Pick of the week
My Brilliant Career
Miles Franklin’s 1901 coming-of-age novel about free-spirited country girl Sybylla Melvyn is regarded as a proto-feminist classic. It’s punchily brought to life in an adaptation that feels like a dusty but dynamic Australian second cousin to Bridgerton. Philippa Northeast stars as Sybylla: pushed reluctantly towards high society by her dirt-poor family but desperate to become a writer and fiercely resistant to, as she sees it, being “slowly turned on the spit of propriety”. However, there’s plenty about her family’s financial and social circumstances that she doesn’t fully understand. Northeast is an effervescent lead while Christopher Chung brings quiet charisma to Sybylla’s love interest, Harry.
Netflix, from Thursday 13 August
***
The Chosen in the Wild With Bear Grylls
Performative Christian wholesomeness squared in this series in which Bear Grylls takes the cast of religious drama The Chosen for gruelling but rewarding outdoor rambles around American natural wonders including the Adirondack Forest and the Great Basin Desert. As is customarily the way with such things, the combination of fresh air, nerve-racking challenges and extreme earnestness around campfires brings many issues to the surface – and, one by one, the actors (who include Jonathan Roumie, Paras Patel and Elizabeth Tabish) start to open up.
Prime Video, from Sunday 9 August
***
Mourinho
One of the more interesting and divisive characters of the Premier League era gets the deep-dive documentary treatment in this three-part series which, helpfully for Netflix, coincides with José Mourinho’s arrival at Real Madrid. It’s clearly made with Mourinho’s full cooperation (as a tour of his home, with a focus on his well-stocked trophy cabinet, suggests) but that doesn’t mean it glosses over the various controversies that have marked his career, most of which seem to stem from his almost pathological sense of ambition. As he wryly points out: “You wouldn’t do a documentary with a guy who won nothing.”
Netflix, from Tuesday 11 August
***
Reacher
TV’s foremost combiner of deadpan quips and deadly violence returns for another magnificently concussive adventure. When Jack Reacher (played with relish by the mountainous Alan Ritchson) encounters a crying woman on the subway, he gets more than he bargained for. He has stumbled into a massive conspiracy and his attempts to set the record straight only entangle him further. Still, even if it pits him against the rich and powerful, Reacher isn’t a man to take no for an answer. Very close to self-parody and absolutely none the worse for it.
Prime Video, from Wednesday 12 August
***
Women in Blue
This drama about an all-female division within the Mexican police is (very loosely) inspired by real 1970s events. But as the show returns, it seems more comfortable simply regarding itself as a fiction. There is a slightly cartoonish quality to these shrewd, principled, immaculately turned-out female cops as they battle both crime and conservative impulses within the force. There’s another serial killer on the loose – but the women don’t trust their own police department to follow the evidence wherever it might lead. Cue fun crime-fighting exploits with added subterfuge.
Apple TV, from Wednesday 12 August
***
An Amputation Obsession: The Monster and the Surgeon
The story of Neil Hopper will surely be attracting the attention of documentary-makers for years to come. However, Prime is quick out of the traps with this true-crime special about a man who was jailed for insurance fraud in 2025 in the wake of a journey into body modification that culminated in him voluntarily losing both legs. The criminal case is explored but, more interestingly, the documentary also looks at extreme body integrity dysmorphia and the underground networks devoted to it.
Prime Video, from Thursday 13 August
***
Everybody Lies
This engrossing French drama series seems very fitting for 2026, as it centres on Vincent Verner, a former cop who has been fired from the force for getting a little too close to bringing down a rich, deeply corrupt and dangerously well-connected man. However, his outsider status has made him useful in a semi-official capacity – he’s now part of a new unit charged with investigating cases and organisations whose power and influence make them too big to fail. Can this righteous maverick succeed where conventional law enforcement has failed?
Channel 4, from Friday 14 August
