Search for a killer serpent
PICK OF THE WEEK The Essex Serpent Apple TV+
When your wealthy, abusive husband finally dies and you find yourself with the time and freedom to pursue your hobbies, what do you do? For amateur paleontologist Cora Seaborne (Claire Danes) the answer is obvious: you move to a small rural village and search for a mythical creature locals claim is lurking in the marshes.
The Apple TV+ adaptation of Sarah Perry’s 2016 bestseller The Essex Serpent is like a deeply Gothic late-Victorian era X Files — in the best possible way. Curious widow Cora abandons London society for the windswept and permanently foggy Essex countryside after reading reports of a “monstrous serpent” in the paper. She arrives to some terrible news: a little girl has gone missing. Gracie Banks was last seen leaving the village to sell lace, and hasn’t been seen or heard from since. The locals are on tenterhooks, and vicar Will Ransome (Tom Hiddlestone) is trying his best to keep a lid on rumours it was the serpent what got her. In one of the great Gothic meet cutes, Cora bumps into him trying to rescue a sheep stuck in the marshes.
The vicar is, it seems, the only sceptic in the village, but seems to enjoy rigorous intellectual debates with the more openminded Cora. “The serpent isn’t real,” he states unequivocally over dinner. “But what if it is?” she proposes. While these two are flirting up a storm, Cora also exchanges letters with her former husband’s doctor back in London. Celebrity surgeon Dr Luke Garrett (Frank Dillane) makes his feelings very clear with his gift of a preserved slice of human heart.
Gloriously moody atmosphere, striking scenery and creeping sense of dread — it’s all good stuff. Further proof that Apple TV+ is the place to be for consistently top-shelf TV these days.
WORTH WATCHING Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? Neon
Not one of Agatha Christie’s better-known mysteries, but an Agatha Christie mystery nonetheless, and perhaps all the better for its relative obscurity. Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? takes its title from the last words of a man found dying on a golf course, whose subsequent death is investigated not by the usual Christie detectives Marple or Poirot but by an amateur golfer turned amateur gumshoe (Will Poulter) and his wellheeled lady friend (Lucy Boynton). Hugh Laurie adapted and pops up in this three-part version, which also features turns from screen legends Emma Thompson and Jim Broadbent.
Angelyne TVNZ OnDemand
Usually after reading a person’s Wikipedia page you emerge with slightly a better idea of who they are and what they’ve done but this is not the case for Angelyne, who several hundred words later remains a total enigma.
The very brief version of her bio is that she was a “blonde bombshell” famous for appearing on billboards around Los Angeles in the 1980s — a kind of protoinfluencer, famous-forbeing-famous type of deal. There’s surely more to it than that, though, otherwise why would they bother to make a whole series about her life?
Night Sky Prime Video
Something about JK Simmons and Sissy Spacek as a couple just feels so right you’ll probably want to do a quick search and check they’re not actually married in real life. They’re not, but in Night Sky they have been for more than 50 years — she’s an English teacher, he’s a retired woodworker, just a nice ordinary couple enjoying a nice ordinary life who it’s also probably worth noting have a portal to a distant, deserted
planet in their backyard. They do a pretty good job of keeping it on the downlow — but that all could change when a mysterious enigmatic stranger wanders through the portal.
MOVIE OF THE WEEK Together Together Neon
Patti Harrison has stolen every scene of everything she’s ever been in (Shrill, I Think You Should Leave) by exclusively playing unhinged maniacs.
Together Together proves she can do “normal acting” too, and is in fact very good at it. She plays the surrogate to a single 40-something square (Ed Helms, also playing it more toned down than usual) who decides to have a baby. Sounds like it could be very bad, but you’ll be pleasantly surprised to learn it’s actually an extremely likeable,
heartwarming and wellcrafted slice of comedydrama.
FROM THE VAULT Skins (2007) TVNZ OnDemand
Just as Euphoria offers an incredibly stressful glimpse into the secret lives of hardpartying US Zoomers, Skins took us deeper than anybody thought possible into the debauched world of British millennials. It was a different time — less social media, more bad haircuts and indie music — but the full range of hardhitting issues was still well and truly on the table, in a way that felt groundbreaking then and still holds up better than most youthoriented TV since. See for yourself now the full six seasons are available on TVNZ OnDemand.
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