tue 19/03/2024

tv

The Following Events Are Based on a Pack of Lies, BBC One - deliciously bingeable drama from the Skinner sisters

Adam Sweeting

They could have titled this series Gaslighting. It’s a sly and twisty thriller about a conman whose deadliest weapon is his gift for making his victims feel as if everything that happened to them was their own fault, and they brought it on themselves.

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Harlan Coben's Shelter, Prime Video review - what the hell is going on in Kasselton, New Jersey?

Adam Sweeting

Netflix scooped up the rights to an armful of Harlan Coben’s standalone novels for a colossal sum, and now Amazon Prime has nipped in and signed up Coben’s series of Mickey Bolitar books, which fall under the “young adult” heading. Shelter is the first one off the blocks.

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Only Murders in the Building, Disney+ review - this comedy crime drama is a class act

Adam Sweeting

Despite its cursory nods to new technology, there’s something deliciously old-fashioned about Only Murders in the Building. Now into its third series, it tells the stories of a trio of affluent Manhattanites who make true-life podcasts about the mysterious deaths that occur in their palatial Upper West Side apartment building.

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Enemy of the People, Channel 4 review - murder and corruption in the age of digital media

Adam Sweeting

Presented to you by Channel 4’s industrious Walter, Enemy of the People is a punchy Finnish drama which makes some smart and timely observations about life in the age of digital money and poisonous social media.

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Wolf, BBC One review - a load of old...

Adam Sweeting

Adapted by Megan Gallagher from one of Mo Hayder’s Jack Caffery novels (the seventh one, apparently), Wolf might be described as Welsh Gothic, spiced up with a splash of gratuitous sadism. Episode two, for instance, is titled merely “Torture”, which might apply to some of the acting as much as the dramatic content.

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Special Ops: Lioness, Paramount+ review - high-octane female cast conducts war on terror

Adam Sweeting

If you want to get a hit show on American TV, you could do a lot worse than recruit Taylor Sheridan to create it for you. Special Ops: Lioness, a bruising trip into the innards of a CIA counter-terror unit, follows a string of successes which have made Sheridan a towering presence in film and TV.

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Rosie Jones: Am I a R*tard? Channel 4 review - disappointing documentary

Saskia Baron

Channel 4 has been getting a lot of flack on Twitter from people involved in disability for the title of this documentary.

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World on Fire, Series 2, BBC One - return of Peter Bowker's panoramic view of World War Two

Adam Sweeting

Writer Peter Bowker apparently had plans to make six series of World on Fire, but the arrival of Covid after 2019’s first series threw a spanner in the works. Anyway, here’s the second one at last, and it’s a little strange to find that this encyclopedic saga of the Second World War has only advanced as far as the autumn of 1940.

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Disturbing Disappearances, More4 review - headstrong 'tec tackles Pied Piper mystery

Adam Sweeting

This five-part policier is the finale of the current Walter Presents French season, and takes us to the town of Montclair on France’s eastern border. The opening self-contained episode, occupying a chunky two-hour slot, took for its theme the legend of the Pied Piper. In this, you may recall, the children of Hamelin were lured away by the titular itinerant musician and drowned.

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Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, Season 4, Prime Video review - final outing for John Krasinski's CIA hero

Adam Sweeting

This fourth season of Prime’s reworking of Tom Clancy’s fictional CIA man is supposedly the last (to avoid any confusion they’ve dubbed it The Final Mission). It maintains its tradition of deluxe production values, globe-hopping locations and the kind of labyrinthine plotting liable to prompt frequent recourse to the rewind button.

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