Top shows and films to watch: real-time crime drama; verdict on Meghan’s lifestyle show
The dark and disturbing dominate this week, with a gritty real-time drama and a couple of drug-related thrillers — and then there’s Meghan, Duchess of Sussex’s new lifestyle show.
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We’ve sifted through the latest offerings from TV and streaming platforms to find the best shows you should be watching this week.
ADOLESCENCE
THURSDAY, NETFLIX
This four-part crime UK crime drama might be one of the most challenging shows you will watch this year, but it’s also likely to be one of the most compelling. It begins with an early morning raid on a nondescript house in the north of England with police hunting the perpetrator of a shocking knife murder the night before. They leave with 13-year-old Jamie in custody then follow his confusion – and that of his family (including father Eddie, played by the peerless Stephan Graham, who also co-wrote) – as he is taken to the station to be questioned and processed. What makes it truly astonishing is that each of the four hour-long episodes is filmed in real time and a single take as the case progresses over several months, exploring Jamie’s state of mind, the after-effects of the killing and difficult subjects including toxic masculinity and cyber bullying. Subsequent episodes show the chaos of the school as police officers try to gather information from harried teachers and traumatised students, as well as a riveting two-hander between Jamie (an incredible Owen Cooper) and psychologist Briony (Erin Doherty). The technical virtuosity of pulling it all off in one shot is mind-blowing, but it never feels like a gimmick, rather drawing viewers into the urgency and tragedy of the story as it unfolds.
SELLING HOUSES AUSTRALIA
NEW EPISODES WEDNESDAYS, BINGE
When experienced interior designer Wendy Moore describes a dwelling as “the weirdest house I have ever been in”, you know that something has gone seriously wrong. She’s spot on though, and this week she and her colleagues – real estate guru Andrew Winter and garden designer Dennis Scott – have their work cut out for them in the southern Sydney suburb of Engadine with a house whose bafflingly impractical circular design has rendered it just about unsellable. Owner Vanessa, who has split from her husband and needs to offload the property so they can both move on, takes the punt on a big reno to relocate the kitchen, get rid of the creepy ‘70s spa and totally change the flow of the house, hoping to prove the old adage that sometimes you have to spend money to make money.
DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN
NEW EPISODES WEDNESDAYS, DISNEY+
Given the difficulties that faced this integrating of the beloved Marvel superhero – blind lawyer Matt Murdock by day and masked vigilante Daredevil by night – into the MCU from its former home on Netflix, it’s a minor miracle that it’s turned out as well as it has. Wisely they jettisoned what was said to be a lighter take on the character and instead embraced the darkness and sometimes bone-crunching action by setting it up as continuation of the three acclaimed Netflix series and focusing on the complex mirror-image relationship between Murdock and gangster turned politician Wilson Fisk, aka Kingpin. The shocking death of mainstay character Foggy Nelson in last week’s opening episodes and Fisk’s elevation to Mayor of New York, set the scene for an inevitable showdown between two men trying – and failing – to keep their violent and vengeful urges and in check.
EARTH: A YEAR IN ORBIT
THURSDAY. 8.30PM, SBS
Since astronaut William Andres took the first picture from space in 1968, thousands of satellites have produced millions of God’s eye images of the planet. This fascinating, spectacular – and sometimes mildly disturbing – documentary illustrates how far the technology has come and the level of detail that can be captured by observing natural phenomena and man-made disasters across the globe over the course of last year from above. From tracking oil spills to find the culprits, to the progression and human costs of the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, right down to the rooftop where the gunman tried to assassinate Donald Trump and a colony of endangered penguins in Antarctica, it’s a perspective of planet Earth like none you’ve ever seen before.
DOPE THIEF
FRIDAY, APPLE TV+
If Hollywood has taught us anything, it’s that ripping off drug dealers never ends well (see also, Boat Story) and so it proves in this crime thriller based on Dennis Tafoya’s novel of the same name and executive produced by Ridley Scott, who also directed the first episode. Atlanta’s Brian Tyree Henry and Wagner Moura (Narcos) play Ray and Manny, who grew up together on the mean streets of Philadelphia, and have hatched a scam of shaking down small-time inner-city drug dealers by posing as DEA agents and keeping the cash and the stash. But things go south quickly when they escalate their operation and hit a remote farm house that also just happens to be the linchpin of a major narcotics operation. A barely recognisable Kate Mulgrew (Star Trek: Voyager) is terrific as the woman who raised Manny – and is now in grave danger due to his actions – as is Ving Rhames as his incarcerated deadbeat father.
AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX 2025
FROM FRIDAY, 11.30AM, CHANNEL 10
Could this finally be the first time an Australian Formula One driver wins his home Grand Prix since Alan Jones took the chequered flag way back in 1980? British McLaren driver Lando Norris is currently the favourite with the bookies to win the opening race of season 2025, but the hometown sentiment will be with his Aussie teammate Oscar Piastri, who just missed out on a place on the podium last year. Tara Rushton and Scott Mackinnon will host the coverage, beginning with the practice sessions on Friday, right through to the big race, which starts at 3pm Sunday. The pair will be joined F1 experts Tom Clarkson, Rosanna Tennant and Richard Craill, along with the wryly amusing former world champ Damon Hill and the sometimes hilariously outspoken former Haas team boss Guenther Steiner.
BOAT STORY
SUNDAY, 9.05PM, ABC
There’s more than a hint of Guy Ritchie and Quentin Tarantino in this jet black, gory, sometimes shockingly violent UK comedy-thriller. With the help of an off-kilter narrator and left-field chapter captions, it tells the story of a couple of desperate loners – one who has gambling problem and the other on the skids after losing her hand in an industrial accident – who find a boat load of cocaine and a couple of dead bodies washed up on a beach and make the monumentally daft decision to make off with the stash rather than report the find to the cops. I mean, what would possibly go wrong? Plenty, as it turns out, with a terrifyingly urbane French tailor/drug lord and his trigger happy goons soon turning up in the bleak beachside town of Appleberry wanting their millions back and prepared to do just about anything to make that happen.
THE COOK-UP WITH ADAM LIAW
MONDAY, 7PM, SBS FOOD
There’s something charmingly low-fi about former MasterChef winner and celebrity chef Adam Liaw’s cooking show, which enters its eighth season in four years and has now clocked up more than 700 episodes. He’s not messing with the tried and tested recipe of roping in a couple of guests to whip up some everyday meals, while engaging in some easygoing banter, dropping some handy cooking hacks and occasionally fan-boying out. First up are musicians Guy Sebastian and The Superjesus front woman Sarah McLeod, who reveal their eating habits on the road as well as pondering the parallels between crafting a song and dreaming up a recipe, all while showing off their signature dishes of a mango curry and a chilli tuna pasta respectively.
SAM PANG TONIGHT
MONDAY, 8.40PM, CHANNEL 10
Comedian and radio presenter Sam Pang has been the MVP on panel shows including The Front Bar and Have You Been Paying Attention for years – but can he make the big step up to hosting his own show? All signs point to yes, if his acclaimed stints hosting the Logies for the past two years – not to mention the hilarious promos – are anything to go by. Details are sketchy on what the show actually will be, other than it’s going to be filmed in front of a live studio audience and will feature “a monologue that both celebrates and roasts the week’s news”. No doubt he’ll also have plenty of his comedy mates stop by.
WITH LOVE, MEGHAN
NETFLIX
Personally, I’d rather have my root canal work redone with no anaesthetic than sit through all eight episodes of the Duchess of Sussex’s much hyped lifestyle show, but Netflix has just commissioned it for a second season, so she must be doing something right. The reasons it’s not my cup of Earl Gray have very little to do with oddly polarising actor turned royal, it’s more that I feel have very little use for the practical tips on how to make candles from my own bees wax and the fact that if I gifted homemade scented bath salts to my nearest and dearest, they’d probably stage an intervention. But more power to Meghan in her quest to become the next Martha Stewart by roping in celebrity pals such as Mindy Kaling, Roy Choi and Abigail Spencer to look fabulous doing fabulous things and given the vitriol that she’s endured of late, there are worse ways to make a living.
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