Missing Slow Horses? Give this show a try in the meantime

Matthew Goode brings jagged charm to DCI Carl Morck: another addition to the pantheon of detectives who are troubled, rude bastards – but brilliant nonetheless.

Matthew Goode in a scene from Dept Q on Netflix.

Stuck for TV shows to watch this week? Here are our recommendations.

Dept Q

Netflix

And so continues the quest to fill the void between seasons of Slow Horses — which, if you haven’t heard the good word, returns in September. That may as well be a lifetime away. In the meantime, there’s Dept Q, based on the Danish crime novels by Jussi Adler-Olsen. Matthew Goode brings jagged charm to DCI Carl Morck: another addition to the pantheon of detectives who are troubled, rude bastards but brilliant nonetheless. Following a disastrous shooting, he’s banished to a basement with a mountain of cold cases and a couple of outcasts for company — the sort of cases, his boss quips, that would make perfect true-crime fodder. So far, so Slough House — though not half as funny. But hey, we can’t all have Mick Herron on staff. Still, it’s slickly made (Scott Frank, of The Queen’s Gambit fame, is in charge) and fantastically acted.

The Survivors

Netflix from Friday, 6 June

Out now on Netflix is a new adaptation of Jane Harper’s work, offering another dose of moody, slow-burning mystery. Harper, best known for her bestselling debut The Dry (later made into a film starring Eric Bana), returns to well-trodden ground: a small town with a dark past and secrets that absolutely refuse to stay buried. Set in the coastal outpost of Evelyn Bay, the series follows Kieran Elliot (Charlie Vickers), who returns home years after a tragic incident that claimed two friends and left a third missing. With his partner and newborn in tow, and still lugging around a handsome amount of survivor’s guilt, Kieran is back to care for his ailing parents. But when a young woman turns up dead on the beach, it’s time to dust off That Tragic Incident From Years Ago. Expect drone shots of cliffs being lashed to within an inch of their geological lives, and dialogue thick with pregnant pauses and unresolved tension. Comfortably familiar — exactly the sort of atmospheric mystery Harper’s fans come to expect

Stick

Apple TV+

Golf, as a sport, is famously about control — of your swing, your temper, your moisture-wicking polo shirts. In Stick, Owen Wilson plays Pryce Cahill, a former pro who’s lost all three. After a nervous breakdown, he’s coasting through life, coaching a group of retirees. Enter Santi Wheeler (Pete Dager), a promising amateur who might just offer Pryce a shot at redemption — or at least a second wind and a decent payday. Pryce decides to coach him. Full disclosure: I find golf unspeakably dull, but this won me over. Yes, it’s clearly Apple TV+ trying to bottle Ted Lasso lightning once more, but Wilson’s shaggy melancholy and silly drawl are hard to resist. Low-stakes, occasionally poignant, and effortlessly breezy television.

Asura

Netflix

Here’s a show that apparently dropped on Netflix back in January — but with so little fanfare, I completely missed it. Asura is the second TV series from Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda, who won the Palme d’Or in 2018 for the breathtaking Shoplifters (now streaming on Prime Video — and while you’re at it, check out his superb 2023 drama Monster, available on Stan). It follows 2023’s gentle and utterly lovely The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House — a show that wasn’t quite a hit, more of an “if you know, you know” delight. And if you knew, you were totally smitten. Asura adapts a 1979 TV series and novel, centring on the four Takezawa sisters, who suspect their father of having an affair — and possibly fathering another child. Buttoned-up Takiko works as a civil servant librarian; Sakiko is a waitress with a loser boyfriend; widowed Tsunako has an adult son; and Makiko is a housewife with two teens. Their wildly different reactions to their father’s scandal make for fabulous fights. Funny, beautifully observed, and borderline torturous because the food is divine — and they’re always eating.

Live Flesh

SBS On Demand

This isn’t a TV recommendation so much as a public service announcement: a handful of Pedro Almodovar’s hard-to-find films are now streaming on SBS On Demand. Live Flesh is Almodóvar in full bloom — a Ruth Rendell psychothriller reimagined as something far hotter, weirder and funnier. It opens with a baby born on a Madrid bus during Franco’s curfew and hurtles into a sun-beaten love quadrangle involving a paraplegic ex-cop (a startlingly fresh-faced Javier Bardem), a volatile ex-con (Liberto Rabal), and the woman caught between them (Francesca Neri), who is — naturally — married to a violent brute. It’s sexy, silly, morally unkempt: classic Almodrama. Follow it up with Parallel Mothers, his brilliant Penelope Cruz-led 2021 baby-swap drama, which threads in buried secrets from the Spanish Civil War.