BOX SETS AND ON DEMAND

Bridgerton (Netflix, from Thu)

The eagerly awaited first four episodes of the smashhit period drama’s third season are here at last. Nicola Coughlan’s character, Penelope Featherington, will be stepping into the limelight as she searches for an escape from her family by finding a suitable husband. Helping her is Colin Bridgerton, who is back from his travels with a new look. Despite his disparaging words about Penelope in the previous run, it soon becomes clear that he now sees her in a whole new light – but whether she feels the same is a different matter.

Queen Rock Montreal (Disney+, from Wed)

In November 1981, Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon played the last two concerts in their The Game tour at the 18,000-seater Montreal Forum. The gigs were recorded for posterity, with the resulting film receiving a remastered DVD release in 2007. Since then it’s appeared on IMAX screens and Blu-ray, and is now making its way onto the streaming service. “It’s like being on stage with the band because the cameras are very high quality for the time,” claims Taylor. “I’ve never seen anything that makes you feel quite so involved with the performance.”

Grown-ish

(Disney+, from Wed)

The teen comedy-drama series is back for its sixth and final season, during which we continue to learn about Junior’s university adventures following big sister Zoey’s graduation. Viewers will still get an opportunity to catch up with the rest of the Johnson clan too, including the aforementioned Zoey, who has a big decision to make – after living with Aaron for three months, do the couple think they have a future together, or is it time to move on? The series begins as the gang gather to attend a music festival before going

their separate ways for the summer.

Outer Range (Prime, from Thu)

Science fiction and the Western are not easy bedfellows, but Brian Watkins made the unusual mix work during the first run of Outer Range. He’s passing the showrunner baton on to Charles Murray for the second season – here’s hoping he continues the good work. Josh Brolin returns as Royal Abbott, a Wyoming rancher who discovered a mysterious black void in his west pasture, just as a mysterious stranger arrived. Now Royal and his family are set to face danger from a number of sources, all while struggling to cope with the disappearance of his granddaughter.

The Big Cigar

(Apple TV+, from Fri)

In the UK, Joshuah Bearman is perhaps best known for writing the article on which the Oscar-winning film Argo was based; it retold how the CIA used the shooting of a fake sci-fi movie as cover for the rescue of American embassy staff from Tehran. In 2012, he published another story, this time in Playboy magazine, in which politics collided with Hollywood again. His focus was on Black Panther founder Huey Newton’s efforts to flee the US and make it to safety in Cuba, with help from famed producer Bert Schneider. It was an elaborate plot but, as we’re about to discover, not one that went exactly to plan… Andre Holland and Alessandro Nivola play Newton and Schneider respectively.

Nicola Coughlan