Pick of the week
Changing Ends
Most 80s coming-out stories tend to be riddled with trauma and shadowed by looming tragedy. But Alan Carr was never likely to go down that route in this breezy, double entendre-strewn comedy about his childhood in Northampton. “I just thought I was bubbly,” recalls Carr’s voiceover. Most others, however, took a different view, feeling threatened by his obvious difference and confused by his unapologetic nature. It’s slight but largely cheerful fare. Oliver Savell does a good job of inhabiting young Alan and Nancy Sullivan and Shaun Dooley are excellent as his parents Christine and Graham – whose job as a lower league football manager is milked for maximum comic potential.
ITVX, from Thursday 1 June
***
I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson
The most gloriously off-the-wall sketch comedy on TV returns for a third season. Robinson earned his spurs writing more conventional material for Saturday Night Live but there really isn’t anything else like this show. It’s never wacky or gratuitously surreal; it just seems possessed by a bone-deep oddness. Robinson’s scenarios range far and wide but always seem, weirdly, just about familiar – for example, a woman is so inexplicably excited by her workplace procedure tutorial that she disrupts it by repeatedly insisting on having “HR Class 2023!” T-shirts made.
Netflix, from Tuesday 30 May
***
Siren! Survive the Island
In the UK, we don’t treat our emergency services with the respect they deserve. But at least we don’t send them to a remote island in a Hunger Games-type scenario in which only one team can survive. That’s the premise of this South Korean reality show, in which police officers, firefighters, soldiers and other groups of professionals take to the wilds. The twist is that all the participants are women – it will be fascinating to see if cooperation can be achieved without the inflated egos that frequently characterise male behaviour in such situations.
Netflix, from Tuesday 30 May
***
The Days
Was the Fukushima nuclear meltdown of 2011 a natural disaster or a human-made catastrophe? With the effects of a tsunami accentuated by the disrepair of the facility, the answer is probably a bit of both. This drama attempts to address its causes from different perspectives: government agencies; the corporate interests involved; and the heroic workers at the plant who risked their lives to prevent a nasty accident turning into a continent-wide calamity. The tsunami itself is pure B-movie stuff but the aftermath is rendered much more convincingly.
Netflix, from Thursday 1 June
***
Deadloch
A darkly amusing crime drama that tries to milk the quirks of roughneck small-town Australia for laughs and just about gets away with it. When a body is found on a beach, two very different detectives are arbitrarily thrown together. Kate Box’s Sgt Dulcie Collins is uptight, strait-laced and by-the-book whereas senior investigator Eddie Redcliffe (Madeleine Sami) very much isn’t. To make matters worse, the town of Deadloch is about to launch its annual festival of food and culture, and seems reluctant to change its plans on account of a murder.
Prime Video, from Friday 2 June
***
With Love
This returning family comedy drama treads the line between warm-hearted and slightly sickly, but if you’re in the mood for melodramatic conflict containing broad moral lessons, With Love is for you. As season two begins, various members of the extended Diaz family are looking for love. At the heart of the action is Lily (played by Emeraude Toubia) who is faced with a difficult romantic choice. It’s unhelpful, then, that her brother Jorge (Mark Indelicato) is also moving on in ways that directly affect her.
Prime Video, from Friday 2 June
***
Scoop
Based on the experiences of Indian crime reporter Jigna Vora, this drama tells the story of Jagruti Pathak, an ambitious female journalist who boasts about her ability to deliver big stories and ends up becoming one. As a woman, Jagruti is asked to prove herself repeatedly, but she ends up sailing too close to the wind – when a senior reporter on her paper is murdered, Jagruti’s contacts in the Mumbai underworld lead to her becoming a suspect. Karishma Tanna is a compelling lead as the journalist in danger of paying the ultimate price for her success.
Netflix, from Friday 2 June
