The Sopranos
Sky Atlantic, Now
Some TV shows brighten your afternoon. Others change the world. The Sopranos, which you can watch in full on Now, Sky’s streaming service (but hurry: only until February 8th), falls into the latter camp. It was the series that began the “prestige-TV” revolution (albeit building on the prison drama Oz, another HBO original) – and that gave the world the trope of the “difficult man”.
The small-screen anti-hero would in the end become a cliche that needed to be retired. But James Gandolfini riveted us as Tony Soprano, a thug and psychopath who just wants to be a normal guy. His performance would blaze a trail – and be followed by Breaking Bad’s Walter White and Mad Men’s Don Draper, among others. Plus, The Sopranos finishes its six-season run with one of the most daring endings of all time. If you want to lose yourself in front of the screen, there is nowhere better to start. This is Shakespeare with a New Jersey accent.
Only Murders in the Building
Disney+
We’re living through a “cosy crime” epidemic, as demonstrated by the internet-gobbling success of Knives Out: Glass Onion. For a less manic caper, Disney+ has us covered with Only Murders in the Building, a three-hander featuring Selena Gomez, Martin Short and Steve Martin.
The setting is a ritzy Manhattan apartment block, where the stars play a trio of lost souls bonding over their passion for true-crime podcasts. They became podcasters themselves when a horrific murder is committed in the building – and they document the hunt for the killer. The tone is quirky but, across two seasons, the sleuthing solid. And there are winking cameos by Sting (fantastically deadpan as a potential suspect), Amy Schumer and (playing a rival podcaster) Tina Fey.
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The Night Manager
RTÉ Player
RTÉ Player has a poor reputation because of its clunky user interface and those seemingly never-ending ads. But the broadcaster has quietly stockpiled on it an impressive selection of streaming content. These include the BBC’s big-budget adaptation of John le Carré’s The Night Manager.
[ The Night Manager review: a pitch perfect, lavish thrillerOpens in new window ]
True, Tom Hiddleston is a little dull as the titular anti-hero. He’s a hotel manager who embarks a mission of revenge after witnessing a terrible crime on his wee-hours watch in Egypt. Yet it’s worth watching for Hugh Laurie, who chews down the scenery in great meaty gulps as an evil arms dealer. It’s a deliciously moreish performance guaranteed to have you hooked.
Tehran
Apple TV+
A surprise Emmy winner in 2021, Tehran tells the story of an Israeli Mossad agent (Niv Sultan) who goes deep undercover in the Iranian capital. Cut loose by her handlers in Tel Aviv, she must escape Tehran without compromising her contacts. Unfortunately, she has attracted the attention of a leading member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (Shaun Toub). A lethal game of cat and mouse ensues.
Israel has quietly become a TV powerhouse – see also Netflix’s Fauda, another project from Tehran’s creator, Moshe Zonder. With Athens as a stand-in for Tehran, this taut espionage series grippingly depicts life under a religious theocracy. It is a portrayal that has acquired a fresh newsworthiness in the wake of the crackdown on civil rights in the country.
1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything
Apple TV+
Music documentaries are ten a penny on streaming services. Few, though, have the scope and ambition of Asif Kapadi’s homage to and dissection of 1971. It was, he contends, the most monumental year in the history of music.
We can argue back on forth on that. Kapadi conveniently ignores that 1992 was the year Ebeneezer Goode, by The Shamen, went to number one. But as a portrait of a time of global turmoil, from oil shocks to civil-rights protests, The Year That Music Changed Everything mesmerises. It moves from John Lennon writing Imagine in the south of France to George Harrison inventing the benefit gig with his Concert for Bangladesh, and then on to Marvin Gaye releasing What’s Going on and Joni Mitchell releasing Blue. All music – and all human life – is contained in its eight episodes.
Willow
Disney+
Fantasy on the small screen has become awfully po-faced of late. Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power was ruined by its terrible feral leprechauns (supposed ancestors of Bilbo Baggins and chums) and by a terrible script strewn with dialogue that would make a Nazgûl wince. HBO’s House of the Dragon, meanwhile, was beautifully made yet cried out for a dash of wit or lightness.
Disney gets the balance right with Willow, its family-friendly sequel to the 1988 fantasy classic. Warwick Davis returns as the titular wizard, who sets off on a new mission to protect the kingdom’s chosen daughter, the magical Elora Dannon. As with that movie, the series is knowingly cheesy and funny. It’s as slight as souffle but delicious, too, and without a dodgy Irish accent to be heard. Stay with it and you’ll also be rewarded with a cameo by Christian Slater.
Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous
Netflix
Jurassic Park has been far from a lark across the past 30 years. Steven Spielberg’s fantastic original movie was followed by two okayish direct sequels, and then by the atrocious Jurassic World trilogy, a triptych so bad you prayed for a meteor strike to erase all trace of its existence.
But now parents and children can at last reconnect with the magic of the original with Netflix’s Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous. Developed by the former Marvel writer Zack Stentz, the five-season show follows a group of tweenagers visiting the dinosaur playground of Isla Nublar.
Their prehistoric holiday is, alas, interrupted by the events of the first Jurassic World movie. They are forced to fend for themselves in a wilderness overrun with prehistorical beasties. So far, so generic. What elevates Camp Cretaceous is its compelling rag-tag bunch of characters – and its fantastic dinosaurs. As with the Spielberg original, this animated series encourages us to regard these creatures as miracles of nature rather than mere blockbuster fodder.
Secret Invasion
Disney+
Marvel’s record in streaming has been hit and miss. WandaVision, released in January 2021, explored grief and trauma through the prism of the superhero genre. But then came the baffling Moon Knight, starring Oscar Isaac’s Dick Van Dyke London accent, and the uneven She Hulk, a series that started well but ultimately descended into a vast green pudding of in-jokes (with computer-generated effects that resembled a PlayStation cut-scene circa 1996).
In March Marvel will hope to reverse this unwelcome trend with its most ambitious small-screen undertaking yet. If Secret Invasion succeeds it has the potential to be a megahit that will suck up viewers with a tractor beam. Starring Emilia Clark and Olivia Colman, it chronicles the attempted takeover of humanity by shape-changing Skrulls. These were first encountered in the atrocious Captain Marvel – but don’t let that put you off.
After a string of disappointments, Marvel needs to prove it can bring its golden touch to TV. Secret Invasion could be the epic for which the studio, and its loyal fans, are crying out. However it pans out, it can’t be as terrible as Disney’s Star Wars content (with the honourable exception of darkly fascinating Andor).
Alice in Borderland
Netflix
Squid Game became the world’s most-obsessed-over show in 2021. But for connoisseurs of gonzo Asian television, Alice in Borderland has always been the whacked-out art-house thriller to watch. And that remains the case with its recently released second season.
Adapted from a bestselling manga, it tells the story of a video-game-obsessed dropout named Ryohei. He has the misfortune to stumble into a parallel-universe Tokyo while fleeing police. There he and his friends are led to a games arena where they must succeed in a variety of challenges – or pay with their lives. The vibe is surreal, the tension cranked high. All of which makes Alice in Borderland perfect for viewers seeking suspenseful telly with twist.
The Last of Us
Sky Atlantic, Now
When a beloved video game is adapted for the screen, the results are usually patchy. See, for instance, Resident Evil and Super Mario Brothers. Or, rather, don’t watch them at all. Because they’re not very good. The difference with The Last of Us, the zombie-apocalypse thriller from 2013, is that the game was epic and cinematic to begin with.
Those qualities are preserved as the Chernobyl writer Craig Mazin brings the story to the screen. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsay excel as survivors in a dystopian 2023 in which hordes of undead have brought humanity to its knees.
The zombies-conquer-all premise will be familiar from The Walking Dead and 28 Days Later. The Last of Us, which has just started its nine-part run on Sky Atlantic, raises the bar with razor-wire tension and a powerful surrogate-father-daughter dynamic between grizzled Joel (Pascal) and snarky teen Ellie (Ramsay). Plus it excels in zombie design, with its faceless “clickers” who detect their prey through motion alone. You’d be dead silly to skip it.
