The Gilded Age
television role in almost four decades has been worth the wait. Based on the 2010 book of the same name by Mick Herron, this focuses on the inhabitants of a British security service office in Aldersgate, London, a location ‘‘so far from the heart of MI5 it might as well be in Slough’’.
While there are potentially scene-stealing supporting turns from Kristin ScottThomas and Jonathan Pryce, the epicentre of the black, occasionally bleak comedy is the tour de force that is Oldman’s Jackson Lamb.
A creation to rival his Oscar-winning Darkest Hour’s Churchill, Sirius Black or The Professional’s classical musicloving Stansfield, it’s a role Oldman appears to throw himself wholeheartedly into.
Station Eleven (Neon)
Like last year’s brilliant Kiwishot Sweet Tooth, this 10-part sci-fi saga is based on a popular literary source (here it’s Emily St John Mandel’s awardwinning 2014 novel of the same name). Its fractured narrative flits between the build-up and causes of the epidemic and the struggles the remnants of humanity face in its aftermath.
The cast includes Mackenzie Davis, Himesh Patel and Lori Petty. With as much emphasis on the characters and emotional drama as the sci-fi elements, Station Eleven is a show that’s easy to get hooked on.
This is Going to Hurt (TVNZ+)
The BBC’s latest hospital-set series couldn’t be further away from the glossy visions of Grey’s Anatomy. This is a bleakly comedic, raw and unsettling look at the lives of junior doctors working on an obstetrics and gynaecology ward in a London hospital.
The masterstrokes here were getting the accomplished comedy script editor Adam Kay to adapt his own critically acclaimed 2015 memoir (based on his experiences as a junior doctor), as well as casting the brilliant Ben Whishaw to play him. The now 41-year-old combines magnificent comedic timing with an extremely relatable vulnerability, skills exploited to the hilt here.
Under the Banner of Heaven (Disney+)
Based on Jon Krakauer’s 2003 investigation into the 1984 murders of Brenda and Erica Lafferty, Andrew Garfield plays East Rockwell, Utah, detective Jeb Pyre.
Like most of the town, he’s a member of the Latter-Day Saints, using the teachings of Joseph Smith to guide his actions and life. But he is shaken to the core by the ‘‘house of horrors’’ he finds one evening, a 24-year-old and her 15-month-old daughter brutally slain, their blood splattered across a wide area.
Strip away the religious trappings and investigation into the history of one faith and, at its heart, this is a terrific true-crime dramatisation. Gripping and dripping with tension, it feels like a lost series of True Detective.