Retro Pick:
Nurse Jackie S1-7
Women’s stories have long been integral to television, but rarely have they been so well-resourced. After Netflix axed much-loved wrestling dramedy GLOW in 2020, showrunners Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch simply switched channels to make Appletv+’s new draw Roar. Drawing on Cecelia Ahern’s short-story collection of 2018, this eight-episode first season tours the globe while placing the fairer sex squarely upfront. Nicole Kidman’s stressed suburban homemaker hits the road with muddled ma Judy Davis; Meera Syal returns her careworn husband to the shop; the great Merritt Wever falls for a smooth-talking duck. As with every anthology show since The Twilight Zone, the quality fluctuates, but its best instalment is a hall-offame half-hour: a funny-sad-joyous fable, gorgeously directed by So Yong Kim, in which model-turned-trophy wife Betty Gilpin finds herself literally left on the shelf.
Roar is what follows when executives commission TV ‘About Women’: it’s honourable, but also somewhat dutiful about addressing certain issues.
Hacks (Prime Video) and Shining Vale (Starz, via Prime) are what happens when creatives set about making great TV; their feminism is folded in like the strawberry sauce in a sundae. The former, loosely informed by the fraught relationship between stand-up legend Joan Rivers and her younger gagwriters, won those few of this year’s Emmys that weren’t scooped by Ted Lasso, and you can see why: superbly written and played, it’s that rare show about comedy that manages to be blisteringly funny. Shining Vale sees co-creator Sharon Horgan exporting her recurring thematic concerns to the US: Connecticut, to be precise, where Courteney Cox’s messy author is possessed by murderously frustrated spirit Mira Sorvino. Rude, irreverent fun that spirals like a demon.