This week’s new shows on Netflix, Amazon and other streaming services

Scoop Netflix

In 2019, shortly after the death of convicted paedophile and financier Jeffrey Epstein, Prince Andrew was interviewed for the BBC’S Newsnight programme by Emily Maitlis. The subsequent conversation turned into something quite remarkable, in which he denied allegations of impropriety via a series of bizarre revelations, including an inability to sweat and a trip to Woking’s Pizza Express. The event has now been turned into one of the most eagerly awaited dramas of the year so far, which reveals how the interview was set up thanks to high stakes negotiations between producer Sam Mcalister and Buckingham Palace. Gillian Anderson and Rufus Sewell play Maitlis and the prince respectively; Billie Piper and Keeley Hawes co-star.

SERIES Ripley Netflix

Patricia Highsmith’s anti-hero, Tom Ripley, has had many onscreen incarnations over the years; Alain Delon, Dennis Hopper and Matt Damon are among those who’ve brought him to life. Now it’s the turn of Andrew Scott in a new eightpart version of arguably the writer’s most famous work, the Talented Mr Ripley. The story begins in 1960s New York, when grifter Ripley accepts a job to persuade Dickie Greenleaf, the scion of a wealthy family, to return home from a sojourn in Italy.

SERIES

Star Trek: Discovery Paramount

All good things must come to an end, including Star Trek spin-offs. Discovery takes place 900 years after the adventures of James T Kirk and co, and is one of the best entries in the canon. The final season has had a difficult germination as it was delayed due to the Covid pandemic. Filming eventually took place in late 2022 and this time, the USS Discovery team, led by Captain Burnham, face a race against time – and across the galaxy – to locate an ancient power whose existence is been shrouded in mystery.

REALITY Is It Cake? Netflix

If we eat with our eyes then the extraordinary confections created for Netflix’s cakemaking competition might not always make the mouth water. Some of the world’s best bakers attempt to make hyperrealistic cakes that can pass as everyday objects and fool a panel of celebrity judges for a chance to share a prize fund over $100,000. Mikey Day from Saturday Night Live continues to host the delicious deception, exposing the real cakes in dramatic fashion with his trusty knife.

SERIES Sugar Apple TV

Although it has a modern-day setting, there’s something rather wonderfully oldfashioned about the first of two TV projects set to star Colin Farrell this year (his second will see him reprise his role as Penguin from The Batman movie). Eight-parter Sugar owes a lot to the kind of private eye movies Humphrey Bogart made in the 1940s and 1950s, or even Roman Polanski’s 1974 smash Chinatown. Farrell (who is also one of the series’ executive producers) heads the cast as John Sugar, an enigmatic investigator struggling with personal demons. Nevertheless, he agrees to search for Olivia Siegel, the missing granddaughter of a famed Hollywood producer, unearthing a few dark secrets about her family in the process.