Pick of the week
Rivals
As this starry Jilly Cooper adaptation begins (the cast includes David Tennant, Katherine Parkinson, Danny Dyer, Emily Atack and Aidan Turner), Concorde is blasting across the Atlantic. A couple are joining the mile-high club, climaxing when the plane goes supersonic and a champagne bottle spurts. It’s the 80s, the least subtle decade in modern history and well represented by Rivals. The plot – swaggering rake Rupert Campbell-Black and Irish firebrand Declan O’Hara join forces to undermine Lord Tony Baddingham’s TV empire – is beside the point. The real action is in the affairs, flings, love triangles and bonking. It is the silliest show of the autumn and an absolute tonic.
Disney+, from Friday 18 October
***
Shrinking
There are harsh truths and looming consequences as this underrated dark comedy returns. Jimmy (Jason Segel) is as jittery as ever – in addition to processing bereavement, he’s now dealing with Grace, a client who is in prison partly as a result of his unconventional approach to therapy. Meanwhile, Harrison Ford’s Paul is facing up to mortality and trying to rebuild a few bridges. Shrinking strikes a neat balance between emotional acuity and irreverence and is elevated by numerous fine performances; in particular, Jessica Williams is a ball of amiable energy as Jimmy’s colleague and on/off squeeze Gaby.
Apple TV+, from Wednesday 16 October
***
Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity?
Kansas City Chiefs player (who, let’s be honest, is best known as Taylor Swift’s boyfriend) Travis Kelce is clearly keen for a TV career: he starred in his own dating show Catching Kelce in 2016, and recently landed his first major acting role in Ryan Murphy’s horror series Grotesquerie. Now he’s a gameshow host, in this series that asks contestants 11 questions based on the US elementary curriculum in an effort to win a $100,000 prize – with the help of some celebrities (whom you may or may not know). He’s certainly got the confidence and charisma.
Prime Video, from Wednesday 16 October
***
The Lincoln Lawyer
Would you hire a lawyer who did his business out of the back of his car? We’ve reached the third season of this drama so perhaps the premise isn’t as absurd as it seems. Mickey Haller’s latest case is personal: Gloria Dayton, an old friend and client, has been murdered. However, he has serious doubts about the suspect arrested for the crime and does some digging himself. Before long, he’s making some well-connected and dangerous enemies. But as Haller goes deeper into an apparent conspiracy, how many of his colleagues will he take with him?
Netflix, from Thursday 17 October
***
The Devil’s Hour
The magnificently overblown psychological horror starring Jessica Raine and Peter Capaldi is back. Raine’s perpetually traumatised Lucy faces a new and yet somehow torturously familiar set of challenges: the horror of season one’s conclusion involved the revelation that Lucy (and Capaldi’s demonic Gideon) were trapped in a time loop. This time, they’re in alliance – in one of Lucy’s previous lives she was a detective, and there’s a case the two must try to solve. Raine and Capaldi are excellent in an unapologetically eccentric premise.
Prime Video, from Friday 18 October
***
The Office
The number of remakes, reboots and reversions of Ricky Gervais’s epochal cringe-com now runs into double figures. This Australian effort, set during the return to work after Covid, offers a gender-flipped lead: the David Brent character is now a woman, Felicity Ward’s Hannah Howard. It feels both bold and potentially enlivening but in practice subtracts more than it adds: Brent’s wounded masculinity is a crucial component of the original’s appeal whereas Howard is merely tactless and a bit rubbish at her job. This makes for a not particularly funny sitcom.
Prime Video, from Friday 18 October
***
Nordic Murders
A fifth season for this sturdy if generic German drama about an oddly matched crime-fighting duo (aren’t they all?), comprising a strait-laced detective (Rainer Sellien) and a former district attorney (Karin Lossow). Karin has served time for murdering her husband but somehow finds herself back on the other side of law enforcement after completing her sentence. As we return to the simultaneously idyllic and death-stricken Baltic island of Usedom, someone is slaughtering local puppies. Can our heroes get to grips with this monster?
Channel 4, from Friday
