What you should be watching on streaming platforms and TV this week
Things aren’t getting any easier on the mean streets of Belfast in the cop drama Blue Lights. See what else you should be watching this week.
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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.
Conan O’Brien Must Go
BINGE, THURSDAY
While Stanley Tucci has been making his way around Italy with urbane culinary flair and Eugene Levy is making a virtue of endearing awkwardness around Europe, US comedian Conan O’Brian is milking some comedy gold from being an brash American serial pest in his hilarious new travel series. Inspired by fans he has met through his podcast, Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, the former talk show host visits Norway, Thailand, Argentina and Ireland, pitching up on their doorsteps unannounced and then exploring local customs and sights while making a complete idiot of himself, sometimes in ridiculous versions of local costume. From cosplaying with Vikings in the frozen north to hunting for Bono (using a fake global humanitarian award as bait) in a Dublin park it’s not especially educational, but it is laugh out loud funny.
Blue Lights
THURSDAY, 9.20PM, SBS
Rookie cops Grace, Tommy and Annie might have helped bring down the McIntyre crime gang in the first season of this rock solid crime drama, but that doesn’t mean that things are getting any easier for Police Service of Northern Ireland on the mean streets of Belfast. Crime, like nature, abhors a vacuum and there are new players eager to swoop in take over the drug trade. Crime stats are up in the city and the understaffed and overworked officers are dealing with poverty, mental health and addiction – and the shadows of the Troubles and its paramilitary elements are never far away – in anticipation of an ugly and violent turf war.
Franklin
NEW EPISODES FRIDAYS, APPLETV+
Emmy-winning Franklin director Tim Van Patten says he chose Michael Douglas for the title role in his historical drama because of his “absolute lust for life”. And it translates perfectly to the sly charm and fierce intellect that Douglas brings to the American Founding Father, who was also an inventor, scientist, diplomat and philosopher. Partly filmed in Versailles, Franklin zeros in on the years he spent in France trying to muster support for the American War of Independence. But while he is initially met with a rock star reception, he soon discovers it will take all of his considerable smarts to negotiate the intricacies of the French court.
Chinese Grand Prix
FRIDAY, FROM 1.30PM, KAYO
Formula One racing returns to the Shanghai circuit for the first time in five years and the big question is whether anyone can stop Max Verstappen from scooting away from the rest of the field to claim his fourth consecutive World Championship after he nabbed his third win of the season in Japan. Lewis Hamilton took the chequered flag the last time the race was held there but remains well off the pace this season. Sunday’s showdown, which starts at 4pm, is also the first Sprint event of the season, meaning it’s a much shorter race that encourages overtaking and should make for an absolute thriller.
Jeopardy Australia
SATURDAY, 7.30PM, CHANNEL 9
Despite the homegrown claims of the title, this version of the long-running US game show was actually filmed in Manchester, using Aussie expats as contestants (which is presumably cheaper and more convenient than relocating host Stephen Fry). No matter though, it still has a distinctly Aussie flavour thanks to categories centred around our cultural institutions such as Kylie Minogue, Neighbours and cricket. Fans of the original can rest assured that all the familiar elements are still in play – answers in the form of a question, Double and Final Jeopardy – and Fry is very much in his element, even if he doesn’t look like he’s having anywhere near as much fun as he did on QI.
Secrets of the Octopus
MONDAY, DISNEY+
There’s no other way to put this: octopuses are weird – but awesomely so. And this three-part documentary, which was the result of two years spent in the company of the strange cephalopods, demonstrates why scientists think they are some of the smartest animals on the planet, who can think creatively, use tools and even communicate with other species. It’s very much an Aussie affair too, as marine biologist Alex Schell befriends Scarlett the day octopus on the Great Barrier Reef before the production shifts to Port Philip Bay to seek out the deadly blue-ringed octopus. Added bonus – it’s narrated by the ever-charming Paul Rudd. Unexpected drawback – you may never eat calamari again.
Our Living World
NETFLIX
It’s a bumper week for nature documentaries and this outstanding four-part British series is well worth your time. Narrated with wry fascination by our very own Cate Blanchett it demonstrates the interconnectedness of Earth’s natural phenomena – from the macro level of tides and currents, right down to how tiny organisms can have an outsized effect on their environments. Some of the footage is simply mind-boggling, whether it’s two musk oxen charging at each other and colliding with the impact of a car crash in the Norwegian tundra, or tiny fiddler crabs waving their yellow claws in unison on the mangroves of Australia. And yes, there are the obligatory lions hunting zebras.
The Sympathiser
NEW EPISODES MONDAY, BINGE
Freshly minted Oscar-winner Robert Downey Jr has drawn the spotlight in this fascinating Vietnam War era historical drama and continues his rich vein of post-Iron Man form by bobbing up in multiple roles. But the real star of this adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize winning 2015 novel is Aussie actor Hoa Xuande, who plays a soldier/secret agent known only as The Captain, who flees the Fall of Saigon (nail bitingly brought to life in the first episode) for the US, where he is to continue spying for the Vietcong. Morally ambiguous, time-shifting, darkly funny and sometimes hard to follow, it nevertheless sets up intriguing questions of identity, loyalty and provides a fresh perspective on that much-recounted conflict.
Deadline Gallipoli
TUESDAY, SEVEN+
With Anzac Day just around the corner, there’s no better time to revisit this excellent Australian-made miniseries, which tells the story of the infamous World War I military campaign from the perspective of four war correspondents: Brit Ellis Ashmead Bartlett (Hugh Dancy), official Aussie war correspondent Charles Bean (Joel Jackson), newspaper proprietor Keith Murdoch (Ewen Leslie) and photojournalist Philip Schuler (Sam Worthington). Determined to report the debacle as they saw it unfold, rather than a sanitised, army approved version they incurred the wrath of the powers-that-be but in doing so helped document the soldiers’ bravery in the face of incompetence that would become a cornerstone of the Anzac legend.
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Originally published as What you should be watching on streaming platforms and TV this week
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