TVON DEMAND
We dig out the hidden gems so you don’t have to...
NETFLIX, AMAZON, ALL4, RTE PLAYER, DISNEY+ FRESH
DISNEY+/STAR THRILLER
Gruesome comedy horror with Normal People’s Daisy Edgar-Jones excellent as Noa, a young woman fed up with the sort of men she encounters through dating apps. When she meets the charming Steve (Pam & Tommy’s Sebastian Stan) in a grocery store, she’s very taken with him and accepts his invitation to a weekend away at a remote house in the woods, despite the fact that her best friend thinks he’s a bit shady. Moral of the story? Listen to your best friend. From Friday
JOE VS CAROLE PEACOCK/NOW DRAMA
Tiger King captured the public’s imagination like few documentaries before it when it burst on to Netflix during the first lockdown. Now Peacock is getting in on the action with this dramatisation of events. John Cameron Mitchell (right) plays Joe Exotic, and Kate McKinnon is Carole Baskin, while Kyle MacLachlan is particularly inspired casting as Howard Baskin. This is a tale that rivals Twin Peaks in the sheer bizarreness stakes.
From Friday
LUCY AND DESI AMAZON DOCUMENTARY
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz (right) were one of the original Hollywood power couples, founding Desilu Productions to market their sitcom I Love Lucy to TV networks – basically inventing the concept of broadcast syndication in the process. Bette Midler is among the talking heads in this biopic, directed by Parks
And Recreation star Amy Poehler as a love letter to the pioneers who changed the shape of sitcoms for ever. From Friday
IN THE EARTH SKY STORE FILM
If you go down to the woods today you’re sure of a big surprise… Made over the course of 15 days during the pandemic, Ben Wheatley’s British horror bears some signs of its schedule but is an effective chiller. Scientific researcher Martin (Joel Fry) and his guide Alma (Ellora Torchia) venture into some woods to find a scientist conducting experiments on the terrain’s unusual fertility. From Sunday
PIECES OF HER NETFLIX DRAMA
Andrea (Bella Heathcote) is having lunch at a restaurant on her 30th birthday with her therapist mum Laura (Toni Collette) when a crazed shooter attacks the customers. Despite being injured, Laura violently dispatches him and a video goes viral, setting off events revealing part of Laura’s past that her daughter never suspected. From Friday
WEST SIDE STORY DISNEY+ FILM
You might think a remake of one of the greatest ever musicals by one of our greatest living directors would be a box-office smash, but Spielberg’s West Side Story (below) bombed despite ecstatic reviews. Analysts think it was because the target audience was reluctant to return to the cinema. But this looks and sounds great and will bring a tear to your eye. From Wednesday
CREEDON’S ATLAS OF IRELAND
RTÉ PLAYER
AS an extra-long bank holiday weekend approaches later this month, here’s a chance to catch up with the avuncular presenter’s road trip around the island, teasing and exploring the true meaning behind some of Ireland’s most unusual, iconic and famous place names. Each show is an hour-long journey where John discovers lost meanings behind every day place names. Available now
STAR TREK: PICARD AMAZON SCI-FI
Patrick Stewart (right) returns to boldly go, even (spoiler alert) after his character’s demise at the end of the last series.
DRAMA THE DROPOUT DISNEY+ DRAMA
The trial of Elizabeth Holmes and her company Theranos has been big news and has divided opinion across the US. For the uninitiated, Holmes proposed a new way of taking blood samples, imagining a device that provided accurate results using only a small amount of blood – a pinprick rather than a syringe. The plan was popular and attracted huge sums from investors – however, the science was not sound. This seven-part dramatised account is based on a factual podcast of the same name and stars Amanda Seyfried (left) as Holmes, with Naveen Andrews as her former partner (business and romantic) Sunny Balwani, and Stephen Fry as British biochemist and Theranos chief scientist Ian Gibbons. From Thursday Granted a new synthetic body, he ventures forth. Whoopi
Goldberg returns as Guinan. From Friday
ICE COLD MURDERS: ROCCO SCHIAVONE
ALL4 PRESENTS
THIS recently-broadcast character-driven Italian crime drama follows a cranky and unorthodox detective who has been exiled to the snowbound Val D’Aosta where he is confronted with compelling cases. In Italian, with subtitles. Available now
SURVIVING PARADISE:
A FAMILY TALE
NETFLIX NATURE DOCUMENTARY
Regé-Jean Page got viewers hot under the collar in his breakout role in Bridgerton. Now he is set to send temperatures soaring in a different way as narrator of this documentary charting life for the lions, elephants and other animals that call the Okavango Delta – a vast oasis amid the Kalahari Desert – home. From Thursday
THE BAY
VIRGIN MEDIA PLAYER
A chance to cach up with two seasons of this gripping thriller as police officers and family liason teams untangle the complexities of criminal cases in Morecambe, a pretty seaside town northwest England. Starring Morven Christie. Available now