Pick of the week
Get Jiro
Anthony Bourdain’s eccentric, epicurean spirit lives on through this animation, adapted from a graphic novel series he created with Joel Rose. It’s set in a lawless, near-future LA where food is the only non-digital pleasure left. No one is more important than chefs. Our hero, sushi master Jiro, languishes in the projects with only embattled mother Miyako and sharp knives for company. When he upsets some mobsters, a survival battle ensues. Cue a series of hilariously gory deaths (one man is executed using hollandaise sauce) and lavish celebrations of food culture. The story is hokey and the dialogue doesn’t always sing but Bourdain’s love of food as a sensory delight is greedily indulged.
HBO Max, from Sunday 4 October
***
Below
While it nods in the direction of Jaws and The Fog, Below conjures up an atmosphere all of its own. It’s set in a dying coastal community in Newfoundland and stars Josh Hartnett as sturdy but vulnerable Calvin Penney, who works the waters despite being haunted by the accident that killed his father. When strange things start happening (a severed leg surfaces from the depths, an iceberg drifts into the harbour), it feels like a metaphor for a community on the brink. But what if the threat is real, not figurative? There’s space for both local folklore and climate science as Below keeps you guessing all the way.
Netflix, from Thursday 8 October
***
Africa: Earth’s Wild Home
While most nature documentaries anthropomorphise their subjects to a certain extent, this series goes further than most with a twee voiceover that imagines a dating profile for the elusive black rain frog. If you can stomach these slightly cloying moments there’s much here that is spectacular – and given Africa’s photogenic wonder, the producers have plenty to work with. The footage of a cheetah on a mountainside hunt with the lives of his family at stake is genuinely tense, and the drone shots of a single hyena taking on thousands of flamingos is startling.
Disney+, out now
***
Marshals
While Marshals takes Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes) far from the Yellowstone ranch, the moral world he inhabits feels familiar – which is to say that Kayce still divides his time between sitting on a horse gazing soulfully and dispensing violent justice. An attempted land-grab leaves Kayce facing a hostage situation with his son Tate’s life at stake. However, the hoods of Montana still somehow haven’t got the memo about what an angry Dutton is capable of. It’s as daft as ever but Marshals commits to its own mythology with total certainty.
Paramount+, from Monday 5 October
***
Carrie
It’s surprising that Stephen King’s tormented, telekinetic teen Carrie White has never found her way to the small screen before now. This adaptation by Mike Flanagan has the King seal of approval and updates the themes of the film while staying true to its gory essence. Summer H Howell’s Carrie is an endearingly gawky and sympathetic figure; homeschooled then ridiculed by the mean girl clique when she finally arrives in formal education (social media is a large factor in her ostracism) she then discovers she has unusual means of fighting back.
Prime Video, from Wednesday 7 October
***
Is It Cake? Halloween
Increasingly, Halloween would feel incomplete without Mikey Day, clad in a skeleton outfit, plunging a dagger into a severed hand, only to find fondant and vanilla sponge. This bizarre show continues to be both utterly ludicrous and uproarious fun. The lineup for this three-part special draws once again from America’s bottomless well of hyperrealistic bakers (where do they find these people?), while judges include children’s entertainer Blippi, Reno 911! star Cedric Yarbrough, WWE wrestler Bianca Belair and hysterically excited comic actor Kristen Schaal.
Netflix, out Friday 9 October
***
Until the Last Heartbeat
How far would you go to save your child’s life? This Italian drama manages to combine two familiar tropes: familial love and organised crime. Diego Mancini (Marco Bocci) is a brilliant, idealistic heart surgeon. When a health crisis involving his son coincides with mafia boss Cosimo entering his care, he’s faced with both an impossible choice and an impossible level of temptation. What follows sees the Hippocratic oath tested to destruction and beyond as, driven by fear and love, Diego thinks the unthinkable. Emotionally overripe but gripping all the same.
Channel 4, from Friday 9 October
