What to stream this week: Watchmen, Marcella, Big Mouth and more

Over nine episodes, this expensive HBO miniseries will shock you, make you angry, make you laugh and make you cry. Its urgency will move you.

What are we watching this week? A new Spike Lee movie, a murder mystery with a megastar and the urgent, relevant and bold Watchmen.

SOMETHING THRILLING

Watchmen: Charged, ambitious and affecting, last year’s HBO miniseries Watchmen is even more relevant, urgent and essential now than when it premiered. A sequel-of-sorts to the iconic 1980s comic book series of the same name, Watchmen follows a black female police officer fighting against a White Supremacist group. It smartly interrogates ideas around systemic racism and the corrupt power structures that exist to prop up the status quo. Watch it: Binge/Foxtel Now

Watchmen is essential viewing.

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Agent Carter: It only lasted two seasons but Agent Carter, alongside Jessica Jones, is the strongest series to come out of Marvel’s TV department. Set after the events of Captain America in post-WWII New York, it finds Peggy as an SSR agent trying to fight bad guys, early black widows and sexism. Watch it: Disney+

SOMETHING NEW

Da 5 Bloods: Spike Lee’s follow-up to BlackkKlansman is out this week on Netflix, which gives a bigger audience to watch his work – and that’s a good thing. This action-drama is centred on black American Vietnam War veterans who return to the former battlefield in search of their dead squad leader and the promise of treasure. No screeners were provided so we can’t vouch for it yet, but if it’s anything like Lee’s usual fare, expect it to be confronting and provocative. Watch it: Netflix, from Friday, June 12

Spike Lee’s new movie is out this weekend. Picture: David Lee/Netflix via AP

Marcella S3: Anna Friel’s troubled antihero detective has gotten through many scrapes before, barely and not always with her mental health intact. Well, let’s just say the previous season really did a number on her. The third season sees her in an entirely different environment, under cover in Dublin and investigating a criminal gang. Watch it: Netflix, from Sunday, June 14

SOMETHING FUNNY

Big Mouth: Few TV shows have captured the supreme awkwardness of puberty as well as Big Mouth. Co-created by and starring comedian Nick Kroll, the animated series follows a group of early high school teens as they grapple with the hormonal changes brought on by their body. Big Mouth does it with savage honesty and absolute hilarity. Watch it: Netflix

Puberty has never been more awkwardly funny.

Flight Of The Conchords: Across 22 perfect episodes, Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement’s HBO comedy made us cackle, guffaw and wish we could be Kiwis so we could proclaim from the rooftops how marvellous this show is. As fictionalised versions of themselves, a couple of singers trying to make it in New York City with the help/hindrance of consulate worker Murray (Rhys Darby), Clement and McKenzie spin pure New Zealand gold wool. Watch it: Binge/Foxtel Now

SOMETHING DRAMATIC

The Kettering Incident: Moody and chilling, this Australian series starring Elizabeth Debicki is an intriguing, high-concept show set among the forests of Tasmania, which really lends the show a Twin Peaks-y atmosphere. Debicki plays Anna, a woman who as a child was with her friend when the girl went missing. That disappearance long ago has something to do with the peculiar lights now returned and another young girl’s vanishing act. Watch it: Binge/Foxtel Now

The moody Kettering Incident.

Mosaic: Another one of those projects with an impressive talent line-up – Sharon Stone and Steven Soderbergh – and yet flew under the radar in a TV environment where there is simply too much on. Stone plays a famed children’s author who was murdered in her home. Four years later, the sister of the man convicted of her killing is trying to clear her brother’s name and piece together the mystery of who really did it. Watch it: Binge/Foxtel Now

SOMETHING FAMILIAR

Without A Trace: A solid and very watchable crime procedural, Without A Trace starred two Australians – Anthony La Paglia and Poppy Montgomery – as part of a team of FBI agents who tracked down missing persons. Each episode provided a new mystery to solve while keeping the overall story and character arcs to a minimum – perfect for viewers who want an episodic binge. Watch it: 7Plus (3 seasons)/Foxtel Now (1 season)/iTunes/Google Play

Perfect binge for those who like a crime procedural.

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Originally published as What to stream this week: Watchmen, Marcella, Big Mouth and more