New Amsterdam

Season 2 M-Net (*101) 19:00 Drama

Episode 5 Dr Sharpe explores new avenues to help a cancer patient who wants to become a parent, Frome deals with a psychopathic patient, and Reynolds treats an astronaut who’s about to launch into space.

Season 1 BBC Brit (*120) 20:00 Action

Two-part crime action series McDonald & Dodds (2020) is the stereotype buddycop show as two polar-opposite cops work together brilliantly against the odds. DCI McDonald (Tala Gouveia, the voice of Tala in kids show Go Jetters, 2019) is a wildly ambitious and tough detective, while DS Dodds (Jason Watkins, Harold in The Crown, 2016-now) is a shy, quiet copper who has remained quite happily in the background for most of his career.

“The two are balanced despite their differences,” explains Tala, who’s more used to kids content. “It was exciting to play a very adult, very real-world character.” McDonald is sent from the mean streets of London, west to the famous city of Bath to investigate crime and work up the career ladder. While she has got skills, it’s her drive that will match Dodds’s unorthodox yet flawless puzzle- cracking talents. “It’s important for police to have abilities of working in all sorts of fields, not just a big city or a small town,” says Tala. “McDonald has to learn to work with someone else who is different to her if she is going to be the best. And Dodds is completely different to her. The only similarity they have is that they’re both coppers.”

Episode 1 is going to test the new teammates as they’re called to a mansion owned by mega-backs industrialist Max Crockett (Robert Lindsay, Ben Harper in comedy series My Family, 20002011). A local homeless man’s body has been discovered at the home with no apparent motive for the murder. “But you know that is television code for ‘skeletons in the closet,’” hints Tala.