The Sixth Commandment could be the best TV drama of the year
No actor can make you feel quite like Timothy Spall, and this performance is a tour-de-force.
The Sixth Commandment
Binge
This show is so harrowing it borders on unwatchable. It also might well be the best television drama of the year. Writer Sarah Phelps (A Very British Scandal) tells the true story of Peter Farquhar (Timothy Spall) a gentle semi-retired English master, whose dedicated Christianity and repressed homosexuality made him an easy target for Ben Field (Eanna Hardwicke). Field, a charming student and churchwarden who is 40 years Farquhar’s junior, preys on his loneliness and dupes him into making him the main benefactor of his will. He then drugs him, ruins his reputation, and kills him. Before moving on to his next target, the elderly, unwed Anne Moore-Martin (Anne Reid). True crime is an overcrowded genre, but what sets this show apart is its elegant treatment. Rather than sensationalising the heinous crimes for the sake of drama, it focuses on the plight of the victims and their families. Spall has an unparalleled ability to draw feelings out of an audience, and this performance is a tour-de-force, with shades of his early, fractured work with Mike Leigh.
I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson
Netflix
If you’re in the mood for torturous television of a different kind, Tim Robinson’s Netflix sketch show is as excruciating as it is brilliant. The premise is in the title: each skit revolves around a character who has done something savagely embarrassing. Rather than admitting their faux pas, they tenaciously embrace it, pushing the absurdity of the situations to extremes, when simply bowing out would have been wiser. This oddball — and frankly annoying — style of alternative comedy is not for everyone. If toilet jokes are beneath you, or you have a low tolerance for cringe, steer clear. But for the cognoscenti among us who have an appreciation for jokes about men who pee their pants a little bit, or horse ranches that specialise in breeding equine that are not well hung, it’s a riot. If you find you’re on the fence, each episode clocks in at around 15 minutes, so decide for yourself — or watch one of the finest skits below.
My Mad Fat Diary
Stan
Sharon Rooney’s bit part in Barbie was a choice reminder of the excellent British teen drama My Mad Fat Diary. The 2013 show is based on the diaries kept by the British radio host Rae Earl from the late 80s, when she was an overweight, teenage Smiths obsessive. The TV adaptation updates the story to 1996, so it’s Manchester rather than Morrissey that draws the teen devotion of Rae (played by Rooney). She is a 100kg, 16-year-old self-harmer living in the Midlands, who has just left a psychiatric hospital after a four-month stint as a “mental”. Jodie Comer (Killing Eve) plays Rae’s beautiful, put-upon best friend Chloe. This show is full of excellent evocations of the overwhelming awfulness and occasional joy of being a teenager. And while the plot points are familiar — crushes on boys, friendship fallouts — it tackles with gusto the ambitious themes of OCD, eating disorders, and growing up with a single, exhausting mother. It’s also very funny, and recalls those great, gobby Gurinder Chadha coming-of-age films like Bend It Like Beckham and Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging.
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Netflix
Netflix’s live-action adaptation of the beloved Japanese anime One Piece was mediocre, but the hype serves as an opportunity to plug one of the streamer’s greatest acquisitions: Neon Genesis Evangelion. Unless you had a knack for illegal tormenting, this mecha (meaning: big robots) anime, which originally aired in 1995, was basically impossible to find. Until 2019, when Netflix added all episodes of the original series, as well as its two sequel films. The show unfolds on a post-apocalyptic Earth that is under attack by powerful creatures called Angels. To combat the Angels, scientists have created giant cyborgs called Evangelions or Evas, that can only be piloted by psychic teenagers — blurring the lines between man and machine. The show’s hero is an unusual, existential 14-year-old called Shinji Ikari. And while the robot-versus-robot clobbering scenes are epic, it’s the high philosophical concepts — Søren Kierkegaard was a major influence – that make for enduring television.
The Newsreader
ABC iview
When you spend most of your life in an Australian newsroom, it takes a lot to convince you to invest those sacred relaxation hours on a six-hour show set in an Australian newsroom. “A lot” in this case, is Anna Torv, who is on fire with her performance as Helen, a no-nonsense newsreader navigating the sexist bureaucracy of her 1986 workplace. Helen is cutthroat and glamorous — with hair so high it has its own altitude. But beneath her girlboss facade is a deeply broken, needy, pill-popper. The drama centres around her professional, and increasingly personal relationship with Dale Jennings (Sam Reid) an ambitious, closeted reporter. So often Australian TV suffers from shoddy writing and acting, thankfully, The Newsreader does not have this problem. It’s the best thing to come out of the country this side of Mr Inbetween.