Pick of the week
Pompeii: Out of Time With Tom Hiddleston
Tom Hiddleston is billed as an “amateur classicist” in this slightly cheesy but undeniably engaging documentary drama series, which unpacks and personalises the events surrounding the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79. Hiddleston – who visited Pompeii as a teenager and has been fascinated ever since – enlists the help of historians, geoscientists and psychologists to explore every aspect of the disaster as it unfolded. It’s an effective way of taking those events out of the history books and relocating them in the realm of lived human experience. Using reconstructions, it follows three citizens of Pompeii as the ground shudders under their feet and the deadly volcanic ash starts to close in.
Disney+, from Thursday 23 July
***
The Crow Girl
“You think you’ve seen some shit in this job, but …” No wonder the forensic pathologist is unsettled: the second season of this crime thriller begins with a horrific scene on a farm that will make you reassess any fondness you might have for pigs. It sets the tone for an entertaining story as Eve Myles’s DCI Jeanette Kilburn and team realise how many clues they missed in the original murder case. Adapted from Erik Axl Sund’s novels, The Crow Girl expertly toys with our sympathies (the main suspect’s grim and expanding backstory being a case in point) and delights in taking everything slightly too far.
Paramount+, from Monday 20 July
***
Young Farts Trailer Parts
Rugged, cheerful fun in this reality series starring Jagger and Dawson Glowatsky, a pair of devoted but endlessly bickering brothers who run a yard trading spare parts for recreational vehicles in Canada. It’s the most idealised version of male bonding imaginable – the lads seem to spend as much time belting around their warehouse on carts and enjoying barbecues as they do working – but they’re just about likable enough to carry it off. The mood is essentially Top Gear meets Scrapheap Challenge, with added whooping and a few wholesome family homilies.
Prime Video, out now
***
King of the Hill
Last year’s revival of this cherished animated sitcom was a triumph, proving that if a show’s characters are resonant enough, they can essentially pick up where they left off many years earlier. Season 15 continues to be funny and wise in equal measure: Hank and Peggy are doing their best to settle into retirement but a certain restlessness is still evident – not least when Hank introduces Peggy to the delights of golf. Meanwhile, Bobby looks to have found love but will his romance with Connie survive contact with her somewhat daunting parents?
Disney+, from Monday 20 July
***
A Toxic Love Story
An extraordinary and grotesque true-crime story is explored in this documentary about the feud between Ian and Angela Diaz and Ian’s ex Michelle Hadley. The source of Ian and Michelle’s enmity was a property they co-owned in California. But the details of the case are astonishing in their cruelty, involving threats of kidnapped children and Craigslist adverts ostensibly searching for men wishing to fulfil rape fantasies. However, using interviews with both police and the main players, the film gradually reveals a reality that is more remarkable still.
Netflix, from Wednesday 22 July
***
Kaulitz & Kaulitz
A third season of hijinks with the German brothers who have parlayed their career in pop-metal combo Tokio Hotel into an uber-camp reality TV franchise. Tom and Bill are cleaning up – non-alcoholic beers are being chugged, vegetable stews are bubbling away on the stove and marathons are under discussion. Thankfully, it can’t last: soon, the mother of all pool parties is blowing away a few cobwebs but also revealing a few faultlines in their sibling relationship. Before long, events have taken a serious turn with unresolved childhood trauma on the agenda.
Netflix, from Wednesday 22 July
***
Sea Shadows
The conventions of moody drama normally dictate that protagonists are forced to return to their home towns to investigate murder cases. But there’s a twist on the formula in this French thriller, in which oceanographer Abigail returns to her place of origin to examine a mysterious shipwreck. She enters a hotbed of political tensions as the town’s authorities clash with both local fishers and environmental activists. But it soon becomes clear that these interested parties aren’t the real story – what lies beneath the ocean surface is stranger than anyone has imagined.
Channel 4, from Friday 24 July
