What to stream this week: Dying for Sex and five more shows to add to your list

This week’s picks include Michelle William’s five-star comedy, the return of Wolf Hall and the final season of an underrated police procedural.

Dying for Sex ★★★★★ (Disney+)

Awards are at best a flawed model for judging what we watch, but we need to make an exception. Michelle Williams gets every shiny trophy possible for her performance here as a terminally ill woman determined to embrace sexual pleasure. A Golden Globe and an Emmy? Absolutely. Throw in the Brownlow and the Dally M, too. Williams, already one of the finest actors of the 21st century, achieves the sublime. She captures an entire life’s buried distress in a solitary word of reply, suggests wonder with a seditious smile.

Michelle Williams (right) as Molly and Jenny Slate as Nikki in the comedy Dying for Sex.Credit:

Williams couldn’t have done this without a galvanising vehicle. Dying for Sex was created by Liz Meriwether and Kim Rosenstock, who cut their teeth on The New Girl. It’s adapted from the podcast series of the same name, and deals with living your life in the face of death, negating past trauma, the bedrock strength of soul mates, and a selection of sexual experiences delivered with frankness and terrific empathy. One character says, “Keep kicking me in the dick” in this bittersweet triumph that lands like a love sonnet.

From the moment New Yorker Molly (Williams) learns her cancer has returned, and is stage four, she pushes herself to change. Her husband, Steve (Jay Duplass), a righteous martyr who can’t satisfy Molly sexually, goes by the wayside. If she’s going to die with anyone, it’s her chaotic best friend, Nikki (Jenny Slate). Through panic, dating app failure, medical crises and a “kink-forward play party”, the pair try to make sense of the unthinkable.

The show is good at numerous things, from the realities of cancer treatment when remission is no longer a goal to the difficulties women can have articulating their sexual needs. And these distinct traits feed upon one another, creating a fascinating friction. Humour allows childhood loss to be acknowledged, while wrenching setbacks open up moments of transcendence.

Jay Duplass (right) plays Steve, the ex-husband of Molly (Michelle Williams) in Dying for Sex. Credit:

Williams unfolds every side of Molly, and the supporting cast is simpatico. There’s an entire series alone in Molly’s journey with her starchy oncologist, Dr Pankowitz (David Rasche).

As in Miranda July’s 2024 novel All Fours, a spiritual sister-work to Dying for Sex, the steps Molly takes – charted by an inner monologue that’s a terrific voice performance in its own right – feel intense and granular, yet also revelatory and universal. The direction captures how bodies can connect with a tactile charge; see the moustache bristles of Rob Delaney’s submissive neighbour. By the end, there are jokes so fiercely defiant that you can laugh out loud and tear up. That’s beyond mere greatness. From April 4.

Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light ★★★★½ (Binge)

It took almost a decade to assemble a successor to one of 2015’s best shows, the gripping BBC drama, set in the 16th century, about the rise of lawyer Thomas Cromwell (Mark Rylance) in the savage court of England’s King Henry VIII (Damian Lewis). Fittingly, with all the key players returning – including director Peter Kosminsky and screenwriter Peter Straughan – the second season of Wolf Hall picks up where the first ended: the execution of Henry’s second wife, Anne Boleyn (Claire Foy), orchestrated by Cromwell at the monarch’s request.

In other words, it hasn’t skipped a beat. The Mirror and the Light was the final novel in Hilary Mantel’s masterful trilogy about Cromwell’s momentous time at court, and it provides the foundation for a fittingly cruel finale.

The application of Tudor power is deployed with fickle will and continual cunning, testing Cromwell at every turn. Rylance’s performance, as a courtier who believes he can identify and navigate every piece in play, is nuanced and deeply felt.

Mark Rylance (left) as Thomas Cromwell and Damian Lewis as King Henry VIII in Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light.

Spanning four intense years, the plot is again driven by Henry’s succession of marriages and his demand for a male heir, beginning with the turn of Jane Seymour (Kate Phillips) as queen.

There’s rightly more of a focus on Cromwell having to accept his own misdeeds, starting with a brutal but unexpected judgment in the second episode, and it all builds to a shuddering, impeccable conclusion.

Bosch: Legacy (season 3) ★★★★ (Amazon Prime Video)

One of the sturdiest and underrated police procedurals has come to a close. Titus Welliver’s run as Michael Connelly’s fictional Los Angles detective – in uniform for Bosch, a private eye in Legacy – stretched to 10 seasons, with the final instalment sticking to what the show did best: twisty, interlapping plots, a genuine sense of LA, and Welliver’s chiselled-from-rock performance.

There’s more here for Madison Lintz as Bosch’s daughter, LAPD officer Maddie, and there’s a sighting of another Connelly character, Renee Ballard (Maggie Q), who has her own show in production.

Titus Welliver is back on the beat for Bosch: Legacy.

Number One on the Call Sheet ★★★ (Apple TV+)

There are two complementary documentaries in this series on the experiences of black actors in Hollywood: Reginald Hudlin directs the feature-length episode on leading men, Shola Lynch the slightly shorter episode on leading women. The line-up of talent is vast – Denzel Washington, Cynthia Erivo, Viola Davis, and Michael B. Jordan are just a few of the contributors. However, casting such a large net makes for a warmly triumphant but shallow tone, with the barriers – personal and systemic – these now famous performers overcame firmly in the past. It’s interesting, but rarely incisive.

Cynthia Erivo in Number One on the Call Sheet.

The Eclipse ★★★½ (AMC+)

Set on the windswept plateau that forms the French rural region of Aubrac, this moody crime mystery begins at a shocked, solemn pace: no one wants to accept what has happened after a teenage boy accidentally shoots his girlfriend during an eclipse and she subsequently disappears.

The investigation falls to the duo’s respective mothers and fellow local police officers, Manue (Anne Charrier) and Johanna (Claire Keim). That’s a brute force concept, but with a strong sense of place and community, plus capable performances, this six-part series finds a worthy tone and satisfying twists.

Anne Charrier as Manue (left) and Claire Keim as Johanna Croiset in The Eclipse.

Chelsea Handler: The Feeling ★★★ (Netflix)

American comedian and talk show host Chelsea Handler has traditionally been a love it or loathe it proposition for most viewers, but as someone who has previously been on the sidelines, I think her stand-up work is getting better as her career progresses. There’s still an ease with mocking confessions and sharp put-downs, but as she enters her 50s Handler looks back on her experiences, whether as a Hollywood celebrity or a young comic who got away safely from an encounter with Bill Cosby, with a more judicious eye. She might yet surprise us.

Chelsea Handler in her stand-up special The Feeling.

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