Netflix
Adam Sweeting
Meanwhile back in the Dark Ages, Uhtred (son of Uhtred) is still seeking to reclaim his ancestral seat of Bebbanburg and manoeuvre through the treacherous currents of Saxon politics. The big question was, how would this fourth season manage in the aftermath of the death of King Alfred?The king’s death has not only deprived us of David Dawson’s superb performance, but removes the yin and yang of the Alfred-Uhtred struggle which was one of the main drivers for the first three seasons. The exasperatingly pious and unforgiving Alfred was very difficult to like, and he could hardly stand up Read more ...
Nick Hasted
When not dipping into its bottomless debts to write Scorsese blank cheques, Netflix tends to favour old-school TV movie potboilers such as this slick, silly thriller, in which young couple Katie (Camila Mendes) and Adam (Jessie T Usher) have their moral flaws picked apart by financial temptation.Katie’s work as a Chicago waitress ends in a violent robbery, while her day-job working for rich old loner Leonard (Elliot Gould, pictured below) finds her inheriting not only his lakeside mansion, but a secret treasure chest of cash and diamonds. “I’m just sick of being poor,” impetuous Adam declares Read more ...
Veronica Lee
It's interesting to note that this Netflix series – the second of Ricky Gervais's study of bereavement, which he writes, directs and stars in – is broadcast during lockdown. We've quickly become used to a different pace of life – slower, less rooted in strict timeframes of work or family routines – so we should, in theory, be able to ease ourselves into the slowness. But there's slow, and there's “nothing much happening here, mate”.The first season of After Life, in which Gervais plays Tony, a journalist on a free local newspaper in the fictional town of Tambury, who lost his wife, Lisa ( Read more ...
Markie Robson-Scott
“Crying never solves anything. Be strong.” An admonishment from a stern grandmother haunts this low key first feature film by Alan Yang (Parks and Recreation, Master of None), loosely based on his father’s 1950s immigrant experience of leaving Taiwan and coming to New York City (his father does the voice-over in the film) and on Yang’s own recent trip to Taiwan with his father.No tigers in evidence here, kings, tails or otherwise. It’s a gentle, elegiac Asian-American story of lost love and emotional repression, told, in Mandarin and English, from the perspective of a disappointed middle-aged Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
While not the most headline-catching show on Netflix, Ozark has been steadily accruing critical accolades (including a couple of Emmys) and a devoted audience. Perhaps this superb third series will mark the tipping point where Ozark crosses over from cliqueishness to mass adulation.It all began back with the first season in 2017, when Marty Byrde’s Chicago-based financial services company fell foul of their client, a Mexican drug cartel. Marty’s partner made the insane blunder of skimming off $8m of the cartel’s funds, which their company were supposed to be laundering. Long story short, a Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Michelle Wolf, best known to UK audiences as the comic who upset Donald Trump with some smart barbs aimed at his staff at the 2018 White House Correspondents' Dinner, has done some occasional dates this side of the pond (plus a run at the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe), so her fans will be grateful for Joke Show, a Netflix special, where she is on top form.She starts with a very strong section on the modern trend for people to get offended by just about everything, which must be a pain in the backside for a comic such as Wolf, much of whose material is edgy. Yet instead of laying into the easily Read more ...
India Lewis
The Two Killings of Sam Cooke is a programme of multiples, a film which plays with doubles, divergences, and different narrative strands. It begins almost as if it will become a true crime investigation into a life cut short, moves into a more traditional music documentary, then ends on a defiant, powerful cry that his story (and his death) should still be so relevant. The two killings, set up by the title, are of his physical being, and of his legacy. Opening with various talking heads listening to a live recording of “Somebody Have Mercy”, contrasting this raw presentation with the Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Shappi Khorsandi's latest show, Skittish Warrior – Confessions of Club Comic, is an enjoyable look back at the stand-up's 20 years in the comedy business. She starts by taking us back to when she was child refugee; her father, a poet and satirist, offended the clerics in Iran, and was even the target of an assassination gang in London.Some of this material is familiar from previous shows, but no matter as her parents sound a hoot – although it's clear she didn't appreciate the disrupted sleep patterns she had from living in a household that was open all hours to other Iranian refuseniks and Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Julian Fellowes admits he knows little about football and has always hated sport in general, but this hasn’t prevented him from writing a TV series (for Netflix) about football’s 19th century origins. While his other new series, ITV’s Belgravia, feels sharp and skilfully crafted, The English Game is more like a mud bath in the Scunthorpe Wednesday Evening League.His theme might be summed up as toffs and robbers. It’s set in the 1870s, when football (largely invented in public schools) was becoming organised under rules laid down by the Football Association, comprising mostly public school Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The 2020 Formula 1 season will commence in Melbourne next weekend... unless the race is cancelled because of the mounting coronavirus panic. Everyone will have to self-isolate and watch Netflix instead, so how fortunate that the ‘flix has delivered this second series of Drive to Survive in the nick of time.The first series last year was impressive, but this one seems to have taken a quantum leap upwards. Across the 10 episodes, it picks and probes at all the salient issues of F1, exploiting an amazing degree of backstage access and brilliant high-def action photography to reach back and forth Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The comic book of Locke and Key, written by Joe Hill (son of horror writer Stephen King) and illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez, was first published in 2008, and its mix of multi-generational family drama and supernatural creepiness made it a cult hit. Various film and TV companies have spent the last decade making desultory efforts to bring it to the screen, and now Netflix have finally managed it.Whether or not it's what aficionados would have dreamed of, being familiar with the comics would certainly give you a leg up in getting to grips with the TV show. It’s slow to pick up momentum, as if Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
This eight-part mystery from Netflix is based on the titular novel by American writer Harlan Coben, who has formed a production company with Rochdale’s own Nicola Schindler, the production brains behind Happy Valley, Last Tango in Halifax and many more. The action has been transposed from New Jersey to Manchester – the one in England, not Massachusetts – and a strong and varied British cast does the heavy lifting, but there’s something in the mix that never quite feels right. Maybe it’s that things that seem par for the course in America’s moronic inferno can look hilarious in a homely Read more ...