Copyright brisbanetimes
My top Stan recommendation is He Had It Coming (November 20). Blessed with an anarchic sense of humour and a sharp eye for performative hypocrisy, this Australian campus comedy follows a mismatched pair of students – awkward English arts hopeful Elise (Lydia West) and self-concerned influencer Barbara (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) – who wake from a night of drunken antics to find that a statue they vandalised is now also the murder site of an entitled male student. Cue self-preservation and amateur detective efforts. With shades of Amazon Prime’s brilliant Deadloch, the trailer suggests that creators Gretel Vella (The Great) and Craig Anderson (Double the Fist) are happily willing to skewer everyone involved. Also on Stan: Luther creator Neil Cross goes full thriller with The Iris Affair (November 13), a British limited series about an enigmatic genius, Iris Nixon (Niamh Algar), who cracks a series of puzzles devised by a disruptive entrepreneur, Cameron Beck (Tom Hollander). Her reward? The chance to collaborate on a piece of new technology. But once Iris discovers its power she’s compelled to steal its activation device and go on the run, with a vengeful Cameron in pursuit. The setting is Italy, and the stars should have terrific chemistry. Hopefully Cross lets them have at it. October highlights: Sex, consent and surveillance were dangerously intertwined in the Australian thriller Watching You, while The Hack told the story behind one of Britain’s most shocking media crises. Amazon Prime My top Amazon Prime recommendation is Malice (November 14). The domestic help thriller is a potent idea: a household brings in an outsider as hired help, exposing themselves to an infiltrator who sabotages their lives. Often the newcomer is a nanny – think the just-remade The Hand that Rocks the Cradle on Disney+ – but this British drama applies a gender flip to the plot. When wealthy London couple Jamie (David Duchovny) and Nat Tanner (Carice van Houten) engage male nanny Adam Healey (Jack Whitehall) to help with their children while on a summer holiday, the young man slots easily into their privileged lives. But once they hire Jamie permanently his malignant intentions take shape. Done right, this should be tense and uncomfortable. Also on Amazon Prime: Reacher star Alan Ritchson has proven that he has few equals in the “jacked dudes pulverise bad guys” genre. So what else can all that muscle do? One possible answer is Playdate (November 12), an action-comedy about an accountant, Brian (Kevin James), whose son’s new friend has an alpha-male dad, Jeff (Ritchson), whose friendly antics swiftly lead to fighting assassins and high-speed car chases. You know the drill: Brian looks horrified while Jeff delivers one-liners and action-hero moves. It’s so predictable it’s going to need everyone involved to be truly in on the joke. October highlights: There was an affectionate documentary for a favourite 1980s film star with John Candy: I Like Me, plus Sam Claflin and Bill Nighy as father and son in the supernatural mystery Lazarus. My top ABC iview recommendation is Maigret (November 7). The character of Parisian police detective Jules Maigret is one of crime fiction’s most famous, with author Georges Simenon writing more than 100 novels and short stories between 1931 and 1972. There have been countless Maigret adaptations over the years, be it under French, British or even Japanese auspices, but what distinguishes this latest English-language version is that it’s set in the present day and begins with a comparatively fresh-faced Maigret. Benjamin Wainwright (Belgravia: The Next Chapter) plays the serious young lawman, with Stefanie Martini (The Last Kingdom) as his wife, psychiatric nurse Louise. And, yes, the show is using Simenon’s novels as source material. October highlights: An unscrupulous conman untied his female victims in the darkly comic thriller The Following Events Are Based on a Pack of Lies. SBS On Demand My top SBS On Demand recommendation is Reckless (November 12). SBS’ new original series is a darkly comic First Nations thriller about a pair of feuding siblings from Fremantle, June (Tasma Walton) and Charlie (Hunter Page-Lochard), who are forced to trust each other when they cover up a deadly hit-and-run accident. Adapting the acclaimed Scottish thriller Guilt, creators Kodie Bedford (Mystery Road) and Stuart Page (Total Control) are mining the fault-lines of family and malfeasance. As keeping their mutual secret forces June and Charlie into ever-worsening circumstances, the question will be how they make their way out of the hole they’ve dug. October highlights: A new season of the unpredictable British comic-drama The Change raised the stakes for its second-chance heroine, plus reappraising history with Suranne Jones: Investigating Witch Trials. Other streamers My top recommendation for the other streaming services is Paramount+’s Ghosts Australia (November 2). Ghosts is one of the best sitcom concepts of the past 10 years: a young couple inherits a country house stocked with spirits from various historical eras who died on the property, which the female half of the new owners can suddenly see and hear after a serious accident. The British flagship debuted in 2019, the American remake followed in 2021, and now it’s Australia’s turn. Tamala (Cleverman) and Rowan Witt (Totally Completely Fine) play the living newcomers, with their spectral tenants including Mandy McElhinney (Paper Giants) as Eileen, a pessimistic Irish matriarch from the 1850s, and Jackson Tozer (Time Bandits) as Satan, a 1990s biker who is more bark than bite. Newcomers to the show can expect culture-clash humour, farcical back stories and an ever-evolving dynamic. Also: BritBox’s Lynley (November 6) is a fresh take on The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, a BBC case-of-the-week drama that aired between 2001 and 2008. The story’s foundation remains the same: the professional drive and personal friction between hard-charging police detectives Thomas Lynley (Leo Suter) and Barbara Havers (Sofia Barclay). He’s the aristocrat’s son who will inherit an earlship, she’s the working-class scrapper who has no time for an Oxford old boy. Writer-producer Steve Thompson (Leonardo) is in charge, and with any luck the lead duo’s mockery of each other will be endearingly sharp. October highlights: BritBox’s Scottish detective drama Karen Pirie continued to deliver north-of-the-border thrills. * Nine owns Stan and this masthead. Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.
