What to stream this week: Six TV shows and films to add to your list

This week’s streaming picks include a White House drama (no, not the real one) starring James Marsden, a ghostly US comedy, an underappreciated legal drama and the return of Cameron Diaz.

Paradise (Disney+): ★★★

James Marsden plays US president Cal Bradford in White House drama Paradise.

White house drama. Halls of power murder mystery. Global conspiracy thriller. Parental legacy meditation. Trauma study. Paradise is a dense handful of shows combined into one, in ways that can be quite ungainly or thoughtfully surprising. Due to spoilers, it’s impossible to describe exactly what it encompasses, but it’s fair to say if the trailer comes in hot – yes, that’s a murdered president of the United States – the show has much more to spring on you.

One constant: within the genre-hopping story the lead performances are accomplished. Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown) is a dedicated Secret Service agent who has befriended his assignment, president Cal Bradford (James Marsden), following him out of the White House. It’s Xavier, who once took an assassin’s bullet, who discovers Cal murdered in his supposedly secure home, setting off an investigation that swiftly comes under the remit of Cal’s powerful friend and backer, tech billionaire Samantha Redmond (Julianna Nicholson).

Paradise was created by Dan Fogelman, a prolific writer and producer whose credits include Cars, Crazy, Stupid, Love, and This Is Us. The latter is notable, as the hit familial drama used the links between generations to forge bonds and foretell turning points; past trauma was excised in the present day. The same happens here, even as an adversarial investigation sees Xavier sidelined and potent suspects manoeuvring. Everyone gets a lengthy flashback – several for Xavier, Cal, Samantha, and even Xavier’s work partner, Billy Pace (Jon Beavers).

The emotional motivation is complex. A monologue by a character in a political thriller that references their past as motivation is laid out over half an episode, placing a bittersweet marker that’s picked up in the final scene. “You were my wild card,” Cal tells Billy, setting up his friend as the one man who years later won’t back down in pursuit of the truth. The trade-off? The actual plotting is erratic and the procedural side of the story is perfunctory.

Sterling K. Brown plays Secret Service agent Xavier Collins in the Disney+ drama Paradise. 

The show zigs when you expect it to zag, which can be a positive. Fogelman adds a budding teenage romance between Xavier’s daughter, Presley (Aliyah Mastin), and Cal’s rebellious son, Jeremy (Charlie Evans). There’s so much potential material that some elements can’t help but feel under-explored, including survivor’s guilt and science-fiction realities; you’ve got Scandal vibes, but also Snowpiercer. But even when it’s confounding, Paradise is watchable. The seventh episode is riveting, but all I can say about it is that possibly it should have been the second.

Ghosts (Netflix): ★★★½

Pete (Richie Moriarty, left), Sasappis (Román Zaragoza), Trevor (Asher Grodman) and Samantha (Rose McIver) in Ghosts.

While Netflix spend billions annually on original production, they also licence existing content from other streaming services. The tactic bears fruit here, giving a second chance to this nimble American comedy, which debuted in 2021 and has been streaming locally on Paramount+. Ghosts is a supernatural spree, warmly familiar in structure but witty in execution, and licensing it helps address a gap on Netflix’s roster: a reliable sitcom. Like The Office (available on BritBox, Paramount+, and Stan), Ghosts is a US adaptation of a hit British series of the same name.

It begins with young married couple, Sam and Jay Arondekar (Rose McIver and Utkarsh Ambudkar), inheriting a decrepit country mansion, which also houses a historic selection of ghosts who’ve died on the land over the centuries and linger as bored observers. At least until Sam emerges from a near-death experience about to see and talk to the delighted spectres. Amidst meddling and misunderstanding, the collective spirits – including Viking Thorfinn (Devan Chandler Long), Prohibition-era singer Alberta (Daniella Pinnock), and finance bro Trevor (Asher Grodman), who died sans pants - provide culture clash humour, farcical backstories, and an ever-evolving dynamic.

The possibilities are extensive, and without reinventing the genre Ghosts makes the most of these phantom threads. There’s nothing to be afraid of here.

Prime Target (Apple TV+)

Leo Woodall stars as a maths prodigy in the British thriller Prime Target.

Have you ever wondered what Good Will Hunting would have been like if they’d put the focus on the hunting? In this British conspiracy thriller, Leo Woodall (One Day) plays Edward Brooks, a Cambridge mathematics prodigy whose prime number research unleashes ruthless hidden forces, a global pursuit, and an American bodyguard, NSA agent Taylah Sanders (Quintessa Swindell). Creator Steve Thompson (Vienna Blood) has made a very silly, high-energy tale of unchecked genius, unworn shirts, and sometimes unintentionally funny twists. This has more Dan Brown to it than most would want.

Nightbitch (Disney+)

Amy Adams plays an overwhelmed mother who follows her instincts in Nightbitch.

There is a slew of sharply contemporary ideas at work in this shape-shifting US black comedy about a stay-at-home mother (Amy Adams), whose unhappiness with her lot finds nocturnal release as she begins to exhibit canine traits and behaviour. The family cat has every right to be worried, but as good as Adams is with her translucent emotions and infiltrator unease, the film can only get so far on satire. Writer and director Marielle Heller, who proved her bona fides with 2018’s Can You Ever Forgive Me?, could have bit more deeply into Rachel Yoder’s novel.

Goliath (Amazon Prime Video)

Billy Bob Thornton stars as brilliant lawyer Billy McBride in the legal drama Goliath.

Taylor Sheridan’s Landman was a mess, but the Texan oil fields drama got one key element perfectly right: it cast Billy Bob Thornton in the lead role. The actor gave Sheridan’s monologues an ornery cool the dialogue didn’t always deserve. Thornton is even better in this David E. Kelley legal drama, which debuted in 2015 and ran for four high-stakes seasons. Thornton’s Billy McBride is a brilliant lawyer and not really recovering alcoholic, who takes against the odds cases mostly out of self-loathing. This series is ripe for rediscovery.

Back in Action (Netflix)

Cameron Diaz and Jamie Foxx play former CIA superspies who come out of retirement in the film Back in Action.

Between 1994 and 2014 Cameron Diaz proved herself to be an old-fashioned Hollywood movie star: a comedienne with an impossible grin and melodramatic moxie. After a decade away she deserves a better comeback vehicle than this generic action-comedy where she and Jamie Foxx play former CIA agent superspies who’ve been laying low and raising their children, but are forced to come out of retirement. It’s all adequately done, with Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses) directing, but the plot and genre are stale. Even Mark Wahlberg has already covered this ground with 2023’s Family Plan.

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