor Tomlinson, play the neon-bibbed misfits who accidentally become involved with big-time criminals. And Jessica Gunning (aka Martha in Netflix hit Baby Reindeer) is a hoot as the group’s Community Payback Officer. (Three series)
The Tattooist Of Auschwitz
Harvey Keitel stars as a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz in this powerful six-part drama
Year: 2024
Certificate: 18
Watch now on NOW
Watch now on Sky
‘This is a love story,’ are not words you expect to hear at the start of a drama about an Auschwitz survivor reflecting on his life. Based on the book by Heather Morris, this six-part drama casts Harvey Keitel as Jewish camp survivor Lali Sokolov, a haunted man looking back on his life with various emotions and, it’s suggested at times, less than perfect accuracy.
He’s recounting his memories to a mother-of-three who’s always wanted to write (she’s taken a couple of courses) but never had the time, and is played by Yellowjackets’ Melanie Lynskey. That character is Heather Morris – the same woman who wrote the book, and who actually did sit down with the real-life Sokolov and take notes on his life.
Their chats serve to frame the bulk of the drama, which unfolds in flashback at Auschwitz as the younger Sokolov (British actor Jonah Hauer-King) tries to survive the hell of the camp, first by becoming the prisoner who tattoos serial numbers on other prisoners, then by finding someone to love. That’s the story Lali was talking about, but it doesn’t come easily.
Inevitably tough to watch but acted with depth and sensitivity in every scene, the series presents an astonishing story of the strength of the human spirit, and the price you pay for living when so many other people around you die. (Six episodes)
Clarkson’s Farm
Following The Grand Tour presenter’s chaotic attempts to run his own farm
Year: 2021
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Prime Video
The idea of the loud-mouthed petrolhead from Top Gear and The Grand Tour knuckling down to try to run a farm seems like a one-note joke, right? Prepare to be surprised. Yes, there are plenty of simple look-at-the-buffoon chortles to be found here as Jeremy Clarkson attempts – in his usual chaotic, horsepower-obsessed way – to manage the 1,000-acre spread he bought a few years ago, but there are tough, warm and poignant moments aplenty too.
Farming isn’t easy and spending time among people who’ve been doing it all their lives – not least amiable, no-nonsense assistant Kaleb – teaches even Clarkson that there’s a lot at stake here. As the latest third series opens, things are not looking good at Diddly Squat. Bad weather is playing havoc with his crops and the council has closed the restaurant. Many more trials await and life on the farm is anything but rosy – but there are some pigs, so it’s not all bad. (Three series)
The Responder
Riveting drama starring Martin Freeman as a policeman cracking under pressure
Year: 2022
Certificate: 18
Watch now on BBC iPlayer
Watch now on Disney+
Martin Freeman has come a long way from his early work in sitcom The Office. Not only has he conquered Hollywood with the lead role in the Hobbit films, but he left aspirational office worker Tim Canterbury in the dust a long time ago thanks to his John Watson in the hit TV series Sherlock.
In this dark and moody show Freeman’s character Chris Carson is undergoing therapy in the opening scenes. He’s a Liverpudlian night patrol police officer (Freeman’s accent is flawless) who operates in a moral grey zone – he clearly wants to be a good man for his family, but the demands of the job and the mounting moral compromises Chris makes are like a swamp dragging him down. The biggest compromise is with crime boss Carl Sweeney, played with almost pantomime enthusiasm by Ian Hart.
In series two, which starts six months later, Chris is still working the relentless night shift and trying his best to avoid more trouble – but, of course, trouble finds him when he’s asked to do a dodgy car stop by his boss, DCI Debb Barnes (Amaka Okafor), and he’s unwillingly drawn into a drug war. (Two series)
Suits
Meghan Markle found fame in this hit US legal drama
Year: 2011-2019
Certificate: 12
Watch now on BBC iPlayer
Watch now on Netflix
The presence of Meghan Markle has somewhat overshadowed this US legal drama. Yes, it is the most successful thing she was in, and yes, she is very well cast and can act, but you won’t be tuning in just for her. Markle is part of a fast and slick ensemble drama that holds together well against other hit US legal shows – from Ally McBeal to Boston Legal – and makes for thoroughly addictive viewing once it’s reeled you in.
The chances are you’ll be hooked from the very first episode. Promising young man Mike Ross (Patrick J Adams), a college dropout with a photographic memory, is wasting his potential until a wild chance encounter lands him an equally wild job offer from Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht), a brilliant but hard-to-control lawyer who says things like, ‘I’m not about caring, I’m about winning.’ Room for some personal growth there, then.
Markle is bouncy-haired (all the women have bouncy hair) paralegal Rachel Zane, who makes an impression on Mike when he joins the firm. No spoilers, but their relationship is one of the driving forces of the show, and with a total of nine series (1-7 featuring Markle), this is the kind of guilty pleasure binge-watch that will keep you going for weeks. (Nine series)
Bodkin
Will Forte plays an American podcaster pitched into an Irish mystery in this comic thriller
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Netflix
Cultures clash in a comic thriller that pitches an American podcaster (The Last Man On Earth’s Will Forte) into a small-town story in Ireland that he’s really not equipped to tell. Joining him are a cynical, disgraced reporter (The Dry’s Siobhán Cullen) and a constantly apologetic assistant (Robyn Cara) in a series that makes a clunky start, but steadily sheds its cliches, both Irish and American, to unroll a decent mystery over seven episodes.
Some of the cliches are just true and funny, too, so they’re easy to forgive. Gilbert (Forte) is looking for his roots, and walks around telling the locals that he’s Irish while sounding very American indeed, something Americans do all the time when they’re abroad. And Dove’s (Cullen) hardened journalist image is steadily justified by a backstory that’s given to us in drips, and softened by the way she becomes a mentor to Emmy (Cara).
It’s a cliche to say it, but ultimately the mystery of Bodkin is one that makes these characters address the mysteries of their own lives, and hopefully come away with answers to both. They give us some decent laughs and surprises in the meantime and, yes, some cliches – but it’s hard to mind that much. (Seven episodes)
Baby Reindeer
Riveting drama based on comedian Richard Gadd’s experiences with a stalker
Year: 2024
Certificate: 18
Watch now on Netflix
Described as ‘not your typical bunny-boiler story’, this bracing seven-part drama is based on Scottish comedian Richard Gadd’s award-winning debut play of the same name. That play came from his horrifying real-life experiences with a stalker who, at the very mild end of things, sent him 41,000 emails.
When Gadd performed that play on stage, Martha was represented by a bar stool. In this TV series which he wrote, produced and stars in she’s a loud and colourful presence, played with vulnerability and a dark, dangerous hilarity by The Outlaws’ Jessica Gunning. She’s a woman who Donny (Gadd) wants to understand – not your typical bunny boiler, in short, and it’s this rounded approach to character that really marks the show out as something special.
Gadd has been very clear that he made mistakes in the way he handled his stalker, and the honesty he’s poured into the script translates into a show that’s very hard to stop watching even when, at some points, you may really want to.
While far from an easy watch, Baby Reindeer (the title comes from Martha’s nickname for him) is certainly a gripping one that plays with your sympathies throughout. And don’t forget that Gadd is also, fundamentally, a comedian – so it’s also a very funny show at times too, sometimes when you least expect it to be. (Seven episodes)
The Sympathizer
Robert Downey Jr plays multiple roles in this cinematic Vietnam drama
Year: 2024
Watch now on NOW
Watch now on Sky
Robert Downey Jr is the big name attached to this blackly comic seven-part HBO drama and when he’s on screen you can’t miss him, but the four characters he plays are more of an engine to keep the story going – and occasionally comic relief – than the focus of the show itself. That lies with a charming but tense man we only ever know as the Captain (Hoa Xuande), a spy from communist North Vietnam working against the Americans from inside the southern forces during the Vietnam War.
We’re introduced to his split existence in episode one, directed by Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, The Little Drummer Girl) with all the heft, thought and pure cinematic scale of an Oscar-winning movie. This episode is where we first meet Downey Jr, too, cast as a ridiculous-looking, deadly acting CIA agent who serves as a handler and a kind of mentor to the Captain. Episode two moves the story on to the US, where Downey Jr is a flamboyant professor who takes the Captain under his wing, and on it goes from there as the Captain struggles to stay alive, playing one side against the other.
The most fascinating thing about this show is how so many of its characters are wrestling with a dual existence, because that tension makes them so inherently interesting to watch. Look out for Sandra Oh as an American with whom the Captain becomes involved in LA – she’s always interesting to watch, of course, and makes the most of what she’s given here. (Seven episodes)
The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live
Spin-off series from the hugely successful zombie saga
Year: 2024
Certificate: 18
Watch now on NOW
Watch now on Sky
Rick and Michonne were two of the most popular characters in the original Walking Dead, and the husband and wife are both present – but separated – at the start of this spin-off show, which is essentially a love story about them (hopefully) finding one another again, five years after Rick was kidnapped.
Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira return to the roles they played for years on the original show (he from series one, she from series three), and rooting for them across this six-parter is a much more rewarding experience than it was on the often-grinding later years of the original.
Their journeys start in different places, with Rick a prisoner of the CRM (Civic Republic Military) in Philadelphia. We learn all about that life in part one, before the focus shifts to his sword-wielding wife in the second, in which we find Michonne reeling from a gas attack.
Among the wider cast, look out for Lost’s Terry O’Quinn as the leader of the CRM in a story that should provide closure for fans, but is unlikely to attract new ones. That isn’t the point of it, after all. (Six episodes)
Star Wars: The Acolyte
Star Wars spin-off series set 100 years before the films
Year: 2024
Certificate: 12
Watch now on Disney+
Most of the Star Wars TV series so far have been devoted to filling in gaps between the films, whether it’s the magnificent Andor giving us events leading up to Rogue One, or The Mandalorian exploring the Outer Rim after Return Of The Jedi.
This atmospheric eight-parter, though, heads to a hundred years before The Phantom Menace, back to a seemingly happy galactic republic. But then someone starts murdering individual Jedi Knights and the investigation that follows uncovers cracks in the facade of universal harmony…
With a mix of Western, noir and Japanese martial arts adventure, this is a solid addition to the galaxy far, far away which is particularly strong in that last ingredient. The Matrix’s Carrie-Anne Moss adds considertable initial appeal with her ‘force fu’ as the Trinity-like Indara, while other cast members include Dafne Keen (His Dark Materials) and Manny Jacinto (The Good Place), although the actual star is The Hunger Games’ Amanda Stenberg who plays two very different twin sisters. All of these actors have to contend with that unfortunate deadening that directors of Star Wars seems to bring to the scripts, but there are still enough sparks to keep you watching – and the action, when it comes, is undeniably cool. (Eight episodes)
Red Eye
Fasten your seatbelts for this high-octane thriller, set on a flight from London to Beijing
Year: 2024
Buckle up for this nerve-jangling six-parter in which Richard Armitage (Fool Me Once) plays Dr Matthew Nolan, a British surgeon who becomes entangled in an international conspiracy. The series begins with Dr Nolan barely surviving a car crash in Beijing while at a medical conference – but far worse is to come. When he arrives back in the UK, he’s arrested over the death of a Chinese woman – Matt insists he’s innocent, but he’s extradited to face charges.
It’s on the red-eye flight back to China that this thriller really ramps up. London detective Hana Li (Crazy Rich Asians’ Jing Lusi) has been assigned to escort Nolan on the overnight flight, but when passengers start dying on board, she realises Nolan’s life is in danger. Who wants him dead and why? Lesley Sharp also stars as an MI5 boss investigating events on flight 357.
This series won’t win any prizes for realism, but writer Peter A Dowling, who created the successful 2005 movie Flightplan starring Jodie Foster, about a girl who goes missing on a transatlantic flight, sure knows how to keep us watching. (Six episodes)
Shogun
Adaptation of James Clavell’s epic novel about an Englishman in 17th-century Japan
Year: 2024
Certificate: 18
Watch now on Disney+
Fans of a certain generation will fondly remember the 1980s adaptation of James Clavell’s novel, which saw Richard Chamberlain star as John Blackthorne, a shipwrecked English sailor trying to survive dangerous political and military machinations in 17th-century Japan.
This ten-part adaptation doesn’t let down the good name of that show, presenting an impressively atmospheric rendering of a tale full of murky betrayal, forbidden romance and truly epic war. British actor Cosmo Jarvis is tough and battered as the indomitable Blackthorne, guided through the dangerous waters of Japanese society by Anna Sawai as his translator Lady Mariko.
The series actually presents Clavell’s story with considerably more edge and scale than the 1980s version did, and comes from FX. That’s the US TV brand that has given us such shows as The Shield, Sons Of Anarchy and The Americans down the years, so think of this very much in that tradition, rather than the soapy miniseries mould the 1980s version sprang from. The cast is terrific – Jarvis is reminiscent of Tom Hardy in the lead, while Sawai delivers an intriguing mix of composure and subtly bubbling emotion as Mariko, and Hiroyuki Sanada is riveting as Toranaga, a local lord who strikes an uneasy alliance with Blackthorne. The series itself evolves with a surely handled mix of action, intrigue, humour and real moments of pure, soul-stirring emotion that has earned it fans across the board. Enough, it turns out, to mean that two more series are on the way. (Ten episodes)
Mr Bates vs The Post Office
Real-life drama about a terrible miscarriage of justice
Year: 2024
This superb four-part drama tells the story of one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British legal history. In the early 2000s, hundreds of innocent sub-postmasters and postmistresses were wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting due to a defective IT system. Many of the wronged workers were prosecuted, some were imprisoned, all had their lives irreparably damaged by the scandal.
Toby Jones is his usual brilliant self as sub-postmaster Alan Bates, who refused to believe his colleagues were responsible for the mysterious financial losses and led the fightback against the Post Office. Julie Hesmondhalgh plays his long-suffering wife, while Monica Dolan, Shaun Dooley and Ian Hart are among the strong support cast in a story that will make your blood boil. (Four episodes)
Ripley
Andrew Scott stars in an eight-part take on the 1960s-set con artist story
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Netflix
The 1999 movie of Patricia Highsmith’s novel, The Talented Mr Ripley, left you wanting more of the con artist character at its centre. Andrew Scott gives you just that in Netflix’s eight-part take on the same source material, following Ripley from New York to Italy as he insinuates himself into the life of clueless American playboy Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn) and his justly suspicious fiancée, Marge (Dakota Fanning).
Set in sunny Italy but filmed in black and white, the series has much more space to give us a rounded portrait of Ripley, to the extent that you may even find yourself sympathising with him early on: he’s ripped off by an Italian taxi driver and trudges around the country, unable to speak the language, desperately looking for his ticket to a better life.
You see a lot of his struggle, in short – perhaps a little too much for some tastes. Still, it scarcely matters as Scott is, of course, brilliant in the lead. The character of Ripley is a mimic and Scott, as an actor, is fantastic at that – when he starts to copy Dickie it’s genuinely unsettling and weirdly accurate, despite the fact that Scott looks nothing like Flynn. And that performance is allowed to stand largely on its own, with no fancy cuts and barely any background music. Flynn and Fanning are both excellent too, and Fanning in particular does a lot with a look. But this is Scott’s show, and justly so. (Eight episodes)
One Day
TV adaptation of David Nicholls’s novel about life and love
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Netflix
Beginning with their final night at university together, One Day follows Dexter and Emma (The White Lotus’s Leo Woodall and This Is Going To Hurt’s Ambika Mod) across almost two decades, as they cross in and out of each other’s lives and fall in and out of love with one another. The twist? We only catch up with them on one day each year, 15 July.
It’s a great conceit that allows time to flicker past as the pair’s lives and looks change across the series. It’s already been adapted into a lovely 2011 film (starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess), but this 14-parter has much more elbow room to dig into elements from the novel, delighting fans as it expands upon the joys and tragedies of Dex and Em’s lives. The fact that each episode is only around 30 minutes long helps the show to zip along at a great pace, as does the liberal use of music from each year.
The show’s makers do a good job of capturing the 1990s in particular, especially the spell when Dex becomes the odious host of low-rent, post-pub TV that’s all too close to what was actually on our screens at the time. It says a lot for Woodall’s charm as an actor that he manages to keep Dex at all likeable during those years, while you’re always rooting for the endearing Mod – who was the tragic heart of This Is Going To Hurt – to find a happy ending as Emma. (14 episodes)
Masters Of The Air
Epic fact-based WWII drama about US airmen in Britain
Year: 2024
Watch now on Apple TV+
Like Band Of Brothers but about the US airmen who flew out of the UK during the Second World War, this nine-part drama is a very impressive piece of work. Produced by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin (which also gave us Band Of Brothers and its sequel, The Pacific), it’s stacked with talent in every area, most obviously in the creation of the aerial sequences and in its cast, which boasts Austin Butler (Elvis), Callum Turner (Fantastic Beasts), Barry Keoghan (Saltburn) and even Doctor Who himself – Ncuti Gatwa – among the aviators flying with the 100th Bomb Group.
The 100th fly their bombing missions in daytime, so the impressive aerial sequences are visible in all their glory, and it’s not just CGI bringing them to life, either. Amblin used a neat combination of replica B-17 Flying Fortresses and digital wizardry when they were filming in the UK, and built a full-scale air base too – so it all feels fairly real. We also see the social side of the airmen’s lives, and the impact those missions had as the series goes beyond the British Isles and even into a PoW camp. It’s true that the tone of the whole thing is rather American, but then it is an American story so that seems fair enough. And it’s hard to resent all that Hollywood money when it brings this kind of big-screen scale to the small screen. (Nine episodes)
The Gentlemen
Crime thriller series based on Guy Ritchie’s movie The Gentlemen
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Netflix
Full of dangerous Cockney geezers, treacherous aristos and all manner of other colourful underworld characters, Guy Ritchie’s 2019 movie The Gentlemen was a brutal thriller romp. This eight-part series may not use any of the same characters but it captures the same wisecracking sense of violent excess as its movie big brother (no surprise really, as Ritchie produces the whole thing and even directs a few episodes).
The White Lotus star Theo James takes the lead as the black sheep of a noble family who discovers that unexpectedly inheriting his family estate puts him in the crosshairs of a number of dodgy characters, not least those played by Skins’s Kaya Scodelario, Better Call Saul’s Giancarlo Esposito and crime-drama legends Vinnie Jones and Ray Winstone. (Eight episodes)
Fallout
Explosive video game adaptation from the creators of the Westworld TV series
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Prime Video
Video game adaptations used to have a bad name – does anyone remember Bob Hoskins playing the Italian plumber Mario in 1993’s Super Mario Bros film? It’s probably best that you don’t.
Those days are now long though, especially after HBO’s The Last Of Us upped the dramatic ante in 2023 and won eight Emmy Awards for its trouble. Fallout looks set to continue that trend, coming as it does from Westworld creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, a producing duo with great expertise in serving TV audiences big and complex worlds.
And Fallout is certainly that – the games are set in a sprawling, post-apocalyptic wasteland centuries after a nuclear war has devastated the planet’s surface. Underneath that wasteland are The Vaults, in which cheery survivors have been living lives of order and relative luxury while those above scrabbled for scraps.
That culture clash is at the centre of the series, following Lucy (Yellowjackets’ Ella Purnell) as she leaves the safety of The Vaults for the chaos above. ‘Practically every person I’ve met up here has tried to kill me,’ she despairs in her opening week. There’s a lot of comedy in that clash and we meet a lot of eccentric characters as it unfolds, too, especially Justified’s Walton Goggins as a roaming bounty hunter.
Fallout is primarily an epic action game though, and this ambitious and visually impressive series keeps that very much in mind. It should certainly please those in search of a little popcorn entertainment and, even if it doesn’t quite reach the dramatic heights of The Last Of Us, it’s also a rich evocation of an exciting world. There will be a second series. (Eight episodes)
Blue Lights (Series 2)
Return of the explosive, character-led Belfast cop show
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on BBC iPlayer
This Northern Irish cop show struck a chord with critics and audiences alike, and now the ‘Peelers’ are back for a second series. Crime is flooding the streets of Belfast, but this first episode spends as much time reacquainting us with the characters – rookies, veterans and dearly departed – as it does establishing that there’s a new crime gang in town.
Partners Stevie and Grace are still flirting over their lunchboxes, Tommy (Nathan Braniff) catches the eye of the paramilitary task force whilst also trying to sort out his love life and Annie gets an eyeful of the hunky new guy Shane (Frank Blake).
Jen (Hannah McClean), meanwhile, might have left the force, but has not forgotten her late comrade, Gerry. She’s now working as a solicitor and sets out to investigate the chip-shop bombing that haunted him.
As for that crime wave, you can expect plenty of nail-biting action for the response teams, from life-threatening stand-offs with desperate junkies to dramatic rescues from burning buildings. (Six episodes)
Dopesick
Compelling exploration of the American opioid epidemic
Year: 2021
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Disney+
Watch now on BBC iPlayer
THIS eight-parter about the American opioid epidemic has some seriously great acting. Michael Keaton – who won an Emmy for his performance – plays a doctor who prescribes the horrendously addictive painkiller OxyContin after being led to believe it is safe. Michael Stuhlbarg is Richard Sackler, the billionaire businessman who drove the drug’s creation, and is part of the family whose name has been removed from so many art galleries in the years since.
Both believe they’re doing the right thing and, in Sackler’s case, that’s fascinating because the most interesting bad guys are those who believe they have the moral high ground. (Eight episodes)
The Dry
Darkly funny Irish drama raises a glass to a very dysfunctional family
Year: 2022
Certificate: 15
Shiv (Roisin Gallagher) arrives home in Dublin for her granny’s funeral. She’s ‘five months, 17 days and six hours’ sober – not that she’s counting – and being around her judgmental yet equally dysfunctional family will be sure to test Shiv’s resolve.
The focus of this spunky comedy drama, dubbed an Irish Fleabag, is on addiction, though not on the fireworks of hitting rock bottom but on the everyday struggles of staying sober. And anyone would struggle with a family like this. Shiv’s uptight sister Caroline (Siobhan Cullen) is a full-blown misanthrope, her mum Bernie (Pom Boyd) is a just-about-functioning alcoholic and her dad (a heroically moribund Ciaran Hinds) is using his affair with his acupuncturist as a distraction from his own meltdown.
The show can be subdued and a bit melancholy at times, but the flashes of startling and sometimes painful humour are welcome jolts that ring true more often than not. Series two opens with Shiv having her sobriety sorely tested once again. (Two series)
Buying London
Glossy property series set in the UK capital
Year: 2024
Certificate: 12
Watch now on Netflix
Shows such as Selling Sunset, Dubai Hustle and Buying Beverly Hills have proven that viewers have an almost inexhaustible appetite for high-end property porn, with glamorous and good-looking estate agents locking horns as they compete to sell the most astounding-looking homes to billionaires with more money than Midas.
Now it’s London’s turn to get in on the act as the cameras follow luxury estate agent Daniel Daggers and his team hustling and bustling to shift river-view penthouses and marble-packed mansions to the billionaire set. Daggers isn’t big on modesty and understatement (he bills himself as ‘Mr Super Prime’, the best estate agent who has ever lived) and his team aren’t far behind in the relentless self-promotion stakes, but it all makes for a hugely entertaining festival of overblown egos and jaw-dropping property. (Seven episodes)
Shardlake
Sean Bean plays Thomas Cromwell in this TV series take on the Tudor mystery books
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Disney+
The author CJ Sansom wrote a series of seven books about the fortunes of Matthew Shardlake, a hunchbacked barrister toiling in the reign of Henry VIII, against the backdrop of the dissolution of the monasteries. They make for absorbing reading and this TV adaptation brings them to atmospheric life even if, as is ever the case with such things, the actors they’ve chosen don’t always match the characters you had in your head while reading.
The Archers’ Arthur Hughes is our Shardlake, a man oft-judged for his appearance but who holds himself straight and true to one principle – the truth. His uneasy companion in investigation is Jack Barak, a fearsome henchman of Thomas Cromwell’s who is less keen on truth than he is on serving his brutal master’s version of it. Masters Of The Air’s Anthony Boyle plays Barak with swagger and violence, both traits masking a compelling chink of insecurity that ensures it’s his character’s journey you’re watching most closely here.
The collision of Barak and Shardlake’s motivations plays out to fascinating effect in this opening four-part murder case, which begins with the latter being instructed to investigate by Cromwell himself, imperiously played by Sean Bean. Don’t expect to see much of Bean, though, fun as he is, or of Peter Firth’s deliciously Machiavellian Norfolk – this is all about Shardlake and Barak, a partnership that becomes stronger and deeper as the books go on. Hopefully, the TV series will get the same chance to show us that. (Four episodes)
Extraordinary
Comedy about the world’s only person without a superpower
Year: 2023
Certificate: 18
Watch now on Disney+
Imagine a world in which every adult has a superpower except you. That’s the position that sarcastic 25-year-old Jen (Mairead Tyers) finds herself in Disney’s fantastical British series. From shapeshifting to flight, from super strength to the ability to make anyone tell the truth, everybody else in the world got a special gift when they turned 18, but Jen is still waiting for hers to arrive.
Can she kick-start the process with the help of her weirdo flatmates? Or is she doomed to be the ordinary one in the world of the extraordinary? The show has some great turns of phrase and some of the riotous spirit of Misfits (available to stream on Channel 4), and it succeeds because it’s more about the characters’ lives and loves than it is about their powers – many of which are played for laughs. (Two series)
3 Body Problem
Dazzling sci-fi adaptation from the duo behind Game Of Thrones
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Netflix
What would you do if aliens were invading our planet, but not for hundreds of years? That’s one of the many questions posed by this epic sci-fi thriller based on a trilogy of Chinese novels. 3 Body Problem comes from David Benioff and DB Weiss, the pair who adapted Game Of Thrones, and has a similarly impressive scope. The storyline flits between the stunningly re-created 1960s China of the Cultural Revolution, a mysterious virtual reality simulation and present day Oxford (shifted from China in the books), where a quintet of scientists – the ‘Oxford Five’ – steadily realise that something terrible is happening out in space. One of them will be familiar to Thrones fans – it’s John Bradley, who played the studious Samwell – while Benioff and Weiss brought plenty of behind-the-scenes talent with them from their HBO fantasy show, too.
To say more would spoil the twists and turns of this eight-part first series, although we will say that the adaptation takes some challengingly complex source material and manages to weave it into a highly watchable and entertaining series without losing what made the original so remarkable – the cleverness of its concepts, and the sheer alien-ness of its invaders. And, as you’d expect since it’s based on a trilogy, the way this batch ends leaves room for more – and a second series has officially been ordered. (Eight episodes)
Mr & Mrs Smith
A funny, grounded TV take on the spy film
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Prime Video
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt met on the set of Mr. And Mrs. Smith, the fun 2005 movie about married undercover secret agents. Amazon’s TV series is based on the same premise and, while it doesn’t have Pitt and Jolie’s megawatt charm in the leads – or the gossip that surrounded them – it is a whole lot of fun and feels much more real.
Donald Glover (Atlanta) and Maya Erskine (Obi-Wan Kenobi) are our John and Jane Smith, put together to work as a married couple by a mysterious agency and taking on assignments they don’t understand. They move in glamorous circles for these frequently explosive missions, but John and Jane aren’t glamorous themselves – they need the money these jobs provide and aren’t quite sure how much to trust each other, which gives the show a real sense of danger. It’s also very funny at times (Glover has a long track record in comedy, and is co-creator), and features a great supporting cast including Michaela Coel, John Turturro, Sharon Horgan and the great Parker Posey.
The real draw, though, is the to-and-fro between the Smiths. The meat of their interaction is much more about marriage and partnership than it is about a will-they, won’t-they romance, and that’s a much deeper and more interesting thing to pick apart over the course of a series. (Eight episodes)
Griselda
Fact-based drama about a female crime boss starring Sofia Vergara
Year: 2024
Certificate: 18
Watch now on Netflix
Almost unrecognisable under a raft of prosthetics designed to mimic the hawk-faced profile of real-life drug boss Griselda Blanco Restrepo, Modern Family star Sofia Vergara is icily impressive in this six-part miniseries. A story of female empowerment and brutal criminality in equal bloody gobbets, it charts the Colombian immigrant’s rise to become one of the most powerful and feared drug importers in Miami. It’s all the more powerful a story because, when she first arrives with children in tow, Griselda’s position is very precarious indeed. You can see the vulnerability in her face, although it doesn’t last too long.
Created by many of the same team behind Narcos and with Vergara acting as producer, it’s exciting, dark and no-holds-barred stuff that brings the freewheeling cocaine underworld of the 1980s US to dangerous life. Episode one grabs you by the throat right from the start with this quote from Pablo Escobar: ‘The only man I was ever afraid of was a woman named Griselda Blanco’. You’ll see why in short order. (Six episodes)
Renegade Nell
Sally Wainwright’s family adventure about a super-powered highwaywoman
Year: 2024
Certificate: 12
Watch now on Disney+
Sally Wainwright is one of our finest screenwriters. Over the years she’s given us great shows like At Home With The Braithwaites, Last Tango In Halifax and Happy Valley to name but three. Renegade Nell, her eight-parter for Disney+, feels like her entry into the genre of family-friendly TV adventure serials, telling the story of a young 18th-century highwaywoman with special powers.
Derry Girls’ Louisa Harland plays the gutsy Nell who, in moments of peril, is able to slow down time like Neo in The Matrix and stop bullets with her bare hands. Nell is very British – she says things like ‘have you learned nothing from the last time I duffed you all up?’ – as is the show, with an array of familiar UK acting faces in supporting roles such as Adrian Lester, Joely Richardson and Pip Torrens, along with Ted Lasso’s Nick Mohammed as a diminutive fairy at Nell’s side. The moments when we’re not with Nell do sag a little – the plotting of her enemies simply isn’t as interesting – but she’s on-screen a lot so it’s a small problem in context, and the excellent action sequences are both unusual and a lot of fun. (Eight episodes)
The New Look
The Second World War experience of Coco Chanel and Christian Dior
Year: 2024
Watch now on Apple TV+
The scars and secrets of war are the subject of this complex ten-part drama, based on what actually happened to fashion designers Christian Dior and Coco Chanel in occupied Paris during the Second World War. If you’re new to the history of it, there will be surprises – chiefly that Chanel collaborated with the Nazis, and that Dior fought to save his younger sister, a French resistance fighter, from death at their hands in the camps.
The drama focuses on the whys, hows and consequences of their choices and moves across their lives, taking us through the occupation and liberation of Paris and beyond. It comes from Todd A Kessler, who brought us the brilliant Damages, and whose reputation and script has attracted a first-rate cast. Juliette Binoche has by far the trickiest job bringing dimension to Chanel, who is clearly set up as the villain of the piece but whom Binoche manages to frame as a survivor, while Ben Mendelsohn (who starred in Kessler’s Bloodline on Netflix) radiates vulnerability and quiet nobility as Dior.
The horror of the occupation is keenly realised in the opening episodes, which also feature Game Of Thrones’ Maisie Williams as Dior’s sister and Dracula’s Claes Bang as Chanel’s slippery introduction to the Nazis. Glenn Close, who picked up multiple awards as the force-of-nature lawyer Patty Hewes in Kessler’s Damages, pops up later in a series of such high quality that it feels uncommonly addictive for its type. (Ten episodes)
Manhunt (2024 series)
True crime thriller about the search for Abraham Lincoln’s killer
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Apple TV+
A drama about the hunt for Abraham Lincoln’s killer doesn’t sound like the most obviously compelling thing to a British audience. One, we know who did it – the actor John Wilkes Booth, who shot the US President while he was watching a play in 1865 – and two, it happened a long time ago in the US. Still, execution is everything – no pun intended – and it soon becomes apparent that Manhunt is essentially a true crime thriller, just one that happens to be set more than 150 years ago, and against the inherently interesting backdrop of a sharply divided country where conspiracies abound.
That last point could be said to have relevance to today’s polarised US too, but what makes Manhunt compelling to the more casual viewer is its star, Tobias Menzies (Outlander). Always a compelling actor in whatever he does, here Menzies takes centre stage as Edwin Stanton, Lincoln’s colleague and friend and the man leading the hunt. Stanton’s personal investment in seeing justice done is what hooks you, and the details of the country around him – divided over Lincoln’s abolition of slavery and tangled up in conspiracies left, right and centre – is just an intriguing bonus. And, while this almost goes without saying since the show was bankrolled by Apple, the re-creation of the period is a rich and instantly convincing one. To British eyes, at least. (Seven episodes)
Palm Royale
Kristen Wiig stars as a social climber determined to crack 1969 Florida high society
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Apple TV+
‘All I ever wanted was to belong. To be a somebody in this world.’ Kristen Wiig stars in Apple’s glitzy comedy about one woman’s determination to con her way into the high society of Palm Beach, Florida – specifically that of the exclusive Palm Royale club. It’s set in 1969 and has all the jet-set glamour one would expect of the time, but it’s the cast that really sells this ten-parter. Wiig is vulnerable but steely as ex-pageant queen Maxine, while the Queen Bee in the society she’s trying to crack is the magnificently uppity Evelyn Rollins (The West Wing’s Allison Janney), a leading light in the local fight against paediatric cancer.
The series is based on the novel Mr & Mrs American Pie by Juliet McDaniel, and the pleasure in watching the story evolve is in seeing the lengths Maxine will go to in order to secure the social elevation she so dearly wants, and the comeuppance others get along the way. Her schemes are a lot of fun, but you have to ask: how much will it all cost her? And if the club waiter Robert looks familiar, he should – that’s snake-hipped pop legend Ricky Martin. (Ten episodes)
A Gentleman In Moscow
Ewan McGregor stars in this tale of an aristocrat living a life sentence in Revolutionary Russia
Year: 2024
Certificate: 12
Watch now on Paramount+
Holding onto your dignity in adversity is an appealing idea, and it’s at the heart of this eight-part adaptation of Amor Towles’s novel. Ewan McGregor stars as Count Alexander Rostov, a man of wealth and taste who loses the first of those to the Russian Revolution. The Bolsheviks sentence him to life inside the gilded cage of the Hotel Metropol, a place where, Rostov is told, he will be shot if he leaves.
As the decades pass, the Count strives to hold onto his taste and good manners, and steadily finds new things to live for. McGregor brings a childlike sense of hope to the role, a hope that’s tempered by the very real sense that, especially at the start, the hotel is not just a cage but also a trap.
Aside from McGregor’s performance, the location is the key to this show’s success. The finely detailed set was built in Manchester, and created on such a scale that it allowed the cast to lose themselves in their environment – at least one of them would play the hotel’s piano in idle moments. It affords the viewer the same luxury, too. You’re right there with Rostov as he journeys through the decades, in a show that gives us both a very narrow and a very broad picture of how a life and country can change.
What may not be clear about A Gentleman In Moscow is that it’s also disarmingly funny at times, partly in those moments when Rostov is clinging to his identity as a gentleman, insisting on such things as his regular appointment with the hotel barber. Those moments also hold a danger and a poignancy in them. Ultimately, the way all of that can co-exist in one scene gives you an idea of how lightly this show wears its substance. (Eight episodes)
The Big Cigar
A movie producer helps the founder of the Black Panthers flee to Cuba in this heist-style real-life drama
Year: 2024
Watch now on Apple TV+
Huey P Newton was the founder of the Black Panther Party in the US and, in 1974, fled to Cuba to escape the FBI with the help of a film producer and a plan based around an entirely fake location shoot. Apple’s six-part drama takes that story and presents it like a heist movie made during the period, filling it with surprisingly subtle performances that swing between humour and seriousness and layering a soundtrack that must have cost a fortune to licence on top.
André Holland (Moonlight) gives a fully rounded performance as Newton, while Alessandro Nivola (Black Narcissus) feels like a keen but uncertain ally as producer Bert Schneider who, in real life, was behind films like Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces. ‘You’re the hotshot producer, man, you produce this,’ Newton tells Schneider about his escape attempt, as the story kicks into high gear near the end of episode one. The series that follows has that appealing ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ feel and, while it’s a slow-burn at times, has a lot of style and crackle for most of its screen time – especially in the scenes between Holland and Nivola. And the title? That’s the codename they use in the plan for Cuba. (Six episodes)
Mary & George
Julianne Moore plays real-life 17th-century schemer Mary Villiers
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on NOW
Watch now on Sky
If you prefer your costume dramas with a little more edge – more like The Great than Downton Abbey – then Sky’s seven-parter based on the real-life story of Mary Villiers should be right up your street. The Countess of Buckingham plots her way up the ladder of 17th-century England from the bottom to the top, and the object of her machinations is the installation of her initially less-than-worldly son George (Nicholas Galitzine) as the lover of the unpredictable King James I.
Julianne Moore is superb as Villiers, playing her as Machiavellian but also seemingly not without vulnerabilities, especially in her dealings at the king’s intimidating court, which is packed with flamboyantly diabolical characters. Are the weaknesses she occasionally displays real, though? Or just part of an act to get what she wants? That’s one of the things that keep you watching this show, along with seeing all the darkly enjoyable schemes unfold. Look out for Nicola Walker having a whale of a time as Lady Hatton, one of the opponents Mary clashes with most directly. Their sparring matches are a lot of fun. (Seven episodes)
Mandy
Diane Morgan’s comedy creation has hapless adventures in the job market
Year: 2019-
Certificate: 12
Watch now on BBC iPlayer
You may know her as Philomena Cunk, the moronic presenter of entirely inaccurate history and culture documentaries, or as chaotic single mum Liz in Motherland, but Diane Morgan’s oddest creation is all her own. Constantly chewing her lip to grotesque degrees, Mandy is the backcombed heroine of these bitesize episodes who spends her time trying and failing to get gainful employment.
Over three series, she has not learnt a single lesson about how to get on in the world. She’s tried working in a banana-processing warehouse, biscuit factory, in a supermarket and a stately home and there are always surreal and outrageous catastrophes, and the odd fatality. Series three appears to have had a bit more budget to play with, enabling some fun special effects when Mandy has leg-lengthening surgery to become an airline hostess. Whether she’s flying high or low, Mandy always picks herself up and starts again. (Three series)
Franklin
Michael Douglas shines as Benjamin Franklin in a drama about saving America from defeat
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Apple TV+
There’s a lot to recommend this rich, eight-part drama, and it’s got a wonderfully simple premise: following Benjamin Franklin as he asks the French to save the Americans from defeat by the British.
This desperate quest for help makes it an underdog tale, which is always an appealing thing to watch, and they’ve got a coming-of-age story in there too, as Franklin is accompanied by his naive grandson, a boy who has a lot to learn.
It’s also a political show about double-dealing and betrayal but, first and foremost, it’s a character study of Franklin himself. You need a good actor for that and thankfully they have a great one in Michael Douglas, and watching this Hollywood legend twinkle and scheme his way through one situation after another is a delight in itself.
Daniel Mays is another bright point on the cast as Edward Bancroft, one of his allies in France, as is Ludivine Sagnier as Anne Louise Brillon de Jouy, a married Frenchwoman who catches Franklin’s eye. The scenes between the two of them are the only time when Franklin fully lets his guard down, and give the show a real heart, too. (Eight episodes)
Big Mood
Comedy starring Nicola Coughlan and Lydia West as best friends forever
Year: 2024
Watch now on Channel 4
Frequently very funny, and also touching and wild, this millennial comedy celebrates female friendship while reminding us that life for 30-something, not-so-young adults is fraught with chaos and uncertainty. Especially when you suffer from bipolar disorder.
Derry Girls’ Nicola Coughlan is perfect casting as Maggie, whose mood slips from way up to deep down in a beat. ‘It’s not a funk, it’s a mood disorder,’ she says of her illness, which is never swept under the carpet or treated as a taboo subject. Nor is it trivialised, the reality of living in this precarious state demonstrated by her best friend Eddie (It’s A Sin’s Lydia West), who takes it in turns to worry, party, cajole and supervise Maggie through her unpredictable states of manic energy or a sofa-cocoon slump.
Coughlan and West make a fantastic double act and we need to see more of them, together and apart. (Six episodes)
Insomnia (2024 TV series)
Vicky McClure stars as an insomniac whose life slides out of control in this thriller
Year: 2024
Certificate: 18
Watch now on Paramount+
‘I’m fine. I’m just not sleeping great.’ When you don’t sleep, the world around you can seem alien and your actions within it uncertain, but you put on a convincing face and get on with life as best you can. This six-part drama starring Vicky McClure really captures that sensation of unreality.
Its central character is Emma Averill (McClure), a wife, mother and high-flying lawyer who suddenly stops sleeping not long before her 40th birthday, and starts to feel everything spin slowly out of control. Lurking behind the ‘everything is fine’ veneer she pastes over her face at the start is the fear that she will turn into her mother, a violent insomniac who had a psychotic breakdown at exactly the same age, tormenting Emma and her sister – right after she stopped sleeping.
So, what is actually going on here? Is Emma doomed by genetics to repeat the past? Why is her sister suddenly trying to reconcile Emma with her mother? And what do the numbers her mother chants mean? The first episode of Insomnia sets up such questions nicely, and McClure carries the drama of it all very well indeed. (Six episodes)
