I recently finished watching the new series from Stefan Goleszewski on the BBC called Marriage. It got mixed reviews because it’s steeped in the trademark of Goleszewski’s work - understated, quiet, and calm alongside real, moving and insightful. Previously, I’ve enjoyed Stefan’s first breakthrough Him & Her, although I have tried to revisit that before and found it just a bit too cutting. The sister is too mean, the neighbour too easy a target. Which is on me for being too sensitive but is also a shame because I love Russell Tovey enormously.

There are so many slightly odd things about Only Murders in the Building that it’s incredible it works at all, let alone is really, really good. First off you have the bizarre addition of Selena Gomez to a more understandable duo of Steve Martin and Martin Short. But together, they are brilliant, her dry sarcasm against their bumbling enthusiasm and/or ineptitude works perfectly. Then you have the fact that they started out as true crime podcast fans before getting mixed up in a real life murder mystery of their very own, in one of those old-school self-contained apartment buildings where there’s a doorman and a code of conduct and probably a dress code and more. The first series follows the trio solving a murder in the building, the second series sees them framed for a second death, and the third… well, we’ll get to that in a minute.

A TV show about the challenges of parenting wouldn’t usually be up my street given how very happily childfree I am. However, buoyed by the success of watching Trying (a show about a couple looking to adopt) and by the excellent casting of Daisy Haggard and Martin Freeman, I thought I’d give Breeders a go. There have been three seasons, and the first one is slightly different to the others. I thought the first episode was an absolute triumph in plotting, following a sleepless night that really sets the scene for the rest of the show. It starts with a pact to sleep two hours on, two hours off, and it ends up with Freeman waking up in his car being accused of killing his kids… and yet it makes total sense.

I love stories about time travel so I was very intrigued by Sky’s new TV show, The Lazarus Project, an eight part series about a covert group trying to stop the end of the world. The premise is that this group keep an eye on world events and if there’s an extinction-level threat, they press a reset button that loops time back to the 1st July.

I got a couple of episodes into The Undeclared War before I realised I needed to get Mr C on board with this show. It’s airing on Channel 4 at the moment, or available as a boxset via streaming, and we very quickly demolished the lot.

This is just a short note to say, if you have access to Disney+, you absolutely have to watch Baymax! - the new spin-off show featuring the inflatable companion from the movie Big Hero 6. I don’t actually remember a huge amount about that movie, other than how adorable this giant cuddly robot was, so I was super happy to see the lovable giant got its own TV show.

I just finished watching the second series of The Flight Attendant, HBO’s dark comedy crime mystery show starring and executive produced by Kaley Cuoco. It was brilliant, potentially even better than the first series. 2020’s initial outing followed the adventures of Kaley’s character Cassie as she, a flight attendant on a fictional airline, woke up in a hotel bed in Bangkok next to a dead body. Gradually the mystery unfolded and following the twists and turns was exceptional.

I’ve been meaning to write about Slow Horses for a week or so now, having wrapped up watching the six-episode first season - it’s brilliant! The first episode had me concerned, the opening sequence of a terrorist hunt in an airport going wrong was fab but then followed up by a grumpy boss being awful to his employees. However, the intrigue overrides that and once you hit the second episode, you can’t look away.

Recently, I seem to have watched a lot of second series of things, either because they’ve just been released with much fanfare, or because I’ve done a bit of a catchup. Four of the shows I’ve watched recently have all had second series’ that differ quite significantly from their first, and it’s been very interesting to watch them myself and also see the reaction to them in the wider world. I thought I’d put my own thoughts down on paper (digital screen paper, obviously):

There’s been a TV show streaming on Apple TV+ recently, a little production called Severance, I don’t know if you’ve heard of it? I’m astounded at how popular this show has become, not because it’s not good, but because it just seems to have blown up out of nowhere. But the show features that thing that everyone loves - morals alongside a mystery. While you’re trying to figure out what on earth is going on, you’re also desperately trying to imagine how you would feel in a similar situation.

I just finished the final episode of Dickinson and wanted to celebrate what a wonderful show this has been. I wrote about it after the first season, highlighting the specific creative choices that make it a brilliant period piece (the music, the modern moments, the way the poetry weaves in and out of the narrative) and that has only continued on through the next two series. It makes sense that this show was always going to have a a relatively short run given the life they are documenting, but I’m still super sad that there will be no more Dickinson in our lives.

Although I claim not to be someone who can watch a lot of different TV shows at the same time, I do seem to have plenty of different series on the go at the moment. There’s just so much good stuff out there! But alongside the new stuff, there’s always a spot in my day for something a bit older and a bit more relaxing… something to switch off to rather than get completely invested in.

The Book of Boba Fett has been a ride, hasn’t it? The reaction to this show has been so fascinating right from the start, with claims that it’s boring, that it has robbed people’s joy of a beloved character, that it relies too heavily on Mando, that it spends too much time on Tatooine… if there’s an aspect of the show you can name, you can also find people loving it or hating it in equal measure.

Since The Grand Tour became more of An Occasional Jaunt, the three presenters have been trying their hand at other things, usually turning their hobbies into business ventures. James May learned to cook and bought a pub, Jeremy Clarkson got into farming in a big (tractor) way, and Richard Hammond ploughed all his time and money into a classic car restoration business. All of them have made TV shows along the way, and somehow, despite enjoying all three of them, I haven’t written about a single one.

The new year is always a good time for new dramas to start appearing on TV, and the big bang for 2022 was Around the World in 80 Days, a big budget drama starring David Tennant as the hero in this Jules Vergne adaptation. The eight episode series followed Tennant’s Phileas Fogg as he attempts that circumnavigation of the globe all for a simple bet with the others at his gentleman’s club.

Last year, I wrote about the top five Christmas television specials, featuring such gems as the wonderful Vicar of Dibley, the ever-engaging Doctor Who and of course, my complete obsession with The Goes Wrong Show. Looking back at this now, I’m a bit annoyed that I called it the top five because… I don’t know how much thought I put into it actually being the BEST five. They were certainly five very good specials that were on my mind at the time, but the best? That’s a much bigger question. Like Ross, I would need to give that some thought, come up with a shortlist, make my final decisions, and laminate the results so they can’t be changed.

If we rewind six months of so, and ask my former self if the upcoming Hawkeye TV show would have been my most anticipated of the new MCU TV outings, I would have laughed long and hard. But then they signed up Hailee Steinfeld, then they set it at Christmas, and then they made all the artwork and superhero uniforms purple. Tick, tick, tick. The season finale was released yesterday, bringing to a close a six-episode arc that introduced a new character to Hawkeye’s life, as well as bringing in some returning faces both friend and foe. And you know what? I loved it. Every episode was well crafted, the banter between first Clint and Kate, and then Kate and Yelena, was top notch, it had a good mystery at the heart, solved a lot but also left plenty of questions open, and it was a heartwarming journey into living with grief as well.

It may just be the corners of the internet I dwell in, but Acapulco feels like a recent Apple TV+ offering that’s been slightly overlooked by the more high profile Foundation, Invasion and films with Tom Hanks. I’m here to say, if you haven’t watched it already, you absolutely should. It follows the story of a Mexican family and how their lives intertwine with a celebrity resort in Acapulco… in the 1980s.

It’s the time of year where everyone, including me, starts posting top ten this and top five that, highlights and lowlights of the year gone by. The Guardian have kicked things off with the first part of their top 50s, specifically top books, albums, films and TV shows. Reading this list made me wonder if I need to think about what TV shows would make an end-of-year list. Pulling together my top albums of each year is a wrench, so I can only imagine TV would be far worse.

It feels like you can’t move for seeing good press about The Outlaws, the recent comedy from Stephen Merchant. I finished watched it a week or so ago, and it was so good, I just wanted to add to the celebration of such a good show. Here are five things to love about it: The cast. From relative unknowns to the supremely famous Christopher Walken (how on earth did that happen?), the cast are a real odd mix of people… which is kind of the point! The show centres on a group that are forced to do community service together and it is how the different viewpoints clash and interact that make for some of the funniest and most interesting moments of the series. The lorry. In doing the rounds for promoting the show, Merchant was constantly having to explain that picture of the wardrobe lorry in the river. Awkward. But also somehow a great piece of promo for the show, as it’s about people not quite sticking to the rules, either on purpose or just because that’s how life goes. The Banksy. In the final moments of the final episode, Christopher Walken paints over a genuine Banksy artwork. That is all. The parents. The core cast are great but there were a few exceptional pop up characters too, particularly the parents - Nina Wadia as an overprotective mother and Richard E. Grant as an aloof and distant father. Amazing. The fact that we know there’s a second series. The two series were filmed back to back, so it’s great to know before you’ve even finished that there’s more joy where this comes from!

The second season of supremely popular comedy Ted Lasso came to a close yesterday with the final episode wrapping up lots of open threads but also derailing everything for a cliffhanger to lead us into season three. I loved this series just as much as I loved the first one, but it can’t be denied that they are two very different beasts. As I mentioned when I wrote about the first series, I still have a desire to write about each episode individually, but for now I’ll focus on the main things that jumped out at me over the last twelve weeks.

I missed this when it came out last year, but James May’s adventures around Japan are an absolute must watch. Apparently this show was pitched to the BBC originally but they never made it, leaving Amazon to pick up the tab for a six-episode stint around the many islands of Japan. James May makes a brilliant host for this show, the premise being that he loves Japan but has never quite been able to explain why and wants to find out what it is that makes this country tick. He’s joined in each episode by a local guide, and rather than the usual situation where they just translate and point out local landmarks, these guides get fully involved and really give James a hard time. Particularly in the first episode where James’ lack of skills in a competitive snowball fight are very quickly pounced upon by his guide, but also in the giant robot fight, and in every activity that he and Yujiro participate in.

When I want something a bit more relaxing to watch, I dip into Dawson’s Creek on Netflix. Maybe relaxing isn’t the right word, all those hyperbolic teenagers making a drama out of a molehill, but it’s a comforting treat regardless. The only problem with it is, up until this past week, the theme tune was Run Like Mad rather than the correct I Don’t Want to Wait by Paula Cole. Never has the Skip Intro button been more appropriate.

I recently finished watching the second series of Home Before Dark, an Apple TV+ show that is a mystery adventure following a family in a small town. When you try and describe this show in any more detail than that, it starts to sound a bit odd: Well, there’s a ten year old girl who thinks she’s a reporter and digs into a cold case when her family moves back to the small town her father grew up in. Yep, she’s just a kid and she talks to sources and riles up the local police and gets into all sorts of mischief and gets to the bottom of the mystery.

Apple TV+ has a great strike rate so far when it comes to their TV original releases. We’ve watched a really good percentage of them and enjoyed almost all with just a couple of near misses along the way. That means we try and give everything come up a go because the chances are more than good that it’ll be worth watching. Thus, we watched Physical, a series staring Rose Byrne as a budding home video workout star trying to break through in the 1980s, whilst also supporting a family and a husband who has his own political ambitions. It sounds like an odd premise and actually the more you dig into it, the weirder it gets.

I’m not a huge art lover, so it’s a bit of a wonder that the Sky show Riviera appealed to me. The show initially followed the dramatic and over-the-top adventures of an art curator in the South of France, dealing with deception, murder, and rebellious families, all with high fashion and expensive paintings draped along the way. The main draw, if I’m honest, was the lovely Julia Stiles and actually it ended up being worth watching.

A fun fact from Disney’s behind the scenes of the recent Loki series is that the God of Mischief has been on the big screen for less than two hours out of the fifty or so available in The Infinity Saga. Two hours across ten years, and yet this character is so incredible popular. I saw one of those weird bracket competitions on Twitter for who was the MCU’s best villain and it came down to Thanos vs Loki. Villain is a bit harsh for the Asgardian scamp, and I don’t actually know who won out of the two of those, but it does show how popular he really is.

The second series of Apple TV+ series Trying came to an end yesterday, bringing to a close an emotional but fantastic series that has already been renewed for a third. I don’t know why I didn’t write about this series after the first series, but now eight further episodes on, I think the second series has outclassed the first outing anyway, so now seems like a better time to give it a review.

I am completely in love with the show For All Mankind. The sheer audacity of the whole thing is wonderful. It’s out there but also somehow grounded in reality. If you’ve not seen it, or read my thoughts on Series 1, the premise is an alternative history where Russia landed on the moon before the US, and everything that follows from that. I read a review of the show that explained how anything that tries to exploit the butterfly effect - small things creating exponential changes - is bound to start slow but gradually pick up speed. That describes the first season perfectly. It took me two attempts to get going with it, but once I did, I adored it.

I can see why The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was scheduled to be the first of the new breed of Marvel TV shows to appear on Disney+. It’s a more standard superhero series than the innovative approach taken by WandaVision. However, I loved both of them equally in different ways. Falcon was a much calmer show, despite traditional action sequences, superhero fight scenes and plenty of drama. Although it had all that you might expect from a MCU movie, Falcon had a lot more. There was a deeper dive into the psychological effects of living in this world, whether that is regret from things you’ve done, how hard it is on the people left behind, or how much courage you have to have to take up the mantle.

I’ve been loving the new Star content that was released on Disney+ in the UK recently, and one of the first things I checked out was Cougar Town. Featuring the lovely Courtney Cox and a lot of people that used to be in Scrubs, the show revolves around a really tight-knit group of family and friends as they navigate divorce, new relationships, new parenthood, empty nests, and lots of other things.

In my last post I mentioned that Inside the Factory inspired my purchase of a casserole dish. If you’re not aware, the show features Gregg Wallace and Cherry Healey visiting various factories around the country, sometimes world, to find out how our staples are made. It’s always interesting to see how a factory works, how the weird machines do what they do, and our hosts give us lots of fascinating facts and figures along the way.

More and more content is being added to the Apple TV+ streaming service, and I’ve noticed they’ve started increasing their children’s output alongside the adult dramas and films. Recent additions include the acclaimed Wolfwalkers and a new series of Snoopy and Charlie Brown, but one that really caught my eye was Stillwater. Obviously, it was the panda that made me give it a watch, and whilst the show itself is aimed at a younger audience, it is so beautiful, I had to watch the whole thing. Exquisite animation follows three kids through various situations, often requiring their neighbour Stillwater the panda to offer some wisdom and tell them a story that illustrates the moral of the episode.

This weekend, I finished watching the final season of Agents of Shield and it was, as expected, brilliant and moving, hopeful and emotional, and an action-packed time-travelling ride to the end. The first thing to say about it is thank goodness it came to a good conclusion, that for the most part the time-travel story made sense, and it was a happy ever after for almost all of the characters. Phew!

The first two episodes of WandaVision appeared on Disney+ this week and I very quickly devoured them both. I wasn’t expecting to be as interested as I was, thought maybe I’d check it out when I had the time, but all the hype surrounding it completely sucked me in. Here are five immediate thoughts about the show: In navigating the menus to get to the show, Disney+ recommended their new Marvel Legends series and I’m so glad I watched this first. It introduces a bit of backstory to the characters that are appearing in their new line up of TV shows, so at the moment just two episodes of about eight minutes each featuring Wanda and then Vision. It was super useful. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I can’t keep up with the Marvel Universe even when I’m in the middle of the movies, so a quick reminder of their history made all the difference.

I can’t believe I didn’t write anything after watching the first series of Staged in summer of last year. David Tennant and Michael Sheen bantering for 6 x 20 minute episodes. It was one of the bright spots of culture that came out of the specific circumstances of lockdown. Despite it being an epic piece of work, I suppose no one really wanted a second series as it meant life hadn’t got back to normal. But here we are, lockdown three is in full effect and the second series of Staged has brightened up a terrible January.

There’s an enormous amount of TV out there - existing and brand new, bingeable and streaming weekly - and the vast catalogue is only going to keep on growing. In fact, the appetite for amazing TV seems to be growing with many famous names and faces making the transition from the big screen to the small screen… and, of course, the big screen not being so big at the moment!

It’s taken a while for me to get to the end of Tehran, the Apple TV espionage thriller based in the Iranian city. Initially, I was watching it week on week as it was released, but I’m no fool. I knew the penultimate episode would have one heck of a cliffhanger, so I opted to save it a week and watch two episodes together. But then, a week became two and other things got in the way and oop, finally it’s nearly Christmas and I need to finish watching Tehran before the jingle bells start.

I don’t normally care for nature programmes. I mean, let’s be clear, I think they’re incredible. The time, effort and production values always blow me away and whenever I see an episode of a nature show, I’m usually entranced. But they don’t really grab me and I don’t seek them out. However, I couldn’t really ignore the enticing idea of Paul Rudd narrating a half hour show that focuses in on the smaller elements of this planet of ours - the new Apple TV nature show Tiny World.

I, like many many people, thought that the Ted Lasso series wasn’t going to be anything special. I was vaguely aware of the character, designed for a one-off sketch, and yea, that fish-out-of-water trope can be funny. But to bring the Southern American football coach to the UK to manage a Premier League team seemed ripe for sub-par comedy. I was expecting there to be a lot of jokes at the expense of the British way of life, lots of men bouncing off each other in the locker room, and a bit of a boorish ten episodes.

Recently, I’ve really struggled to find a TV show that grabs me and keeps me interested and also sits outside of the Apple TV+ catalogue. I’ve talked at length about how great their shows are and for whatever reason, despite there being so much (too much?) choice out there, I’ve barely been able to get past the first episode of anything. I was starting to wonder if the quality of Apple’s shows hadn’t ruined other TV for me!

When the first episodes of Ted Lasso were released on Apple TV+, I tweeted this: “Genuinely hoping for Apple TV+ to deliver a stinker at some point and I thought Ted Lasso would be it. But my word, those first three episodes made me laugh and cry. Gorgeous.” I have a lot, A LOT, more to say about Ted Lasso but I’m waiting for the series to end before I formulate some thoughts. However, in the meantime, I have managed to find a show on Apple TV+ that I haven’t liked! At last! Now I can sleep.

When Disney Plus first launched, my only focus was on watching episodes of The Simpsons and devouring The Mandalorian as quickly as possible. Hearing of a TV show based on the High School Musical franchise, though, my interest was piqued. And when I heard that it was a docu-drama style show about teenagers who go to the actual school where the movies were filmed and then decide to put on a production of the musical based off said movies and all of this called High School Musical: The Musical: The Series? Well it would be rude not to see what on earth that was all about, wouldn’t it?

I’m officially obsessed with Mischief Theatre and their unique brand of comedy that is essentially messing things up on purpose. I’ve talked about them a couple of times before, but the joy of their Goes Wrong shows is how meticulously crafted it is to make it look so bad. The TV series that aired earlier in the year was a real highlight over Christmas and January, every episode had me in stitches. So I was happy to see the Goes Wrong Along rewatch that’s been happening over the past few weeks with everyone involved sharing their insights. It wasn’t just people tweeting about the show while they’re watching, but the cast actually filmed themselves sharing behind the scenes snippets and insider information.

I’m well aware that this blog has basically become an Apple TV+ review site, but everything I’ve watched on there so far has been really good quality. Okay, sometimes it doesn’t completely hit the spot (Truth Be Told) and some things just don’t look that interesting to me to even start (Servant) but what I’ve seen, I’ve liked. This time, it’s the turn of MythicQuest: Raven’s Banquet – a workplace sitcom based in a games company that have made a hugely successful MMORPG. There are your traditional office-type situations that create their own humour but where the series really shines is its focus and attention to detail on gaming.

Little America, the anthology series on Apple TV+, came at the perfect time in our household, as we’d just finished indulging in Modern Love and were in the right head-space for the ‘different story every episode’ style. Little America takes the formula and applies it to immigrant stories across a broad range of ages and lifestyles and all walks of life in the US. There were eight episodes and it was wonderful how the same theme shone through them all – people don’t necessarily want hand outs, to take up too much space, or even necessarily to fit in. So much nonsense is spewed about them but at the end of the day they just want the same chances as everyone else.

I’ve long since been a fan of the Red Arrows, those crazy pilots that take to the skies for close formation flying and manoeuvres that quite frankly boggle the mind. The TV show that aired on Channel 5 this time last year was a great insight into the highs and lows of the group trying to get their display ready to perform. Injured pilots, new leaders and commentators, and a significant amount of delays due to bad weather, that’s most of the story that surrounds the Red Arrows.

Having loved both For All Mankind and The Morning Show, I was expecting big things from the next AppleTV+ adventure – this time, a crime mystery with a podcast host at the helm. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite stand up to the competition even within its own broadcaster, let alone looking further afield. Let’s start with the good, though, the cast were great and they did the best they could with the scripts they had. (I really think Aaron Paul was massively under-used, only able to show his emotion in that final episode.) I also went along with the underlying mystery – it seemed to be a pretty good one. The twists and turns were fun, and I hadn’t really guessed the murderer although had a bit of an inkling in the final couple of episodes.

Stumbling across the TV show Modern Love was a weird experience – it was promoted on the Apple TV homepage and warranted further investigation. When we saw it was created by John Carney, who was also behind some of our favourite Dublin-based films, then it was a given we were going to watch this one. Anthology series’ aren’t always my favourite, but when they’re done well, like Black Mirror and now like Modern Love, they are a gem.

The flagship offering of Apple TV+’s launch was The Morning Show, a complicated drama set in a network television morning show and featuring Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston as sparring and unwilling co-anchors. The show came in for a lot of early criticism, being a bit corny, full of tropes and stereotypes and generally not telling the story well. I didn’t get any of that. There were a few cliches, sure, and it did take a while to fully warm to some of the characters, but as with the other Apple TV shows, a couple of episodes in and I was hooked.