APPLE TV+, NETFLIX, BRITBOX & STARZPLAY
Finch
Remember Cast Away, where Tom Hanks played FedEx executive who crashed-landed on deserted tropical islands and ended up talking with Wilson, a decorated basketball star?
Well, two decades later, Finch is a lot like that only this time Hanks is playing a robotics engineer who finds himself alone in a post-apocalyptic St Louis because… well, the world has come to an end.
Climate change, greenhouse effect, solar flares… the exact cause is never clear but Earth has become a hot, radioactive dustbowl in which Finch may well be the last human alive.
Climate change, solar flares… the exact cause is never clear but Earth has become a hot, radioactive dustbowl in which Finch (Tom Hanks, above) may well be the last human alive
Which is why – and this is the ‘deep breath’ moment – he’s built a robot to… er, look after his dog when he’s gone. The inevitably quirky android – voiced by Caleb Landry Jones – calls himself Jeff.
Finch now has someone to talk to when they set off for San Francisco. This film is fascinating, sometimes irritating and inevitably sentimental. It’s Hanks, after all. Apple TV+, starting Friday
Knowing Me, Knowing you/This Time
Wings-loving presenter Alan Partridge, with his casual knitwear and cringeworthy catchphrases, first appeared as a sports reporter on Chris Morris’s The Day Today.
With another middle-of-the-road pop reference, this time to Abba, the gaffe-prone comedy monster that was Partridge was fully born, complete with his ‘Aha!’ catchphrase.
Wings-loving presenter Alan Partridge (above), with his casual knitwear and cringeworthy catchphrases, first appeared as a sports reporter on Chris Morris’s The Day Today
Steve Coogan’s character lived on in This Time in 2019, which saw the inept presenter trying to co-host a daytime TV show. BritBox, available starting Thursday
The harder they fall, the more difficult they are
The great American Western has always been a predominantly white affair, at least in terms of the main characters. The Harder they Fall attempts to correct that by bringing together a black cast, led Idris Elba, Regina King, and Jonathan Majors, who play the villains and the goodies.
The Harder They Falls features a black ensemble, led by Jonathan Majors, IdrisElba, and Regina King (above), who play the baddies, the goodies and everything in between
Its intentions are obvious from the shock opening that, not for a last time, brings to mind Quentin Tarantino. It’s all a bit wordy and mannered – deliberately so – but as outlaw Nat Love (Majors) sets off in pursuit of the wicked Rufus Buck (Elba), its energy proves infectious. Netflix, starting Wednesday
Godfather Of Harlem
Bumpy Johnson, a New York gangster, is careful to tread a dangerous path. This compelling, fact-based drama is about organised crime, politics, and civil rights in 1960s New York.
Bumpy Johnson, a New York gangster (Forest Whitaker above right), is careful to tread a dangerous path through this compelling, fact-based drama.
Having realised that whoever controls the ‘French connection’, allowing heroin into the city, will be the kingpin, Bumpy came out of hiding to make some new alliances – in Europe. StarzPlay, starting Sunday
Dickinson
The third season will include the final ten episodes on the groundbreaking comedy drama about poet Emily Dickinson (Hailee Sternfeld) as a young girl. This is Emily during her most creative period, right before the American Civil War. She is still pursuing Sue, the married woman that she loves.
Sylvia Plath makes a curious appearance. Apple TV+, starting Friday
Red Riding
In this TV adaptation of the David Peace novels about police corruption in Yorkshire, each of the three feature-length films is by a different director and set in a different year – 1974, 1980, 1983.
The background includes elements of real-life crimes like the Yorkshire Ripper murders. However, there is an overarching story that ties them all together. It is both compelling and unrelentingly grim. BritBox, available starting Thursday
Narcos in Mexico
This Narcos spin-off focuses on Mexico’s drugs trade, rather than on Pablo Escobar and his narcotics business in Colombia, as in the original series. The first two seasons have shown the creation of the Guadalajara Cartel from a group of disparate drug growers and we’re now in the 1990s.
A power vacuum created by last season’s events has resulted in a vicious drug war, with different factions fighting for supremacy. No one is ready to play nicely. Netflix, available starting Friday
TOP TEN HOTTEST BRITBOX DRAMAS TO WATCH NOW
1. Our Friends in the North
In this tale of friendship and politics, Mark Strong, Gina McKee, Daniel Craig and Christopher Eccleston star.
2. Broadchurch
Olivia Colman and David Tennant are investigating the murder of a child at seaside town.
3. Life On Mars
Has DI Sam Tyler (John Simm) really travelled back to 1973 where he’s working with old-school copper DCI Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister)? Or is this all just a dream?
Judi Dench (above), and Imelda Staunton were among the stars of Cranford
4. Cranford
Judi Dench, Lesley Manville and Imelda Staunton are among the stars in Heidi Thomas’s (Call The Midwife) blissful adaptation of the Elizabeth Gaskell’s stories.
5. Upstairs, Downstairs
Eileen Atkins co-created the 1970s drama about aristocratic family members and their staff.
6. Downton Abbey
The Crawley family tries not to let small blips like the First World War affect their way of living.
7. Doctor Who
There’s a galaxy of vintage Doctor Who series, including the very first episode from 1963.
8. Unforgotten
Nicola Walker & Sanjeev Bhaskar excel in this emotionally charged show on cold-case partners
9. Tenko
Classic drama about women held at a Japanese prison camp during World War II.
10. Wuthering Heights
This 2009 take on Emily Brontë’s timeless novel stars Tom Hardy and Charlotte Riley (the pair are now married) as Heathcliff and Cathy.
BBC iPLAYER
Lady Boss: The Jackie Collins Story
They were high achievers, those Collins sisters: first Joan became a Hollywood star, then Jackie’s ‘bonkbuster’ novels turned her into the Queen of Tinseltown, helping rescue Joan’s flagging career.
They were high achievers, those Collins sisters: first Joan became a Hollywood star, then Jackie’s (above) ‘bonkbuster’ novels turned her into the Queen of Tinseltown
Joan raises an eyebrow to show that this was the source of sibling rivalry. But this documentary is Jackie’s story, enhanced by a wealth of home-movie footage showing the private woman behind the overcoiffed talk-show regular who declared that women could achieve anything but whose sexually provocative brand of feminism eventually became outdated. Now Available
Don’t Look Now
After the tragic death their child, a couple (Donald Sutherland & Julie Christie, right), travel to Venice, where he will be working on the restoration and maintenance of a church. They meet a pair of mysterious sisters who claim that their daughter is trying contact them from beyond the grave.
After the tragic death their child, a couple (Donald Sutherland, left, and Julie Christie, right) travel to Venice to work on the restoration a church.
Nicolas Roeg’s atmospheric 1973 horror classic is intensely creepy and hugely influential. Now Available
Middlemarch
Juliet Aubrey plays Dorothea Brooke in this 1994 adaptation of George Eliot’s classic. She is unhappyly married to Reverend Casaubon, Patrick Malahide. Andrew Davies wrote the screenplay, just before Pride And Prejudice made him famous. Starts Sunday
Vienna Blood
Watch the original three episodes of this psychological thriller, which will air in three parts next month. Max (Matthew Beard), a doctor who studied under Sigmund Freud helps a reluctant detective with his insights into murderers in the Austrian capital of 1900s. Now Available
Stalin’s death
It doesn’t promise comedy gold: the old dictator snuffs them. End of story. The story is not over. Armando Iannucci wrote it. With an inspired cast that includes Steve Buscemi as Khrushchev as well as Michael Palin as Molotov as his actor, the story unfolds as a jewel of backstabbing tension, as the Soviet Council of Ministers compete for power.
Black humor is wickedly funny. Now Available
Why is there such a buzz around..?
Paris Police 1900(BBC iPlayer).
Welcome to Paris, where dismembered corpses are packed into suitcases and dumped on the Seine. This Paris is full of political extremists brawling at public rallies. This Paris is full of women who are second-class citizens and ridiculed for their ambitions to get an education and a job.
The drama, inspired by real events, opens in 1899 with French president Félix Faure dying in distinctly post-watershed – but broadly historically accurate – circumstances.
Félix Faure’s lover, Meg Steinheil (Evelyne Brochu, above)
His lover, Meg Steinheil (Evelyne Brochu, right), with him at the time of his death, is nicknamed ‘Deadly Lips’ by police and recruited as a spy. A growing, vicious, and openly hateful antisemitism is partly due to the Dreyfus Affair. This scandal involved a French soldier of Jewish heritage being wrongly convicted for treason.
Madame Steinheil’s goal is to gain trust from a volatile antisemite organization and report back to police. The French capital is under attack by a serial killer.
The eight-part series’ powerful, atmospheric depiction of a city of sleaze, corruption and conspiracy theories, of drugs, decadence and febrile politics, recalls the hit German show Babylon Berlin, set just 30 years later.
It’s a gripping, violent, cinematic film that has been a huge hit in France. The positive word of mouth is driving up viewing figures in France and a second season has been developed.
Neil Armstrong