What We Do in the Shadows (Season 5)

Available on Disney+

If the fourth season of Jermaine Clement’s small-screen adaptation of his and Taika Waititi’s acclaimed 2014 film did little to add to its legacy as a modern-day comedy classic, its fifth outing could be considered something of a return to form.

This is chiefly because, unlike its predecessor, this chapter of What We Do in the Shadows successfully progresses the arc of its central characters, with the majority of its events focused on Guillermo’s (Harvey Guillén) duplicitous (but completely understandable) decision to be transformed into a vampire by someone other than his long-time master Nandor (Kayvan Novak). While the eventual payoff of this season-long arc isn’t entirely satisfying, the comedy and suspense it simultaneously generates makes for entertaining viewing on the most part.

Nonetheless, it remains the case that What We Do in the Shadows is most enjoyable when serving up entertainingly odd episodes that, despite being seemingly disconnected from its central narrative, are riotously good fun. Prime examples from this season include Pride Parade (in which the vampires help their uber-straight neighbour host a Pride parade), Local News (where local news coverage of a water main break threatens to expose our anti-heroes to the human world), Hybrid Creatures (during which the scientific experiments of Laszlo (Matt Berry) unexpectedly result in the creation of a series of Guillermo/animal hybrids), and The Roast (in which a comedy roast hosted in Laszlo's honour quickly goes south).

While it’s unclear how much life is left in this vampiric romp, laugh-out-loud episodes such as these mean it remains worthy of the time of anyone with a soft spot for absurdist comedy.

Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Specials

Available on BBC iPlayer

When Chris Chibnall took over Doctor Who in 2018, he ushered in one of the show’s most mind-numbingly boring runs, wasting the talents of Jodie Whittaker while driving the show into the ground. So, when Russell T. Davies’ return was announced, fans such as myself were ecstatic, as there was no doubt that he would deliver something capable of drawing in the casual fans that had lost interest in recent years.

These 60th anniversary specials open with The Star Beast, a story adapted from a 1970s comic strip that serves as a simple and fun tale that I personally found to be the most enjoyable of these three specials, in which the Meep (Miriam Margolyes) steals every scene. Margolyes is clearly having immense fun chewing up the scenery, and the Disney budget allows the production team to bring her character to life via a range of incredibly impressive practical effects and CGI.

David Tennant and Catherine Tate immediately slip back into their respective roles, despite having been gone from the franchise for over a decade. Their chemistry is palpable and they completely sell each moment of intense drama over these three episodes. I was especially impressed by how well Tennant and Davies managed to address the changes the Doctor has gone through since 2010. It’s a really nice way to respect what Steven Moffat and Chris Chibnall brought to the show, while making the 14th Doctor slightly more likeable than the 10th.

After The Star Beast, we transition into Wild Blue Yonder, a story I’ve seen other fans describe as the best since 2015’s Heaven Sent. Davies immediately puts us right in the middle of a psychological horror, with doubles of the Doctor and Donna serving as the villains of the episode. There is a wide range of effective scares on display, with the body horror scenes being the most prevalent. Although the episode is bloodless and perhaps a little too goofy for most adult tastes, it definitely stretches the boundaries of what should be considered child-friendly (a seven-year-old me would definitely have had nightmares about this one).

To round things off, we get The Giggle, guest starring Neil Patrick Harris as the dastardly Toymaker. This is the episode that slightly drops the ball, chiefly due to Davies leaving himself with too many plates to spin. Toymaker? Anti-climatic. Bigeneration? Minimal foreshadowing and barely any explanation. Stooky Bill and the creation of the TV? Wouldn’t that be a great opportunity for thematic subtext about the nature of modern entertainment and Doctor Who’s role in that? Nope. It ultimately comes down to a pithy epitaph of ‘screens are bad’.

The climax of The Giggle is ultimately dropped in favour of new Doctor Ncuti Gatwa’s arrival, which mostly consists of him running around in his underwear and the most intense game of catch the universe has ever seen. Don’t get me wrong, it’s enjoyable enough, but I can’t shake the feeling that the BBC should’ve allowed for the episode to run slightly longer. That being said, Ncuti Gatwa is an absolute joy to behold and I can’t wait to see his fully-fledged interpretation of the Doctor this Christmas. I also thought that the splitting of the Doctors was pretty perfectly executed, offering us both an end to a 13-season character arch and a fresh new beginning for this beloved sci-fi show.

The Crown (Season 6: Part One)

Available on Netflix

The gradual decline of Peter Morgan’s once-great dramatisation of the life and times of Queen Elizabeth II is emphasised with this four-part opener to its sixth and final season. Charting the last days of Diana, Princess of Wales, and her companion Dodi Fayed, it is sadly another case of grim voyeurism that pays little respect to its deceased topics, instead exhuming and, at worst, fabricating the closing moments of their life and serving it up as ‘prestige’ drama.

By now, the finer details of Diana’s life have been pored over with such crassly forensic detail that it’s questionable whether The Crown ever needed to chart such contentious waters, especially given how dreary and forgettable its fifth season had been. Nonetheless, one could argue that it is impossible to document the late Queen’s reign without confronting one of its most seismic moments, when the tide of public opinion briefly turned against the otherwise revered monarch.

Even if you subscribe to that viewpoint, or are just one of the many that are morbidly infatuated with Diana’s life, you’d have to be a charitable fellow to commend this asinine soap opera, which clumsily portrays the late Princess as a media-savvy attention seeker, her former husband King Charles II as an irreproachable saint and, most troublingly, the Fayeds as nefarious schemers that were at least partly responsible for the tragic events of 31st August 1997.

The sorry affair is compounded by the now infamous scenes in which the aforementioned Charles (Dominic West) and Queen (Imelda Staunton) are individually paid a visit by Diana’s ghost, a narrative device so distasteful it almost beggars belief. What makes this even more of a shame is that Elizabeth Debicki is genuinely excellent in the role of Diana, with West, Staunton, Salim Daw, and Khalid Abdalla also in fine form.

The good news for Morgan and co. is that they still have six episodes to redeem what has previously been a stellar show, but this opening salvo will leave a sour taste in the mouth for some time.

Breeders (Season 4)

Available on NOW TV and Sky Comedy

The fourth and final season of this endearingly honest parental comedy does not necessarily give off swansong vibes, in the sense that it mostly elects to tread familiar ground for the majority of its ten-episode run. Nonetheless, viewers of its previous instalments are likely to be contented by another round of fine performances from Martin Freeman and Daisy Haggard, whose deadpan stylings continue to do justice to the unrivalled anguish and joy that comes with raising children.

There is some nice synergy to be found in the arc of Luke (Oscar Kennedy), who in this season finds himself burdened by the life-changing responsibility of being a father, a duty that was so often the cause of the tension between him and his father Paul (Freeman). This results in a neatly packaged, heart-warming culmination to a story that has so often dominated Breeders, although it does admittedly come at the expense of other narratives, such as those belonging to Paul’s parents (who are once again played with aplomb by Joanna Bacon and Alun Armstrong).

While its last outing isn’t all that distinguishable from those that came before it, Breeders remains a heartful and relatable show that will strike a chord with parents of all ages.

Welcome to Wrexham (Season 2)

Available on Disney+

Football documentaries are seldom enlightening affairs. Granted, they provide a welcome insight for fans into the mindset of elite athletes, but they rarely strike an emotional chord. Take, for example, Amazon’s expertly produced but fundamentally stage managed All or Nothing series which, despite the fanfare that follows their release, fails to leave much of a lasting impression (beyond the memory of Mikel Arteta’s unusual motivational techniques).

Welcome to Wrexham, the tale of Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s stranger than fiction takeover of a previously beleaguered non-league side, is an altogether different beast. Beside the peculiarity of its premise, the series has been distinguished by its documentation of the Hollywood actor’s earnest attempts to make an indelible impact on their team’s local community.

Its second season could be forgiven for being exclusively focused on Wrexham’s ultimately successful attempts to secure automatic promotion back to the English Football League, particularly given the fact that their previous campaign ended in play-off heartbreak. Reynolds, McElhenney, and producers Boardwalk Pictures should be commended, therefore, for once again taking time out to shine a spotlight on less glamorous, but no less important, topics such as the club’s efforts to make their stadium more autism friendly, the success of its women’s team, and their continued honouring of the 1934 Gresford coal mine tragedy.

With the series generating a tidy £600k in additional revenue, it would be easy to dismiss Wrexham as being little more than just another case of a well-backed club buying its way to success, but this heartful series reminds us that football’s impact stretches well beyond on-field events.

Loki (Season 2)

Available on Disney+

If the overall health of the Marvel Cinematic Universe isn’t especially rude, viewers of the sophomore season of Loki wouldn’t know it. The series, created by Michael Waldron and featuring a broad spectrum of creative talent, could rightfully exist in isolation from the increasingly tangled web of analogous Marvel properties, such is the distinctiveness of its aesthetic and tone.

Nonetheless, Loki’s second outing confirms the mini-series as a vital cog in the Multiverse Saga that is being not so carefully assembled by Kevin Feige and co., with its second six-episode run picking up directly from the cliff-hanger ending of its first. The titular protagonist (played with aplomb by Tom Hiddleston) finds himself slipping between branches of time and must frantically make sense of the increasingly convoluted conundrum that was caused by his variant Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) offing He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors’ increasingly uncertain ‘big bad’).

Waldron and writer Eric Martin wisely opt for continuity from Loki’s maiden voyage, with the majority of the cast remaining the same, aside from newcomer Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All at Once), who excels as the quirky but exceptionally savvy TVA officer Ouroboros. The perpetuation of the first series’ narrative motifs - the importance of free will and the value of striving to be the best version of yourself - is also wise, and is displayed poignantly through the performances of the dependably excellent Hiddleston and his criminally underrated co-star Owen Wilson.

Granted, the complexity and simultaneous ridiculousness of Marvel’s burgeoning multiversal world makes aspects of Loki less enjoyable than others, but, at its best, this is a widely entertaining home run for the comic book behemoth that really ought to set the standard for the forthcoming phases of its seemingly never-ending cinematic content.

The Morning Show (Season 3)

Available on Apple TV+

When The Morning Show initially arrived on our screens at the tail end of 2019, it quickly achieved the lofty status of ‘prestige television’ on account of its star-studded cast, helmed by Jennifer Anniston and Reese Witherspoon, and it’s impressive examination of the #MeToo movement.

Its journey since then has been slightly less assured, mostly due to a second season that offered a well-meaning but ultimately heavy-handed assessment of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, it was difficult to know what to expect from this third voyage, which focuses on the efforts of an Elon Musk-esque billionaire (played by Mad Men star Jon Hamm) to purchase the UBA news network.

Whatever my expectations were, they had exited via the front window by the time the first episode had ended with Witherspoon’s character navel-gazing about the conflict in Ukraine whilst broadcasting live from, believe it or not, a spaceship. If there had always been a soap opera aspect to The Morning Show, this is the season where creator Jay Carson and co. fully embrace it.

The end product is a show that is decidedly more ‘guilty pleasure’ territory than it is prestige, with the aforementioned Witherspoon and co-star Anniston unafraid to ham it up as the series veers sporadically between fictitious and real-life topics without ever really saying anything of substance about either. Nonetheless, if one adopts a laissez faire mentality towards this rather radical tonal shift, there is plenty of enjoyment to be found in The Morning Show’s gloriously shouty brand of ridiculousness.

Indeed, while its social commentary may be rendered null and void, this series is emphatically more entertaining than its predecessor, making the prospect of a fourth outing more tantalising than it otherwise would have been.

The Reckoning

Available on BBC iPlayer

Your appreciation (or lack thereof) of the BBC’s controversial posthumous biopic of the disgraced media personality Jimmy Saville is likely to be determined by whether you interpret it as an act of genuine atonement on the broadcaster’s part or a cynical act of voyeurism.

Based loosely on Dan Davies’ book In Plain Sight: the Life and Lies of Jimmy Savile, this mini-series covers the full spectrum of Saville’s ugly life, beginning with his rise to fame in the early 1960s and culminating in his belated passing in 2011. It is co-written by Davies and Neil McKay (Four Lives) and sees Steve Coogan take on the unenviable assignment of portraying the notorious sex abuser.

Coogan, who previously voiced Saville for Spitting Image, is suitably discomforting in the lead role, and is aided by a stellar supporting cast. Nonetheless, The Reckoning is a pervasively grim experience from beginning to end that feels like a misguided attempt by the BBC to pardon their old guard’s cover-up of the unspeakable crimes Saville committed on their watch. My heart sank thinking about how the former DJ’s victims must feel about the prospect of his heinous actions being reenacted as extensively as they are here.

That’s not to say that there isn’t merit in reexamining how such a renown figure could accumulate enough clout to get away with such brazen depravity. After all, as put by one of Saville’s unfortunate victims in the series’ final episode, it is paramount that this never be allowed to happen again. It’s just highly questionable whether such a deeply unpleasant dramatisation is the right way to go about it.

Therein lies the issue with our collective fascination with the true crime genre. What serves as a passing distraction for viewers can be needlessly traumatic for those that have sadly been affected by the subject in question. With that in mind, shows like The Reckoning need to do better.

Brassic (Season 5)

Available on Sky Max and NOW TV

There’s a certain roguish charm to Danny Brocklehurst and Joe Gilgun’s long-running comedy series that defies its rather obvious limitations and ensures that it remains one of the most quietly entertaining shows on British television.

Indeed, Brassic is a little bit like your school year’s most feared tearaway, the sort that you might now occasionally bump into in your local pub and, despite their problematic worldviews and egregious braggadocio, can’t help but be amused by. There is a certain charm to ‘lad culture’ that Brocklehurst and Gilgun are unafraid to tap into without necessarily glamourising it, and their show is all the better for it.

While the premise of each episode continues to be mostly formulaic, the fifth series of Brassic demonstrates an admirable willingness to explore the vital topic of mental health, as we see lead character Vinnie (Gilgun) begin to explore his childhood trauma with the help of a therapist. There is also some welcome development for comedy relief characters such as Tommo (Ryan Sampson), courtesy of a side story which sees him discover that he has a teenage son who hails from Germany.

Perhaps most interesting is the show’s fleeting attempts to toy with its well-established form, as can be seen in an episode where lovebirds Cardi (Tom Hanson) and Carol (Bronagh Gallager) have a short-lived disagreement that the latter attempts to resolve by means of an unexpected musical number. Such quirks only serve to make this unusual show all the more endearing, although one does wonder how much mileage it has left as we approach its sixth season.

The Woman in the Wall

Available on BBC iPlayer

Joe Murtagh’s six-part drama is not what it initially appears to be, although it’s debatable whether that’s a good thing or not. When Lorna (Ruth Wilson), a troubled insomniac who lives alone in a rural Irish town, finds a dead body in her home, we are led to believe that The Woman in the Wall will be the sort of gothic murder mystery that the BBC generally churns out on an annual basis.

However, the coinciding and suspicious death of a local priest plus the insertion of Daryl McCormack’s diligent, but no less pained, detective sees the series take an unexpected tonal shift and become focused on the darker elements of Ireland’s storied relationship with Catholicism, specifically the legacy of the heinous Magdalene laundries.

While it is of course commendable that Murtagh would elect to use a prime-time show to shine a light on such a complicated and vitally important topic, it’s questionable whether The Woman in the Wall does it justice. It is a supremely acted affair, with Wilson and McCormack’s dependably excellent lead performances underpinned by stellar supporting work from the likes of Hilda Fay and Simon Delaney, but the undercurrent of trauma caused by it’s character’s experiences within the aforementioned laundries often feels like a mere plot device, as opposed to a genuine attempt to chronicle a dark chapter in Ireland’s unquestionably complex history.

It doesn’t help that the series bears comparison to Peter Mullan’s devastating 2002 film The Magdalene Sisters which, rightly or wrongly, feels like a more authentic examination of the atrocities that occurred within the laundries over a sustained period of time. Nonetheless, the intrigue of Murtagh’s central premise and some stellar performances makes The Woman in the Wall a more than serviceable affair.

The Changeling

Available on Apple TV+

This adaptation of Victor LaValle’s popular novel is stricken initially by an identity crisis and latterly the at-times misshapen nature of episodic storytelling.

With regards to the first of those pitfalls, The Changeling suffers from the fact that its marketing material and central premise allude to it being a frightening psychological thriller in the vein of Rosemary’s Baby or The Omen. Alas, it is not, with showrunner Kelly Marcel (whose previous credits include the questionable Fifty Shades of Grey and Venom) electing to repeat the fairytale elements of its source material ad nauseam and some rather cheap-looking special effects rendering the show’s more dramatic moments as almost entirely forgettable.

The series’ modest eight episode run - especially when contrasted with the scope of LaValle’s far-reaching story - is also problematic, with many of The Changeling’s events coming out of left field in a way that (for the reasons lifted above) is seldom spooky, more so puzzlingly random. This is most evident in its seventh episode, which - despite the best efforts of Adina Porter and Alexis Louder - makes an admirably ambitious effort to explore (amongst other things) the female immigrant experience but ultimately feels completely out of sync with the rest of the show.

Porter and the leading pair of LaKeith Stanfield and Clark Backo certainly bring plenty of gusto to The Changeling, and its pleasing to see diverse casting in what is otherwise generic fantasy horror fare, but their efforts are never enough to shift this series out of second gear.

Boiling Point

Available on BBC iPlayer

Although this small screen continuation of Philip Barantini’s outstanding one-shot feature Boiling Point perhaps doesn’t feel as original as it may have done in a pre-The Bear world, it’s no less impactful thanks to the stellar work of its understated ensemble cast and an emotionally far-reaching screenplay.

The series picks up six months after the events of the film and sees Carly (played by the excellent Vinette Robinson), the former sous chef of the now disgraced Andy (Stephen Graham), running her own restaurant alongside many of her old team. While that might sound like a dream come true, in the frenetic and anxiety-inducing world Barantini and co-creators Graham and James Cunning have cooked up, it soon becomes something of a nightmare.

Over the course of Boiling Point’s tightly contained four episode run, we see Carly juggle the challenges of her own imposter syndrome, the demands of her financial partner, and the everyday ordeals being endured by her staff. However, unlike the preceding film, the series is never overly focused on one character (indeed, Graham mostly plays a bit-part role), which gives its supporting cast ample time to shine. Of those assisting players, Hannah Walters, Izuka Hoyle, Stephen Odubola, Stephen McMillan, and Áine Rose Daly shine brightest, with their roles respectively covering topics as broad as alcoholism, workplace sexual misconduct, self-doubt, self-harm, and concealed illness.

If that sounds like a lot, then that’s because it is, although Boiling Point’s narrative thankfully never becomes convoluted, instead serving as a fine example of how rewarding relatable, character-driven dramas can be. This is a series about everyday people facing challenges that so often go unnoticed, even by those that we spend most of our time with, and, for that reason alone, feels like a show that is every bit as important as it is entertaining.

Ahsoka

Available on Disney+

It’s common knowledge that some franchises have made a better fist of creating cinematic universes than others. Despite its flaws, Marvel’s MCU remains the gold standard for many studios, with its interconnected stories still drawing in huge audiences both at home and the multiplex.

It’s certainly not surprising then that Star Wars, another Disney-owned pop culture behemoth, is attempting to follow suit, albeit in a somewhat offbeat way. Rather than introducing its new characters and worlds in Layman’s terms, the iconic sci-fi saga is relying on its followers to hold a certain level of prior knowledge or, to use a more accurate term, geekdom.

This is most evident in Ahsoka, created and directed by Dave Filoni, an eight-episode series that is composed almost entirely of characters that originally debuted in the animated Star Wars Rebels. Its titular protagonist, played by a game Rosario Dawson, is the former apprentice of Anakin Skywalker (who is once again reprised by Hayden Christensen, his prequel sins seemingly absolved) and investigating the rumoured return of the villainous - and very blue - Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen).

Admittedly, Ahsoka is enjoyable enough for viewers who, like me, have no prior knowledge of the events of Rebels, with Filoni unafraid to indulge in the sort of free-wheeling, low-stakes thrills that make The Mandalorian so eminently watchable and Dawson (along with stand-out supporting cast members Natasha Liu Bordizzo and David Tennant) delivering a performance that is easy to root for.

However, the inescapable issue with the show is that many of its big moments (such as the eventual reveal of Thrawn) do not impact casual viewers in the way they assumedly do for those that are more initiated in Star Wars folklore, which makes for a viewing experience that is fitfully entertaining at best. Alas, perhaps that is the intention and, as long as the die-hards are satisfied, neither Filoni or his paymasters will sneer at the notion of a happy fanbase.

Heartstopper (Season 2)

Available on Netflix.

Alice Oseman’s LGBTQ+ teen drama is back, and it’s got us feeling just as warm and fuzzy inside as the first season did.

With its beautifully curated soundtrack and quirky graphic-novel-inspired visuals, it’s the perfect comfort show for teens and adults alike. And these aren’t the only features that set Heartstopper apart from other high school-based shows – it’s refreshing to see teenagers being portrayed as just that: teenagers. They’re hormonal, awkward, and excited by little gestures like being gifted their favourite chocolate bar.

The series focuses on three key relationships: Charlie and Nick (Joe Locke and Kit Connor), Elle and Tao (Yasmin Finney and William Gao), and Darcy and Tara (Kizzy Edgell and Corinna Brown). While Nick struggles to come out as bisexual, Elle and Tao butt heads as they are both worried that their romantic feelings could tear their friendship apart. We can’t help but fall in love with Tao’s fumbling, awkward attempts to woo Elle, especially when he gives himself a makeover that falls flat on their first date.

Nick’s mum (Olivia Colman) is back as the mum we all wish we’d had growing up, providing more tear-jerking moments of LGBTQ+ acceptance. Then there’s Tori (Jenny Walser), with her usual cynicism and fierce determination to protect her little brother at all costs.

We also delve further into Darcy and Tara’s seemingly perfect relationship this season, watching as communication breaks down between the two. Yet, as the one remaining member of season one’s friendship group, Isaac’s asexuality story feels somewhat tacked onto the end of the series, and his character is unfortunately an afterthought in most episodes. It’s a shame that his understated and introspective personality isn’t explored further.

Series two tackles a range of difficult subjects with tact and sensitivity, including biphobia, family estrangement, and eating disorders. The tone can be serious at times, but it’s perfectly balanced with cute, magical moments such as first kisses and secret hand holding. With several episodes taking place on a school trip to Paris, it’s great to see the main cast thrown into a new environment without the restrictions of having to part ways at the end of the day. Not to mention that Paris is the most romantic backdrop for budding teen romances.

If you’ve enjoyed this season of Heartstopper, you’ll be pleased to hear there’s a third one in the making, which promises even more wholesome, heartwarming moments. Get your tissues at the ready.

Juice

Available on BBC iPlayer

Mawaan Rizwan’s debut series, which is adapted from the comedian’s 2018 Edinburgh Fringe show, is the sort of delight that you seldom see in mainstream television, in the sense that it is a fresh and pleasingly surrealist take on anxiety, a condition which is painfully commonplace but still sorely misunderstood.

Juice is centred around Jamma (Rizwan), a hip but hopelessly juvenile marketing professional who is struggling to make peace with his long-standing issues with his eccentric family (the cast for which includes Rizwan’s real-life mother and brother), as well as his fear of committing to his older and generally more-together boyfriend (Russel Tovey).

Over the course of its six-episode run, the series explores these and other underlying themes in a style that is never predictable, with Rizwan drawing upon a smorgasbord of creative influences that include Boots Riley and Bong Joon-Ho, while also incorporating elements of clowning (he is an alumni of École Philippe Gaulier).

Rizwan makes for an absorbingly delightful screen presence throughout, relishing in the sort of self-penned leading role that can really kick-start a career, and also demonstrates a clear penchant for scripting emotionally diverse comedy that sheds both a playful and authentic light on the experiences and lifestyles of minority groups. While a second season of Juice is yet to be confirmed, the BBC would have to be either nuts or completely unadventurous not to commission one.

Sex Education (Season 4)

Available on Netflix

At its best, Sex Education was that rarest of beasts - a comedy series that transcends generations to communicate informatively and, most importantly, empathetically on contemporary societal issues. For most of its four series run, the show has been a force for good as it shines a light on the complex sexual landscape that teenagers and adults alike navigate on a daily basis, so much so that you could make the case for it being one of the most essential and impactful shows of its time.

It’s a shame, therefore, to see this fourth and final season fail to do justice to the stellar work that preceded it. The change in setting from Moordale Secondary School to the ludicrously far-fetched, woketopian Cavendish Sixth Form College doesn’t help proceedings, with a host of new characters introduced that, while well-intentioned, only serve to distract from the narratives we had emotionally invested in over the previous three seasons.

Indeed, many of these new characters appear to be a case of showrunner Laurie Nunn mistaking tokenism for inclusivity, as their back stories or primary motivations are seldom explored, but their physical or sexual differences are loudly proclaimed for all to hear. This is perhaps the most unfortunate thing about Sex Education’s swansong, as it had previously always felt like a genuinely progressive and thought-out show.

That faux pas aside, Nunn and her writing team deserve praise for managing to provide the show’s main protagonists with endings that, while not entirely in keeping with their prior arcs, are mostly satisfactory. The long-gestating romance between Otis (Asa Butterfield) and Maeve (Emma Mackey) concludes plausibly, while the true MVPs of the show - Jean (Gillian Anderson), Eric (Ncuti Gatwa), Ruby (Mimi Keene), and Aimee (Aimee Lou Wood) - also find varying degrees of closure.

Nonetheless, while there are enough enjoyable moments in these final eight episodes to hold your interest, it is perhaps best to dwell on what came before them to remember this fine show in the way it ought to be.

The Lovers

Available on NOW TV and Sky Atlantic

Your enjoyment of this lean series from acclaimed playwright David Ireland is likely to be determined by how many romcom hallmarks you can stomach, although the game performances of co-stars Johnny Flynn and, in particular, Roisin Gallagher ensure that The Lovers remains somewhat engaging throughout its six-episode run.

Flynn and Gallagher make for an entertaining odd couple, with the former playing an overly self-conscious, Oxford-educated political broadcaster and the latter playing a foul-mouthed supermarket worker. They are brought together by a chance encounter in Belfast which eventually leads to them embarking on an affair that is often more aspirational than it is actual and provides the show with many of its best moments.

Ireland’s transition from stage to screen isn’t exactly seamless, with his screenplay often reliant on genre tropes and taking a late and rather unexpected foray into Irish politics which, while admirable, is a creative decision that jars tonally with the rest of the series. While a predictably dainty finale leaves the door ajar for a second series, it’s debatable whether one would be worthwhile.

Staged (Season 3)

Available on BritBox and BBC iPlayer

The first and second series of Simon Evans’ Staged were one of the rare joys of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the sitcom expertly skewering the absurdity of living conditions that were best known then as ‘the new normal’. It did so primarily through its use of video-conferencing technology, a universal bugbear which has since become ubiquitous but was, in the shitshow that was 2020, a daunting and, more relatably, infuriating new frontier for many.

Televisual darlings Michael Sheen and David Tennant encapsulated this madness perfectly, while also showcasing their affable bromance to the world. With some truly excellent celebrity cameos to boot, Staged was an original, if admittedly unspectacular, slice of twee fun to be had during the bleakest of times.

It’s therefore mostly odd to see it get a third series when normal societal order has (mostly) been resumed. Despite Sheen and Tennant’s best efforts, they fail to justify Evans’ decision to bring back a show that was so distinctly of its time, with its excessively meta approach failing to resonate. Even as its regains some steam in its admittedly entertaining final two episodes, this iteration of Staged feels like a prime example of having too much of a good thing.

Top Boy (Season 5)

Available on Netflix now

There is a moment towards the end of the seminal fourth season of The Wire that fans of the show will remember well, in which Michael, a formerly soft-spoken teen, commits to life as a drug dealer. He does so not due to a longing for notoriety or power, but because this is the hand he and so many other Baltimore residents have been dealt. It is one of the most devastating scenes ever constructed by the show’s creator David Simon, chiefly due to the depressing predictability of its outcome and the pain and suffering it foreshadows.

Ronan Bennett’s Top Boy has long been compared with Simon’s magnum opus and, while its fifth and final series does not quite match that seldom seen gold standard, it is every bit as sobering. With lifelong friends turned business partners Dushane (Ashley Walters) and Sully (Kane Robinson) now at odds, the crooked ecosystem of the Summerhouse estate crumbles before our eyes over the course of this six-episode swansong.

There are plenty of twists and turns to be endured throughout Top Boy’s final act (some which make more sense than others), with the show’s propensity to shock its audience not dwindling one iota. The first half, in which Sully’s new-found empire and Dushane’s retirement fund is jeopardised by a group of Irish mobsters led by the always-impressive Barry Keoghan, is definitely stronger than the final three episodes, which feel rushed and at times somewhat illogical.

Nonetheless, all of the ingredients that have made Top Boy such a televisual triumph are there - its painful depiction of the grim realities of life within the drug trade, the senselessly violent consequences of gang culture, and the socio-economic damage caused by the UK’s cold and unfeeling government and the capitalist ventures which benefit so greatly from our current status quo. That is without mentioning Jasmine Jobson’s powerful performance as Jaq, Sully’s street-smart lieutenant who is forced to question her life’s purpose after a devastating tragedy befalls her family. While not the only stellar performer to be found amongst the Top Boy cast, Jobson continues to be the most impressive.

For those reason alone, this can be considered a satisfying conclusion to one of the outstanding series of recent years. Few shows, if any, manage to nail their ending, and Top Boy is no exception to that rule, but it crucially remains true to the essence that made it so special right until its bloody finale, ensuring its sign-off is every bit as impactful as everything that preceded it.

Hijack

Available on Apple TV+

Hijack is a great reminder to never judge a book by its cover. On face value, Idris Elba’s Apple thriller is the sort of star vehicle that Schwarzenegger and Stallone were synonymous with during the 80s. However, it doesn’t take too far a venture into this seven-part series to realise that Criminal co-creators George Kay and Jim Field Smith have concocted something far more gripping than your typical genre fare.

By deconstructing its familiar premise over the course of seven episodes, Hijack has a real-time pace to it that makes for an immensely gripping viewing experience. Like Luther before it, the show is indebted to Elba’s undoubted star quality, although its ensemble cast (which is something of a who’s who of mid-ranking British television) do a stellar job of supporting their leading man.

Kay and Smith ought to be credited for the believability of their screenplay, which never strays into the far-fetched tropes that are typically associated with content of a similar ilk, even as proceedings ratchet up to an almost unbearable level of tension. Though its final episode inevitably feels ever so slightly anti-climatic, Hijack is a stellar affair on the whole.