The big disappointment for this week is new HBO Max series Made For Love. An incredibly promising trailer, but the show itself is a really limp Black Mirror wannabe. It’s watchable, but doesn’t sparkle the way one might hope.
The absolute gem of the week is the new Australian drama Wakefield. It’s a drama set in a psychiatric hospital and while it occasionally ventures into familiar One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest territory, there’s quite a lot more going on in the series. The biggest problem the series has is its opener - a really tired story with Dan Wyllie at the centre of it. If you can get past that (it’s the first 15 mins or so of the first episode), the show starts to reveal itself in some really unique ways. It’s good and you really are missing out if you don’t at least get through to the end of that first episode.
There’s full reviews for both shows in this week’s Screen Watching podcast.
Something that has surprised me is just how invested I am in the Marvel series Falcon and The Winter Soldier. It’s scratching a viewing itch of mine that I hadn’t realised needed scratching. It’s an 80s cop buddy comedy-drama, but with a liberal dose of comic book superhero action mixed in. That show is great fun and I’m quite literally antsy as I type this, waiting for the new episode in just a few hours time.
podcast:
On the Screen Watching podcast this week Dan and Simon run through the big news of the week, including the Game of Thrones Broadway musical, the cancellation of American Gods, casting announcements for Obi-Wan Kenobi on Disney+ and The Dropout on Hulu (that's the series about Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes), support for Aussie cinemas with SCREEN, and the return of CSI with CSI: Las Vegas.
You’ll also hear reviews:
- Made For Love (HBO Max / Stan)
- Nobody (Playing in cinemas now)
- The Father (Playing in cinemas now)
- Wakefield (ABC iView)
- Tom & Jerry (In cinemas now)
And Simon interviews Disclosure director Michael Bentham.
Listen on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcasts, and all the usual places you listen to your pods.
returning:
The Moodys (s02), Manifest (s03), City On a Hill (s02), Supergirl (s06), Creepshow (s02), Prank Encounters (s02)
new:
Wakefield - ABC iView
Stars: Rudi Dharmalingam, Geraldine Hakewill, Mandy McElhinney
Nikhil Katira is a psychiatric nurse working at Wakefield, a facility perched on the edge of Australia's spectacular Blue Mountains. There's one problem - while his patients are getting better, he's getting worse.
Concrete Cowboy - Netflix
Stars: Idris Elba, Lorraine Toussaint, Caleb McLaughlin
A teenager discovers the world of urban horseback riding when he moves in with his estranged father in North Philadelphia.
Made For Love - HBO Max | Stan
Stars: Cristin Milioti, Billy Magnussen, Ray Romano
A young woman, on the run after 10 years in a suffocating marriage to a tech billionaire, suddenly realizes that her husband has implanted a revolutionary monitoring device in her brain that allows him to track her every move.
Law & Order: Organized Crime - Peacock
Stars: Christopher Meloni, Dylan McDermott, Tamara Taylor
Elliot Stabler returns to the NYPD to battle organized crime after a devastating personal loss. However, the city and police department have changed dramatically in the decade he's been away, and he must adapt to a criminal justice system in the midst of its own moment of reckoning.
Godzilla vs Kong - HBO Now | In cinemas
Stars: Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, King Kong (as himself)
The epic next chapter in the cinematic Monsterverse pits two of the greatest icons in motion picture history against one another - the fearsome Godzilla and the mighty Kong - with humanity caught in the balance.
United States of Al - Paramount+
Stars: Adhir Kalyan, Parker Young, Dean Norris
The show is about the friendship between Riley, a Marine combat veteran struggling to readjust to civilian life in Ohio, and Awalmir (Al), the Afghan interpreter who served with his unit and has just arrived to start a new life in America.
That’s it for this week. Have a safe Easter break. And… let’s stay safe out there.
