This slept on showbiz satire is well worth your time
Brilliantly meta and nauseatingly cringe, Friends’ actor Lisa Kudrow plays a former network sitcom star attempting to revive her career.
The Crown
Netflix
Limber up your wrists for one last royal wave: Peter Morgan’s The Crown is coming to an end, with its sixth and final season premiering on Netflix on November 19. This instalment, split into two parts, will cover all the terribleness between 1997 and 2005. Australian actor Elizabeth Debicki reprises her role as Princess Diana in four episodes focusing on her relationship with Dodi Fayed and the fatal car crash that killed them both. Netflix executives have made a big hoohaa about Diana’s death being “portrayed sensitively”, but there are also reports that the season will include a scene featuring her ghost … let’s see how that goes. On a less grim note, the show will touch on the budding romance of Will and Kate, and Tony Blair’s time as Prime Minister. Also returning this season are Imelda Staunton as Queen Elizabeth II, Jonathan Pryce as Prince Philip, and the generously cast Dominic West as Prince Charles.
Fargo
SBS on Demand
Also returning in November is the supreme Coen Brothers spin-off series Fargo, with a fifth season set to premiere on SBS on Demand on November 22. This gives you ample time to delve into the other seasons, should you have neglected to have done so. While that’s not strictly necessary, with this being an anthology series, it’s worth it. The first season in particular is brilliant with Martin Freeman as the gutless Lester Nygaard who is bullied by everyone — especially his wife – and Billy Bob Thornton, who makes a perfect villain out of Malvo, a hit man for hire. Plot details about the new season have been kept mum, but we know that Mad Men’s Jon Hamm will play the role of a sheriff of a small midwestern town circa 2019, and Ted Lasso favourite Juno Temple and Jennifer Leigh will also star. It’s murder and mild manners in Minnesota.
Better Things
Disney+
SBS on Demand
If you’re looking for something that strikes the balance of being easy to watch and sneakily poignant, Pamela Adlon’s family dramedy is just the ticket. In this semi-autobiographical show, which Adlon wrote and directed, she stars as Sam Fox, a C-list actor and a single mother who barely copes with raising her three daughters alone in Los Angeles. Each of her kids is needy in its own way: Max (Mikey Madison), the eldest, is a sexually active, stoner nightmare; Frankie (Hannah Alligood), the middle child, is woke in that bumptious way that teenagers do best; and Duke (Olivia Edward) is only a wee thing, but is tinged with a melancholy beyond her years. Throw in Sam’s mother, Phil (Celia Imrie), a batty, high-maintenance British expat who lives just across the street, and you have the perfect recipe for chaos. Better Things’ modest dramatic arcs make for a show that feels genuinely relatable — so much so you may feel compelled to call your mum and apologise for all your teenage screaming matches.
The Comeback
Binge
Between Curb Your Enthusiasm, Entourage, and The Larry Saunders show, the mid-aughts were ripe for television that skewered the indignities of showbiz. Oddly, The Comeback, which is just as good, never really got its dues. This brilliantly meta, nauseatingly cringey show was co-created in 2005 by Lisa Kudrow and Michael Patrick King, right off the back of Friends and Sex and the City respectively. Kudrow plays Valerie Cherish, a former network sitcom star who is attempting to revive her career by landing a role in another network sitcom. Valerie is also starring in a separate show — the one we, the audience, witness — a reality series named The Comeback, in which cameras trail fading sitcom stars 24/7 who are attempting a grand return. Kudrow is the best she has ever been as Valerie — all strained optimism and concealed desperation. It’s the ultimate feel-good/bad viewing.
Little Boy Blue
Prime Video
Britbox
This masterfully made series dramatises the 2007 killing of 11-year-old Rhys Jones, an Everton-mad kid who was walking home from football practice when he was caught in the crossfire of teenagers acting tough and was fatally shot. One has to question the morals of turning horrendous crimes like this into entertainment and writer Jeff Pope (Philomena), who has been head of the “factual drama” department of ITV since 1996, navigates this quagmire with sensitivity and finesse. Over four episodes Little Boy Blue unpacks the tragedy of Rhys’s death, the unimaginable grief of his parents Melanie and Steve (played tremendously by Sinead Keenan and Brian F O’Byrne) and the investigation led by DS Dave Kelly (who else but Stephen Graham?). Days after Jones’s murder, his parents attended an Everton match in Goodison Park to appeal for help to find their son’s killer. There is an astonishing re-creation of this scene in the show, in which 39,000 Everton fans gave up their halftime break to take part in a minute’s applause — it will leave you absolutely shattered.
More Coverage
