Porn stars and pork miso soup: Midnight Diner is a Netflix must-see

Midnight Diner is the ultimate comfort viewing. Part food show, part melodrama, this Japanese anthology series takes place in a late-night restaurant, open only from midnight till 7am.

Master in Midnight Diner.

Midnight Diner

Netflix

Midnight Diner is the ultimate comfort viewing. Part food show, part melodrama, this Japanese anthology series takes place in a late-night restaurant, open only from midnight till 7am.

“When people finish their day and hurry home,” the restaurant’s chef, known only as ”the Master,” reminds us in the prologue of every episode, ”my day starts”.

Each episode is a self-contained narrative centred around a single dish. The Master‘s menu may be unpretentious, offering dishes such as ham cutlet, sautéed yam, and buttered rice, but the dishes weave threads of connection with the clientele that frequent the place. The diners are a mixed bag of lonely souls – aspiring porn stars, unemployed singers, amateur boxers, struggling novelists, and famed screenwriters – seeking not just food but companionship. It’s one of those lovely little shows to keep in your back pocket when you have half an hour of watching time and want something soothing. If you liked this year’s charming Netflix series, The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House, this is for you.

Wolf

SBS on Demand

Episodes air weekly on SBS from Wednesday August 16 at 9.30pm

This is a deeply weird show. There is so much going on that it‘s hard to say exactly what it is about and, from the one episode available to review, impossible to say whether it is any good. All that can be said for certain is that it demands you stick around for a second episode.

Wolf is based on a thriller written by Mo Hayder about a string of murders committed in the Welsh countryside. It is by the team behind the tremendous Benedict Cumberbatch-led “Sherlock.” There are two key storylines at play here: Ukweli Roach plays DI Jack Caffery, who is haunted by the childhood abduction of his brother 30 years ago. He thinks that his toothy, pedophile neighbour Ivan Penderecki (a character indebted to Bob from Twin Peaks) was responsible. The second is about a posh family – Matilda Anchor-Ferrers (Juliet Stevenson — a good enough reason to watch anything), her husband Oliver (Owen Teale) who is recovering from heart surgery, and their goth 22-year-old daughter, Lucia — who have returned from London to their grandiose mansion in Wales to discover a gruesome scene: animal innards have been strung in the shape of a heart in a tree in their garden.

Red, White, & Royal Blue

Amazon Prime

August 11

Casey McQuiston’s best-selling debut, Red, White & Royal Blue, was essential reading for a snoozy summer beach day. Amazon Prime’s adaptation is as wonderful and silly as its source material. This is a romance that unfurls in the least romantic context imaginable: a PR disaster at The White House. Alex Claremont-Diaz (Taylor Zakhar Perez) is the son of the President of the United States (Uma Thurman), who, after a very public argy-bargy with his nemesis Prince Henry of England (Nicholas Galitzine), becomes tabloid fodder and causes a rift between US and British relations. He must go into damage control, and the pair form a “truce.” Before long, those performative niceties transform into a true friendship, then something a little more.

The directorial debut of Tony Award-winning playwright Matthew Lopez will leave you feeling fuzzy.

Sharp Objects

Binge

When a friend recommends a show with the pitch “It’s True Detective season one but for the girls,” how are you meant to refuse? Sharp Objects, Jean-Marc Vallee’s adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s 2006 novel, is a twisted little series that burrows under your skin. Like True Detective, it’s a psychological gothic horror set in an arse-end-of-nowhere town. It follows the troubled newspaper journalist Camille Preaker (Amy Adams), an alcoholic who compulsively self-harms. Camille is sent by her editor on an assignment back to her home town of Wind Gap: investigating the murder of one girl and the disappearance of another.

For Camille, returning to Wind Gap means returning to the source of her trauma – it’s where her sister died, and where her queen bitch narcissist of a mother (Patricia Clarkson) lives. There’s also her nasty psychotic brat of a second sister, Amma, played so well by Australian actor Eliza Scanlan. The acting in this is great across the board – so raw, still, and unhurried. But it’s the minute, technical details that make this special television. The soundtrack, which is great, is diegetic – meaning we only hear what the characters hear. It’s a beautiful touch.

The O.C.

Stan

It has been 20 years since the retrofitted guitar riffs of Phantom Planet‘s “California” first ushered The O.C. on to our screens, and still, FX’s hit show is yet to leave the cultural dialogue. It’s the show that launched long-standing careers for the likes of Adam Brody, Ben McKenzie, and Rachel Bilson – as well as bit part actors such as Chris Pratt, Shailene Woodley, and Olivia Wilde. It coined the immortal catchphrase “Welcome to the O.C., bitch!” and the holiday ”Christmukkah,” while bolstering enough mid-noughties indie bands to fill an iPod Classic. If you haven’t watched it, take its anniversary as a reason to do so. The long and the short of it: an abandoned kid from rough ends is taken in by a family who live in glitzy, plasticine Beverly Hills. Everything about this teenage soap opera is a cut above the rest – the creators were inspired by Ang Lee’s 1997 drama, The Ice Storm, and that moodiness courses through its otherwise sunny veins.