Red, White & Royal Blue

• We have never been more spoilt for choice when it comes to what we can watch on (streaming) television.
• But the downside of this gluttony of riches is the sheer overwhelm that can come from having to choose your next show.

Glamorous

• Netflix Kim Cattrall showed considerable savvy when, rather than rejoin the cast of Sex and the City, she opted to play Madolyn Addison, the dynamic head of beauty brand Glamorous.
• On the surface this is even frothier than Sex and the City, and some critics have panned it.
• Glamorous is as camp as Barbie, but far cleverer and more subversive: without a spoiler, it’s worth comparing the way the two end.

Starstruck season three

• Last season ended with a moment that was equal parts romantic and absurd, as Jessie and Tom reconcile and make out in a pond.
• But the new season opens with a montage tracing the subsequent two years of moving in together and then drifting apart.
• Starstruck understands what makes Jessie and Tom interesting to watch: not domestic bliss, but their awkward banter and difficulty overcoming their mismatched quirks, despite their obvious chemistry and attraction.

Far North

• ThreeNow (New Zealand) and Paramount+ (Australia) The terrific new New Zealand dark comedy Far North dramatises a bizarre meth-smuggling case from 2016, in which a ridiculously inept gang nearly got half a ton of methamphetamine to market, only to be rumbled by the locals.
• Impeccably shot, and featuring a wonderfully motley assortment of low-rent crims, desperate drug runners, cartel mobsters and salt-of-the-earth locals, Far North is easily one of the best (and funniest) New Zealand shows in years.

Mother and Son

• ABC iView Mother and Son has long been regarded as one of Australia’s greatest sitcoms.
• Read more:
  The Mother and Son reboot has fresh things to say about adult children and their ageing parents

  For anyone who has cared for an ageing parent – or faced the diminution of their autonomy as they have aged – Mother and Son still strikes a nerve.

• In the 2023 Mother and Son, Maggie (Denise Scott) is a free-spirited eccentric who almost burned down the family home while cooking dinner for her grandchildren.

Ai no Sato (Love Village)

• In the UK, the upcoming show My Mum, Your Dad (an Australian version aired in 2022) is being billed as “middle-aged Love Island”.
• Ai no Sato, or Love Village, is a take on the stalwart Japanese reality dating format Ainori (Love Wagon).
• In Ai no Sato, by contrast, contestants (all aged over 35) renovate a house in rural Japan together … and fall in love along the way.
• I love Ainori, but Ai no Sato takes things to a new level.

Unforgotten season five

• There are a lot of excellent series out there (Broadchurch, Happy Valley and Karen Pirie are all exceptional).
• This is perhaps why it took me so long to give Unforgotten a go.
• Each season begins with the discovery of a murder that the historical crimes unit must solve, led by DCI Cassie Stuart (the wonderful Nicola Walker) and DI Sunil Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar).
• Season five sees the departure of Walker and new to the team is DCI Jessica James (Sinéad Keenan).

Beautiful Disaster

• Prime If Beautiful Disaster, the new film from Cruel Intentions director Roger Kumble, had come out 20 years ago, no one would have paid it much attention.
• However, streaming in 2023 – now the rom-com has disappeared as a mainstay of Hollywood cinema – there’s something refreshingly delightful about it.
• At the same time, only sometimes effectively, Beautiful Disaster thinks through questions around erotic power dynamics in a post-#MeToo era, comically centring on the kind of guilt Abby feels regarding her attraction to Travis.