Five things to watch this week

EINSTEIN AND THE BOMB — NETFLIX

Using Albert Einstein’s own words and mixing dramatisations with archival footage, this documentary series explores the life, work and times of history’s most famous scientist, with a particular focus on the role his work played in opening the door for the creation of the atomic bomb.

Einstein was famously appalled by the idea that his work helped to unlock the secrets of atomic energy and the bomb that the Manhattan Project unleashed on Japan to end the war in the Pacific. He spent much of the remainder of his life trying vainly to convince world powers that it should never be used again or developed any further. If only we’d listened.

LAWMEN: BASS REEVES — SHOWMAX

David Oyelowo plays Bass Reeves, the real-life first black marshall in US history in this slow-building, western-set police procedural from Yellowstone creator Tyler Sheridan. Over eight episodes, we watch as Reeves escapes the chains of Civil War-era slavery and finds himself unwillingly recruited into the ranks of the marshall service.

BUPKIS — SHOWMAX

Comedian Pete Davidson has already played a fictionalised version of himself in the critically acclaimed film The King of Staten Island. Now he extends the premise in this series in which we find him famous, troubled, exhausted and living with his mom in Staten Island. As he goes about the process of trying to live his busy life as a celebrity oddball, things take absurd turns and whether you care will entirely depend on whether you’re a Pete Davidson fan.

A ZED AND TWO NOUGHTS — MUBI.COM

The carefully curated classic art-inspired frames of director Peter Greenaway are put to visually impressive use in this classic art house puzzle comedy from 1985. When identical twin zoologists both lose their wives in a car crash caused by a white swan, the brothers become obsessed with researching death and the decay of animals.

SAS ROGUE HEROES — SHOWMAX

Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight turns his attention to North Africa in this rollicking adventure World War 2 series that plays hard and loose with the story of the creation of the legendary Special Forces unit. Featuring a stellar cast, it ’ s a throwback to old-school British war films with a modern twist. /