Pick of the week
Stranger Things
A gruesome flashback to Dr Brenner’s lab cuts to sunny guitar pop and a teenage diary entry. Straight away, we’re back in the universe of Stranger Things, where the fantastical and the commonplace bleed into each other. This ordinariness has always been one of the show’s strengths – but, at times, it has felt as if we’re simply watching a likable, slightly aimless teen drama with the supernatural elements spread thinly. Still, the characters remain nicely realised: the messiness of adolescence is causing Jane/Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) to lose friends and Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) to think of finding some new ones. But, as always, the Upside Down is waiting for a likely conduit.
Netflix, from Friday 27 May
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Obi-Wan Kenobi
“The Jedi code is like an itch. We cannot help it.” This long-awaited series – a prequel to the original films but set in the aftermath of the later trilogy – fills another gap in the elastic time frame of the Star Wars universe, positing Jedi status as more of a curse than a blessing. It finds Ewan McGregor’s Obi in a more vulnerable place, broken by his experience of Order 66 and living in hiding after the fall of the Republic. Furthermore, Darth Vader (Hayden Christensen) hasn’t finished with our hero – hunting down the Jedi because they represent both opposition to his rule and a hated part of himself.
Disney+, from Friday 27 May
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Prehistoric Planet
We are used to David Attenborough explaining natural history to us, but can the nonagenarian explain prehistory? This series exploits a combination of the gravitas conferred by Attenborough’s voice and some stupendous visuals to present a startling vision of the Cretaceous period. With an episode every day this week, this collaboration between the BBC’s Natural History Unit and The Lion King’s photorealist effects team MPC is essentially a classic BBC-style nature epic, transferred to a new menagerie of biting, roaring and scampering creatures.
Apple TV+, from Monday 23 May
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Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045
The first season proved divisive, thanks mainly to the design of its animation, which abandoned the classical manga aesthetic of the original comics for a flashy but more generic-looking CGI style. The same gripes remain – albeit with an added layer of irony in a series where the narrative now explores the implications of out-of-control AI leading to a homogenised, posthuman condition. However, the story is developed in complex and interesting ways, dealing with the Orwellian concept of “sustainable war” and the possible end point of evolution.
Netflix, from Monday 23 May
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Ricky Gervais: SuperNature
“That was irony. There’s going to be a bit of that throughout the show. That’s when I say something I don’t really mean, for comic effect.” If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Stewart Lee will be thrilled at having been such a source of inspiration for Gervais’s new hour-long standup special. Or maybe he won’t; in Gervais’s hands, irony often seems the default mode of a man simply wanting to have his cake and eat it – railing against the notion of taboos while relying on them for laughs. Still, he’s undeniably a gifted comic brain, albeit often on autopilot.
Netflix, from Tuesday 24 May
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Somebody Feed Phil
A fifth season of vicarious travel and food adventures in the company of Everybody Loves Raymond creator Phil Rosenthal. The show’s secret is Rosenthal’s evident delight throughout, not just in the food he tastes but also the people he meets and the regional and national identities he explores. This will be Rosenthal’s first post-Covid series (“The world is opening up again and so is my mouth”) and he’s evidently happy to be back on the road, sampling, among other things, the best sausages in Lisbon and a classic Mexican cantina.
Netflix, from Wednesday 25 May
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Afrobeats: The Backstory
The propulsive, multidimensional Nigerian musical phenomenon has long gone global, with Grammy nominations for several of its leading lights. But this success has been years in the making – and film-maker Ayo Shonaiya has been there from the start. Beginning in 1999, this series tracks the emergence of scene pioneers such as Burna Boy and D’Banj, and tells a wider story of Nigerian growth, development and national self-actualisation. Shonaiya accurately describes this labour of love as “a history lesson with a musical soundtrack”.
Netflix, from Friday 27 May
