What to watch
This detailed threepart series on the ruling family of Saudi Arabia makes for unmissable if terrifying television. Dispensing with any sort of Adam Curtis-style frills, the opening film simply talks us through the House of Saud’s involvement in recent history, from Sarajevo to Syria. Hearing from intelligence analysts and long-time Saudi observers, it builds a complicated picture of the uneasy relationship between the Saudi royal family and Wahhabism, the particular strain of Islam they promote. It’s a story that encompasses a small hamlet in Bosnia, a family home in India, weapons dealt from Bulgaria to Afghanistan and online films watched all over the world.
Much is made of the new Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and his desire for reform (“It’s not a question of how important he is to this – he is this,” says one observer) but it remains hard to judge just how much of his actions are driven by genuine belief and how much constitute a power grab. Ultimately what lingers is not the political revelations, interesting though they are, but the interviews with the blinded of Syria, the wounded of Iraq, the devastated of Bosnia: the countless casualties of the geopolitical game. Sarah Hughes