Why everyone's talking about Heated Rivalry
The Canadian sports romance series, based on Rachel Reid's novels, is the show of the moment.
When it comes to sport, hockey might be a big player on the international stage, but it's not exactly a huge draw when it comes to storytelling on screen. Not since the Mighty Ducks, anyway. That's all changed now though thanks to a pair of gay hockey players who develop the hots for each other while they puck their way to the top. Based on Rachel Reid's Game Changers novel series, Heated Rivalry follows Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) as they compete on the ice and get steamy in the bedroom. Along the way, they struggle with the toll that comes with keeping their love secret while training to be the very best at what they do. Throw in a whole lot of butts and it's easy to see the immediate appeal of this story. But even so, it's hard to fathom just how quickly Heated Rivalry took the world by storm. Jacob Tierney's adaptation started out as a Crave original, which probably doesn't mean a whole lot to people who live outside of Canada. But just a week before the premiere launched, Heated Rivalry picked up an international distribution deal, expanding the show's reach to millions more via HBO Max (you know, the streamer that won't arrive on our shores until March 2026). Even so, Heated Rivalry didn't receive the same kind of big marketing push that HBO originals like House of the Dragon take for granted. Not from the network anyway. Instead, promotion fell to the fans. Specifically, horny fans of Reid's original book who pored through every moment in the first trailer, creating countless edits and screaming reaction videos using just 90 seconds of material. View Green Video on the source website Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, executive producer Brendan Brady revealed it was this fan buzz that directly led to HBO Max's involvement, thereby securing the show's international success. But distribution alone could never guarantee such a rabid response, especially for a show that has no recognisable IP outside of the book fanbase. That's where the butts come in. What started with just happy book readers soon turned into a collective lust driven by gay men and straight women alike, something the series heavily leans into. From early showers together to their first hotel hook-up, Shane and Ilya's relationship is defined almost entirely by sex. It's the language of the show itself. As Tierney told THR, "Sex is how you tell the story because their sex changes as they get to know each other, as they get to know themselves." Sex sells, of course, but it's also easy to imagine a world where Heated Rivalry could have downplayed these scenes, watering them down to appeal to a wider audience. Thankfully, Tierney's team did no such thing, and the results speak for themselves. If anything, their adaptation of Heated Rivalry goes to even further extremes in the bedroom department. The sex is almost constant, punctuated by brief conversations and expansive time jumps before the bedroom action begins anew. It's no exaggeration to say that far more of the show takes place between the sheets than on the ice. Except, the sheets rarely get in the way of what can only be described as a peachy barrage of endless cheeks displayed onscreen. Actors Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie obviously bring a lot of physical appeal to Heated Rivalry, but beyond the well-lit smut, it's their chemistry that sells the show. Without that, the sex could have been corny or even cringe to watch. And it's not just in these scenes where their connection shines. Even with clothes on, Williams and Storrie embody something very real, a growing lust and even love worth rooting for. Of course, it doesn't hurt that they're nice to look at too, but good looks will only get you so far, especially with such a straightforward narrative. Rather than gun for big names, Tierney's team prioritised choosing the right talent to bring these characters to life, actors who could lean into the yearning that's so integral to this story. As naughty as the show can be, it's also rather moving at points – I defy you to watch Shane slowly delete his "we didn’t even kiss" message without feeling something. Heated Rivalry is as authentic in its feelings as it is in its approach to gay sex, something which mainstream productions rarely nail. And therein lies the show's true appeal, this ability to pull us in and speak to the romantic in us too. Well, that and the fact there's almost no actual hockey here to speak of. Why would we want to watch sports when we can watch Shane and Ilya score off the rink instead? Heated Rivalry is available to watch on HBO Max in the US. Add Heated Rivalry to your watchlist on the Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Top 100 of 2025: The best TV shows and movies of the year – ranked
Your definitive guide to the best TV and movies of 2025 is right here! Get ready to dive into the top shows and films of the year.
It's been a stellar year for fans of top-tier TV and movies and, as 2025 draws to a close, it's time to look back on the best of the best. One of, if not the most talked about show of the year came back in March with the release of Jack Thorne's powerful drama Adolescence on Netflix. The series, starring Stephen Graham and Ashley Walters alongside breakout young star Owen Cooper, made ratings history and had a profound impact outside of the world of TV too. More highlights from the past year included the Oscar-nominated film Nickel Boys, Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan's hotly anticipated return to television with Pluribus and the deeply affecting documentary Brianna: A Mother's Story. So whether you're rewatch-ready or looking to catch up on the finest fare you missed this year (it's easy to do, there's been a busy schedule of first-class releases!), delve into our definitive ranking: the top 100 TV shows and movies of 2025. To cater to all kinds of fans, we've broken it down into Dramas (from Untamed to Down Cemetery Road), Sci-Fi and Fantasy series (not just Pluribus but much, much more), Documentaries (including Caroline Flack: Search for the Truth and Grenfell: Uncovered) and, finally, Films. Here are the best 25 of each category over the past 12 months – ensuring there's something for everyone this holiday season. The best Dramas of 2025 From an award-winning exploration of teen disaffection to the harrowing story of a shooting, these dramas had everyone talking this year. 25. Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes Where to watch: Disney+ Electrician Jean Charles de Menezes was making his way to work in the wake of the 7/7 terrorist attacks when he was shot and killed by Metropolitan Police officers. The catalogue of failings that led up to the events of 22 July 2005 (covered brilliantly by BBC Two documentary 7/7: the London Bombings, still available on iPlayer) is dramatised in this unflinching four-part drama, including the actions of key figures Ian Blair (Conleth Hill), Brian Paddick (Russell Tovey) and Cressida Dick (Emily Mortimer). It’s startling how quickly fiction became fact following the tragedy and how – 20 years on – many inaccuracies still percolate. Hopefully, this drama has gone some way to definitively righting those wrongs. – Frances Taylor 24. Trespasses Where to watch: Channel 4 When young primary schoolteacher Cushla (Lola Petticrew) meets charismatic but married barrister Michael (Tom Cullen), they’re instantly attracted. But she’s Catholic, he’s Protestant and this is Northern Ireland in 1975. From the start this love affair is doomed. Adapted from Louise Kennedy’s novel, Trespasses portrays the unbearable stress of living under intense divisions with an ever-present threat of violent retribution. With strong support from Gillian Anderson as Cushla’s drunken, flinty mother and Martin McCann as her brother, it packs a heck of a dramatic punch. – Jane Rackham 23. Smoke Where to watch: Apple TV This drama based on real events is a – forgive us – slow burn, since the revelation at the close of episode two turns the humdrum detective drama on its head. Taron Egerton and Dennis Lehane (the star and creator of the excellent Black Bird) reunite here with Egerton as Dave Gudsen, an arson investigator hunting down serial fire-setters in the Pacific North West. With Jurnee Smollett and Rafe Spall as Gudsen’s reluctant co-investigators, a darkly twisting, handsomely filmed drama keeps finding new ways for its imperfect characters to surprise us. – Jacke Seale 22. Bookish Where to watch: NOW The aftermath of the Second World War is a high time for lovers of crime, as morals often seem as grey as the rubble-strewn streets. Amid scarcity come those seeking to profit, and down these roads of supposed peace walk people, considered to be heroes, who are harbouring secrets from their years spent in conflict. Into this morally murky world comes the likeable Gabriel Book (Mark Gatiss), who very much embodies a sense of duality. He’s a London bookshop owner with a sideline in sleuthing, and a married man (Polly Walker plays his wife Trottie) who’s gay at a time when homosexuality was illegal. This last detail is a smart touch, allowing a subtle, poignant exploration of his private life. – David Brown 21. Hacks Where to watch: NOW This may be the funniest comedy you’ve never heard of. Hacks has won Emmys, Golden Globes and many fans, but still goes unnoticed on this side of the pond. Jean Smart is sublime as Deborah Vance – a stand-up comedian whose star was on the wane until she was paired with young writer Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder). The end of season three saw Deborah finally having achieved her ambition of hosting a late-night chat show. Ava’s career is also soaring, having secured the position of head writer on the show. So, what could possibly go wrong in season four? Well, quite a lot – given Ava’s trying to play Deborah at her own wily game. A game Deborah has been playing for 50 years, and never loses. – Frances Taylor 20. Reacher Where to watch: Prime Video Another belting season of the thriller based on Lee Child’s novels. As ex-military police officer Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson) infiltrates a criminal organisation, his exploits include a swim through raging surf, an assassination using office equipment and a punch-up with a henchman who is even bigger than Reacher. It’s the usual satisfying action, punctuated with superb one-liners and a dash of romance: this year, with DEA agent Susan Duffy, played with some finesse by British actor Sonya Cassidy. – Jack Seale 19. Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue Where to watch: BBC iPlayer Lost meets And Then There Were None in this crime drama from Anthony Horowitz, an undoubted master of his craft. Here, he crashes a plane in the Mexican jungle and starts to pick off the survivors, dispatching them at the hands of a killer who could well be one of the passengers. It’s a traditional murder mystery set-up that, if written by Agatha Christie, would be crammed with cut-glass accents and Art Deco glamour. But in setting his story in such a grimy, hostile environment, it feels as though Horowitz is reminding viewers that, despite whodunnits essentially being one big guessing game, murder itself shouldn’t always be presented so palatably. – David Brown 18. Your Friends and Neighbours Where to watch: Apple TV A perfectly cast Jon Hamm is the anti-hero of an entertaining comedy drama that begins with thrusting, hunky finance guy “Coop” (Hamm) losing his wife, job and status, but still trying to keep up appearances with his super-rich pals in upstate New York. He needs money and secretly hates his friends… so he starts burgling their mansions, stealing expensive trinkets they won’t miss. Mainly a satire on the vulgarity of people who have more money than they can spend, the show never quite hates its characters, who are all more damaged than they first appear – but the outrageous intrigue keeps on coming. – Jack Seale 17. Untamed Where to watch: Netflix Eric Bana is ostensibly the lead star of this hit mystery thriller, but special agent Kyle Turner would be diminished were he to be deprived of his backdrop, as the vastness of Yosemite National Park also makes for an impressive key player in events. This expansive patch in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains may be a familiar sight to Turner, but there’s a sense throughout this easy-on-the-eye whodunnit that, no matter how hard he tries to enforce the law, those surroundings will remain both wild and brutish – which doesn’t bode well when there’s a murder case to unpick. – David Brown 16. Unforgivable Where to watch: BBC iPlayer The formidable Jimmy McGovern has tackled many difficult social issues in his work. This time it’s about the devastating aftermath of sex abuse perpetrated on a 12-year-old boy by his uncle. There’s shocking scenes of painful conversations and depictions of self-hatred, disgust and despair as a powerful cast – Bobby Schofield, Anna Friel and Anna Maxwell-Martin giving realistic performances – struggle to process what happened. But it also asks us to think deeply about the subject and question whether the abuser, who refers to himself as “a piece of s**t”, deserves any form of forgiveness. – Jane Rackham 15. House of Guinness Where to watch: Netflix Peaky Blinders, A Thousand Blows, This Town… and now Steven Knight does it again with this gritty saga about the Irish brewing dynasty. It has everything: a cracking cast (James Norton, Louis Partridge), darkly lit cinematography, a good storyline that’s as compulsive as Succession and a steampunk soundtrack that’ll knock your socks off. We are in Dublin in 1868 where the head of the unbelievably wealthy Guinness family has just died, leaving his four children to fight over their inheritance, with the help of the ruthless brewery foreman (Norton) who oozes sex appeal alongside inherent violence. – Jane Rackham 14. The Newsreader Where to watch: BBC iPlayer When it comes to depicting the thrill of fame and its accompanying anxieties, few dramas do it better than this high-quality Australian export. It has remained frustratingly under the radar over the course of its three-series run, but do seek it out, for while its setting in Australian commercial newsrooms of the 1980s may seem far removed from the lived experience of many, all human frailties are here. This final run sees the self-worth of News at Six anchorman Dale Jennings (Sam Reid) hit the floor, thanks to damning audience feedback. With his boss Lindsay exhibiting a sadistic dereliction in his duty of care, it’s left to fellow host Helen Norville (Anna Torv) to come to the aid of her TV rival. – David Brown 13. Squid Game (Netflix) Where to watch: Netflix After an odd second season that replaced the deadly children’s games with a mass shoot-out, the Korean megahit – about a secret contest that gradually eliminates its players until only one remains, and by “eliminate” we really mean they die – returns to basics for its third and final run. Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) is once again trying to win a colossal cash prize, while subverting the game from the inside in the hope of destroying it. Throw in the curveball of one of the other contestants being heavily pregnant and you have a swansong that successfully refreshes the formula, persistently outflanking viewers who think they know what’s coming – before delivering a final shot that you’ll be thinking about for a while afterwards. – Jack Seale 12. The Bear Where to watch: Disney+ Having been hyped, lauded and pilloried depending on whether that year’s episodes were stunningly brilliant or merely very good, Christopher Storer’s intense drama triumphs anew in its fourth season, mainly because these episodes are less intense and less about the startup Chicago restaurant. Yes it’s still set in The Bear, a high-end eaterie struggling to flourish and run by chef Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), but this new Bear is driven more by emotion than such fripperies as whether a filet mignon will arrive at a table on time. Storer has created an extended family of characters who care about each other deeply – and, more than ever, we feel the same. – Jack Seale 11. This City Is Ours Where to watch: BBC iPlayer If you initially gave an episode or two of this drama a go but decided not to stick with it, I wouldn’t have blamed you. It was easy to write off as slightly throwaway gangland fare (a “Scouse Sopranos” was the reductive phrase bandied about) but persevere and you’re rewarded with a knotty patchwork of flawed antiheroes. Oh, and a fun dance routine (who didn’t try and re-create The House of Bamboo in their kitchen?). Sean Bean and Julie Graham star as the heads of the Phelan family and their organised crime ring. But it’s James Nelson-Joyce as Michael who shines brightest (the actor’s star rose and rose this year), as he grapples with his murky past – and present – while trying to make a better life for himself and partner Diana (Hannah Onslow). – Frances Taylor 10. Code of Silence Where to watch: ITVX Police canteen worker Alison (Rose Ayling-Ellis) is asked by the CID to use her lip-reading skills to decipher surveillance conversations of a gang plotting a high-stakes heist. But, although Alison is smart, she becomes so embroiled in the investigation she puts herself at risk. Catherine Moulton’s ground-breaking script depicts the thoughtless attitude of others towards deaf people, while partial subtitles, that gradually start to make sense as Alison pieces the sentences together, help us understand the daily challenges faced by the deaf community. A crime story with an edifying aspect, told by a strong cast that also includes Andrew Buchan. – Jane Rackham 9. Death Valley Where to watch: BBC iPlayer Comfort-blanket TV of a high quality, thanks to its casting of Timothy Spall as John Chapel, a retired actor and one-time television detective, now living as a kind of reclusive Droopy in Wales. Keen to utilise his observation skills is DS Janie Mallowan (Gwyneth Keyworth) who, following a shooting, leans into her line in droll self-deprecation to draw him out of his shell. John, however, sees himself as slumming it while in her company, as though a classically trained actor solving mysteries with the police is equivalent to an Olympic athlete running in an egg-and-spoon race. – David Brown 8. Prisoner 951 Where to watch: BBC iPlayer The true story of how Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was returning to Britain after visiting her parents in Iran with her young daughter when the Revolutionary Guard detained her at the airport. No reason was given, although it was suggested that she was a spy. In fact, Nazanin was being held to force Britain to pay Iran a decades-old debt. It would be six years before her family was reunited. This drama brilliantly evokes the fear, helplessness and frustration felt by Nazanin (Narges Rashidi) and her British husband Richard (Joseph Fiennes) as she was kept in solitary confinement, and then moved, blindfolded, from one prison to another while, back in Britain, he campaigned for her release. It’s an inhumane, immoral and very harrowing story. – Jane Rackham 7. Dept Q Where to watch: Netflix In the perfect marriage of actor and character, Matthew Goode stars as a gifted police detective with a biting wit and buried trauma, who operates out of a dank Edinburgh basement alongside a ragtag bunch of colleagues. Tasked with investigating cold cases, Goode’s DCI Carl Morck soon finds himself allied with Syrian-born civilian employee Akram Salim (a scene-stealing Alexej Manvelov) and eager-to-please DC Rose Dickson (Leah Byrne), as they probe the disappearance of an ambitious prosecutor. The series channels the same underdogs-against-the-system vibe of Slow Horses, but adds some flavoursome gothic flourishes of its own. – David Brown 6. Down Cemetery Road Where to watch: Apple TV A drama led by Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson, based on the debut novel by Slow Horses creator Mick Herron? No prizes for guessing that this would be excellent. A mysterious explosion near the Oxford home of art restorer Sarah (Wilson) brings her into the orbit of jaded private investigator Zoë (Thompson). Once it’s clear they’ve stumbled upon a dangerous government conspiracy, they need to improvise furiously, and maybe even bond a little, to survive. Witty, ambitious and bursting with hilarious or terrifying supporting characters, this is simply a treat. – Jack Seale 5. A Thousand Blows Where to watch: Disney+ Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight once again draws on the exploits of a real-life criminal gang. This time it’s a late Victorian all-female pickpocket crew led by fierce Mary Carr (Erin Doherty). When she meets Jamaican immigrant Hezekiah Moscow (Malachi Kirby) and gets him to take up bare-knuckle boxing, it puts them on a collision course with local champ Sugar (Stephen Graham). It’s stuffed with sharp dialogue, thrilling fights and a tender ear for the woes of the disenfranchised. – Jack Seale 4. Slow Horses Where to watch: Apple TV All is rosy in the world of tech specialist Roddy Ho (Christopher Chung). Yes, the man who’s normally as sensitive as a malware infection has somehow got himself a girlfriend, and fellow spook Shirley (Aimee-Ffion Edwards) is trying to convince their boss Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) that the situation is not as it seems. Such is the set-up for this fifth outing for the Slough House spies, which, as it unfolds, also takes in a killing spree at a shopping precinct and an acrimonious London mayoral race. As ever, the series pulls off the high-wire feat of treating drama and comedy as equals, without stinting on either thrills or laughs. – David Brown 3. Blue Lights Where to watch: BBC iPlayer Each series of the top-drawer Northern Irish police drama widens the scope, with this third run zooming out from street gangs and sectarian tensions to focus on those who really hold power in the Belfast of 2025. There are also changes within the team itself, including the promotion of cupcake-baking Stevie O’Neill (Martin McCann), who’s now elevated to the rank of sergeant. But remaining a key feature throughout are the life-or-death situations in which the officers often find themselves. No matter how primed viewers now believe themselves to be, these stand-offs always feel fraught with unpredictability and as tense as a clenched fist. – David Brown 2. I Fought the Law Where to watch: ITVX Sheridan Smith delivers a tour de force performance as Ann Ming, the mother who campaigned for decades to change the double jeopardy law so her daughter Julie Hogg’s acquitted killer could be tried again for the crime. This is no dry legal/courtroom drama, however. Much of the focus is on the traumatic months and years after Julie’s brutal murder in 1989. It starts with Ann’s discovery of her daughter’s body and the police’s inept investigations, followed by the harrowing years of injustice the family endured in the courts. While you will cheer on Ann’s fortitude and resilience, this will tear you apart. – Jane Rackham 1. Adolescence Where to watch: Netflix Radio Times' reviewers don’t always agree, but when it came to deciding what should take the top spot in ranking our dramas of the year, we were unanimous. Away from the adulation and the awards (Stephen Graham, Erin Doherty and Owen Cooper all won Emmys, the last becoming the youngest ever male recipient), this Netflix series had a profound real-world impact. It brought pertinent topics to the fore, including knife crime, violence and misogyny among today’s teenagers, with discussion reaching the police and government. The show’s creator and writer Jack Thorne was invited to speak at Parliament, while Keir Starmer called for the four-part drama to be shown in schools. A brilliant alchemy of on- and off-screen talent converges, with Thorne penning the series alongside Graham, and behind the camera is lauded “one-shot” director Philip Barantini, with whom the actor previously collaborated on Boiling Point, managing to pull off the sublime device of filming each episode in a continuous real-time scene. It is ambitious, unrelenting and phenomenally choreographed, and adds an intensity and claustrophobia to the story of Jamie (Cooper), a 13-year-old arrested on suspicion of murdering a classmate. Before he’s interviewed by police, he emphatically tells dad Eddie (Graham) that he’s innocent. But what’s the truth? – Frances Taylor The best Sci-Fi and Fantasy series of 2025 It's been a sensational year for sci-fi and fantasy. 2025 has seen old favourites return to screens with stellar new offerings, from Andor season 2, which saw Tony Gilroy completely blow audiences away with its beautifully crafted storytelling, to Alien: Earth, which brought new life to a 46-year-old franchise. But, amid a sea of reboots, sequels and prequels, we were also treated to some very welcome original stories in the sci-fi and fantasy space, most notably from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul creator Vince Gilligan, who casually stepped up and dropped one of the best shows of the year with his genre-bending series Pluribus. Plus, anime and animation are absolutely taking over the world, with Solo Leveling season 2 breaking records left, right and centre. Of course, there have been some tragedies, with The Wheel of Time being cancelled after its best season yet (no, we're not over it). But, for the most part, TV has been dominated this year by sci-fi and fantasy releases that shine a light on our society and make us want to be better – and if that isn't the energy we need to be taking into 2026, then truly, what is? It's time to look back on the TV that made us laugh, cry and dream this year. Here are our top 25 sci-fi and fantasy series of 2025! 25. From season 3 Where to watch: MGM+ (available via Prime Video in the UK) The audience for this hidden gem on MGM+ has grown massively each season – and for good reason. Lost star Harold Perrineau leads the cast as Sheriff Boyd Stevens in the mystery sci-fi, which is aptly very reminiscent of the ABC sci-fi. From follows a group of people who get trapped in a nightmarish town. As they try to stay alive, the residents of "Fromville" are faced with terrifying creatures who seem to want to kill them at every turn. In its third season, the series has become increasingly bizarre, with the introduction of The Man in Yellow - but it's impossible to look away. – Louise Griffin 24. Doctor Who season 15 Where to watch: BBC iPlayer While the latest season may have been overshadowed by discussions about the BBC's deal with Disney, there was no faulting the performances in Doctor Who season 15. The latest instalment saw Ncuti Gatwa return as the Fifteenth Doctor alongside companion Varada Sethu for adventures in 1950s America, a planet 500,000 years in the future, 2019 Lagos, and even a futuristic version of the Eurovision Song Contest. Thankfully, we got a little bit more from Millie Gibson's Ruby Sunday after her slightly abrupt departure in the last season, but the main surprise came from the last episode, which saw Gatwa's Doctor regenerate into none other than returning star Billie Piper. What does it all mean? You'll have to wait until Christmas 2026 to find out! – Louise Griffin 23. Peacemaker season 2 Where to watch: Sky/NOW Chris Smith, aka Peacemaker, is one of the stranger superheroes – a violent killer with a silver helmet and no superpowers, who has an eagle for a best friend. Despite those setbacks, in the first series of his eponymous TV show he still managed to save the world from alien invasion. Surely now he’ll be taken seriously? No such luck. He might have turned over a new leaf, but the establishment capes can’t overlook his past. So when he discovers a portal to another world – one where he’s a beloved, successful hero – he can’t resist stepping through. In other hands it could be daft, crude television, but series lead (and former wrestler) John Cena sells Peacemaker’s turmoil with a surprisingly understated performance. – Huw Fullerton 22. Hazbin Hotel season 2 Where to watch: Prime Video Set in hell’s Pentagram City, Hazbin Hotel follows Charlie Morningstar and her desperate attempt to prove that sinners can be redeemed. Initially easy to dismiss as just another adult animation, Hazbin Hotel has surprised its critics by having depth beyond its crude language and innuendos. Using hell as a backdrop for dark comedy is nothing innovative, yet Hazbin Hotel flips the script and turns hell into a vibrant tapestry of emotional depth, laughter and extravagant musical numbers. Its energy is palpable, as too is its colourful cast of characters. What would have been restricted as a live-action show is boundless as an animation, able to express multifaceted concepts of morality and redemption without limitations. Combined with the star power of names such as Keith David and Stephanie Beatriz, Vivienne Medrano’s creation has exceeded expectations and promises to maintain its momentum until the end. – Em Flint. 21. Ironheart Where to watch: Disney+ Ironheart is an unfairly overlooked gem in the Marvel Cinematic Universe; if it passed you by over the summer, endeavour to catch up at the soonest opportunity. The series was largely a victim of its botched rollout; first, spending almost three years in post-production, and then being dropped with little fanfare over just a fortnight on Disney+. It’s as if the streamer had resigned itself to another Secret Invasion-style critical disaster, but what it had in Ironheart was quite the opposite: one of its best Marvel shows to date. Dominique Thorne returns as Wakanda Forever’s Riri Williams, who is dragged back to her Chicago hometown, where she quickly becomes entangled with a dangerous gang of super criminals. Series creator Chinaka Hodge proceeds to deliver a story with a strong emotional hook and plenty of suspense as the MCU’s magic and tech-based corners dramatically collide. In terms of world-building, Ironheart also boasts a compelling new villain in The Hood (played by Anthony Ramos), plus a long-demanded character in a brief-yet-impactful cameo. – David Craig 20. Murderbot Where to watch: Apple TV A sci-fi comedy that looks to tap into our fears about AI stars Alexander Skarsgard as the titular “Murderbot” – not that anyone else knows this is its name. The android has given itself a new moniker having hacked its programming to achieve autonomy. Now, bursting with free will and only pretending to be bound by its owners’ instructions, it is part of a survey team scoping out alien planets. Everyone else is a fallible, emotional human, whereas Murderbot has the face and skin of a human but is a powerful, self-interested machine underneath. The show takes this idea and uses it for what you might call “voiceover comedy”: the main character is deceiving everyone, and we get to hear its thoughts via Skarsgard’s narration. – Jack Seale 19. Gen V season 2 Where to watch: Prime Video The Boys – which imagines a world where superheroes are real, but as venal and selfish as any Hollywood bigshot – will soon conclude with its eagerly awaited fifth series. But before that, it was time for a return to the campus of Gen V, where the next generation of “supes” are trained in their powers, moulded and indoctrinated, while also engaging in the usual drinking, partying and dating of US college life. Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair) and her friends escape the creepy lab of the last series and investigate a new conspiracy. Expect the usual lashings of blood, sex and violence, with even more crossover with The Boys. – Huw Fullerton 18. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 Where to watch: Paramount+ From messing around with the Star Trek canon, to giving us fairytale episodes and murder mystery episodes, Strange New Worlds season 3 didn't hold back – and it was all the better for it. The prequel spin-off follows the crew of the starship Enterprise on their five-year mission to explore (you guessed it) strange new worlds during the decade before The Original Series. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, and only looks to get weirder in future seasons, as we await season 4's puppet episode (yep, really). But you'll find yourself genuinely intrigued by this loveable band of misfits and all their personal dramas - and it's a welcome reminder that sci-fi can and should be just a bit silly. – Louise Griffin 17. Paradise Where to watch: Disney+ Initially marketed as no more than a gritty thriller with the murder of a President at its core, Paradise is a wonderful Trojan horse of a series. The series proved why some of the best TV plot details should be kept as a secret and while underground bunkers and towns aren’t a new sci-fi device by any means, Paradise weaves in an action-packed Washington-related element that only notches up the tension. Pair that with Sterling K Brown in yet another flawless role, equally excellent performances from Julianne Nicholson and James Marsden, and twists that will leave you reeling – well, you’ve got yourself a mind-bending series with a lot of heart that practically begs to be binge-watched. – Morgan Cormack. 16. Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Where to watch: Disney+ Spider-Man’s origins as ordinary kid Peter Parker are explored from a new angle – there’s an important change to the story – as this cartoon series uses a retro animation style to evoke the original comic books. Hudson Thames provides the voice of Peter, a friendly geek who is about to become a vigilante. There’s more about his high-school life than in some versions of the tale, but he’s soon slinging webs and foiling muggers. – Jack Seale 15. Devil May Cry Where to watch: Netflix Based on Capcom’s popular action-adventure game franchise of the same name, this new animated series introduces viewers to Dante, a handsome and witty but troubled demon hunter. Dante, voiced by Johnny Yong Bosch, might be humanity’s only hope against the mysterious White Rabbit (Hoon Lee), who wishes to summon fearsome demons from a terrible other realm. The retro anime-style visuals and a slight emo vibe help give the show its unique texture. – Jack Seale 14. Wednesday season 2 Where to watch: Netflix Even in a school of outcasts, Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) remains a determined outsider, so the last thing she’d want to be is beloved. Yet following the launch of season 1 of this delightfully offbeat gothic drama back in November 2022, that’s what she became. Her dance moves were imitated, those fashion choices scrutinised, her stubbornness celebrated. So, it’s interesting to see season 2 opting to imitate life, with Wednesday, having saved Nevermore Academy the previous term, seen here returning as the idol of many. Refreshingly, hero worship hasn’t weakened her resolve: Wednesday is still the thunderclap to friend Enid Sinclair’s (Emma Myers) rainbow. What has changed, though, is the line-up of adults in her orbit, most of whom she naturally barely tolerates. There’s Billie Piper as the enigmatic new head of music Isadora Capri, Steve Buscemi as wheedling principal Barry Dort, and Joanna Lumley as Wednesday’s Grandmama Frump. And the fact that Catherine Zeta-Jones is also on screen more as saturnine matriarch Morticia means that the spiky dynamics of the Addams family females are spotlighted almost as much as the now-obligatory mystery, which, this time, finds Wednesday pursuing a cloaked stalker. – David Brown 13. Foundation season 3 Where to watch: Apple TV This is TV's most impressive space opera, a grand sweep of a show that manages to take its central story seriously while peppering its scenes with nuggets of dark wit. The crux of it is that a mathematician, Hari Seldon (Jared Harris), has perfected a technique that predicts the future of the despotic Empire, which used to run every planet in sight but now shares power with Seldon's Foundation. We're now a century and a half on from the previous season, with another Seldon-anticipated "crisis": the harbinger of it is powerful warlord The Mule, previously only glimpsed in dreamlike cutaways but now given full rein in an awesome opening scene. Fans of classic Scandi drama will be amused to see the role recast, with Mikael Persbrandt from Beck giving way to Pilou Asbaek from Borgen. Anyway, we're soon having the usual weighty discussions and brittle arguments in beautiful locations, as smug clone emperor Brother Day (Lee Pace) ignores the impending apocalypse and concentrates on his new hobby: he's got a pet camel. – Jack Seale 12. Daredevil: Born Again Where to watch: Disney+ Once on Netflix but now residing in the home of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Disney+, it’s taken blind lawyer/vigilante Matt Murdock/ Daredevil a while to make his comeback. But one of the stronger Marvel TV franchises can welcome back Vincent D’Onofrio as slippery mayor Kingpin, as well as Jon Bernthal as the bone-crunching Punisher. To reprise the lead role, Charlie Cox has trained as an MMA fighter, and the fight sequences have a malevolent crunch. – Jack Seale 11. Invincible season 3 Where to watch: Prime Video Season 3 of an animated superhero series returned with its signature retro visual style, a good line in dry humour and a stellar voice cast: listen out for JK Simmons, Sandra Oh, Walton Goggins, Seth Rogen, Mark Hamill and Andrew Rannells supporting Steven Yeun as the voice of 19-year-old Mark, a superhero in training who is still coming to terms with his mission to save the world. The crash-bang action is artfully offset by some sly jokes about what it’s like to be, or to raise, a teenager. – Jack Seale 10. Severance season 2 Where to watch: Apple TV A high-concept drama, but one that is still hanging together as it returns for a long-awaited second series. Adam Scott is Mark, an employee of a mysterious company that puts its staff through a procedure, the result of which is that in the office they remember nothing about their lives outside, and vice versa. But now that divide has fractured, Mark and his colleagues are closer to sniffing out a grand conspiracy. Smart writing and Ben Stiller’s angular, innovative direction keeps you forever on your toes. – Jack Seale 9. Stranger Things season 5 <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2025/07/StrangerThingsS50011-4747587-e1763381660267.jpg" width="4480" height="2990" alt="Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler, Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas Sinclair, Natalia Dyer as Nancy Wheeler, Joe Keery as Steve Harrington, Charlie Heaton as Jonathan Byers, and Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson in Stranger Things season 5" title="Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler, Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas Sinclair, Natalia Dyer as Nancy Wheeler, Joe Keery as Steve Harrington, Charlie Heaton as Jonathan Byers, and Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson in Stranger Things season 5" /> Where to watch: Netflix After nine years, the fantasy phenomenon enters its endgame, releasing four episodes in November before the final entries drop on Netflix between Christmas and New Year. Stranger Things is such a huge hit, with so many die-hard fans, it’s hard to imagine how they’ll wrap up all the plot threads while also creating a satisfying conclusion. These opening episodes have to do a lot of set-up before they get to the “horror in 1980s suburbia” sequences the show does best. We open back in Hawkins, Indiana in 1987, just four years after young Will Byers introduced the town to the creepy Upside Down world that exists on a parallel plane of existence. With psychic baddie Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) still out there, it’s down to Hawkins’ finest – including telekinetic teen Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) – to track him down. Assuming he doesn’t track them down first. – Huw Fullerton 8. Solo Leveling season 2 Where to watch: Crunchyroll Two seasons in, Solo Leveling's protagonist has levelled up exponentially, and the same is also true of the show itself. Sung Jinwoo's quest to become the world's strongest hunter has taken anime by storm, sweeping the Crunchyroll Anime Awards this year thanks to its relentless action and thrilling lore, all served up in a gorgeously animated package. Did we mention it's currently the most-viewed anime of all time on Crunchyroll? Love it or hate it, Solo Leveling has become a touchstone for the next generation of anime fans, much like Demon Slayer and Attack on Titan before it. And with Netflix's upcoming live-action remake on the way, not to mention an all-but guaranteed third season, Solo Leveling could even level up and surpass them. – David Opie 7. Black Mirror season 7 Where to watch: Netflix The latest run of Charlie Brooker’s digital dystopia opens with a real gut-punch of an episode, penned by Brooker himself. Rashida Jones and Chris O’Dowd are an ordinary, loving couple, apparently in the normal present day, until a sudden crisis leads to them experimenting with a revolutionary new health product... What seems initially like a regular Black Mirror story ticking off modern malaises (digital subscription services, intrusive adverts and online content that demeans both the creator and the viewer are all dealt with) steadily becomes something much more serious and sad; devastatingly so as the story moves towards a horrible, logical conclusion. As for the rest of the season? There's something very odd about a new employee at a chocolate company, an AI love story, a system that allows people to step into photographic memories of the past, and a treat for fans as the crew of USS Callister returns. – Jack Seale 6. The Wheel of Time season 3 Where to watch: Prime Video In one of the biggest TV tragedies of 2025, The Wheel of Time was cancelled swiftly after its best season to date. Based on the sprawling fantasy novels by Robert Jordan, the Prime Video series faced reasonable criticism in its first two instalments from fans, before finally hitting its stride in season 3 with Rand Al'Thor's (Josha Stradowski) journey to the Aiel Waste to prove himself as the Car'a'carn. A gripping story, stunning performances from the lead cast, which also included the show's champion Rosamund Pike as Moiraine Damodred, and beautiful visuals weren't enough to save the show – but that doesn't mean fans have given up, with a petition to bring it back securing more than 250,000 signatures – Louise Griffin 5. It: Welcome to Derry Where to watch: Sky/NOW Capitalising on the recent trend for TV adaptations of classic horror franchises, this is an imaginative, and suitably scary, addition to the Stephen King lore. This version has been developed by brother-and-sister duo Andy and Barbara Muschietti, who were behind 2017’s It and 2019’s It Chapter Two, and Jason Fuchs. Taking place in the early 1960s, prior to the timeframe of those films, it transports us back to Derry, Maine. When a boy goes missing, his group of friends, played by a brilliant young cast, investigate, but the evil clown Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård reprises his role and executive-produces) soon taps into their worst nightmares. The opening episode does not go where you think it will at all – proving there are still plenty of new shocks to be had within a story you thought you knew – Laura Rutkowski 4. The Last of Us season 2 Where to watch: Sky/NOW “Based on a video game” flashing up at the start of a TV show doesn’t usually inspire much confidence, but The Last of Us is a definite exception to that rule. When the first series was released in 2023, the story – which saw a grizzled smuggler transporting a teen across a post-apocalyptic America – struck a chord with viewers, as did the terrifying, fungus-infected zombies they faced along the way. This year, the series returned for a second run, picking up five years after we left our heroes Joel and Ellie (Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey). After Joel sabotaged a cure for the “cordyceps” plague to save Ellie’s life, they’ve settled down in a surviving small town for a simpler life. But a sense of dread pervades this first episode. Both human and infected forces are headed their way to shatter this fragile peace, and Joel and Ellie are at odds. It’s a credit to the performances that in a world of mushroom zombies, it’s the human relationships that hold your attention – Huw Fullerton 3. Alien: Earth Where to watch: Disney+ It’s 2120, and just two years before the events of 1979 film Alien, in creator Noah Lawley’s (Fargo, Legion) prequel series. It disregards the events of Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, and takes place mainly on Earth, which is ruled by five large corporations. It is a place where cyborgs (humans with biological and artificial parts) and synthetics (humanoid robots with artificial intelligence) live among humans. When the genius and CEO of Prodigy Corporation, Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin), launches hybrids (humanoid robots in adult bodies with human consciousness taken from terminally ill children), the intelligence race is well and truly on for ultimate dominance. Deep space research vessel USCSS Maginot, operated by the Weyland-Yutani corporation, crashes on Earth, bringing with it five alien species, including the Xenomorph. Seeing it in its crowd-pleasing, hissing glory is worth the watch alone. Wendy (Sydney Chandler) and her fellow hybrids investigate the crash site, driven by the need to find her brother, a medic called Hermit (Alex Lawther) - Laura Rutkowski 2. Pluribus Where to watch: Apple TV Years after blessing us with Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, TV titan Vince Gilligan returned with his new genre-bending offering, Pluribus - and, by George, he's done it again! Starring Better Call Saul's Rhea Seehorn, the sci-fi mystery kept viewers guessing even before it premiered, with Apple TV's puzzling marketing. Then, we were pulled into the world of Seehorn's Carol, a reluctant hero who has to save the world from the most bizarre alien invasion of all time by herself, with just her flip chart and a bad attitude. Oh, and a grenade dutifully delivered to her by her captors. With underlying messages about love and loss, about humanity and loneliness, about AI and technology, and what it means to be an individual in this increasingly confusing world, Pluribus is exactly what the doctor ordered – Louise Griffin 1. Andor season 2 Where to watch: Disney+ When it arrived in 2022, there were low expectations for this Star Wars series, a prequel to a spin-off (2016’s movie Rogue One) based on a relatively minor character. But this spy-v-spy thriller version of a galaxy far, far away quickly won viewers over. Season 2 only upped the ante as we followed rebel agent Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), working for the nascent Rebellion while the fascist Empire tried to crush dissent. Season 2 kicks off with Andor’s mission to steal an experimental spaceship going catastrophically wrong, while spymaster Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgard) and politician Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) cross paths at a wedding and make a ruthless decision. Despite the Star Wars sheen, this is grown-up, smart storytelling with plenty of real-world parallels – and not a lightsaber in sight – Huw Fullerton The best Documentaries of 2025 Across all the major streamers and broadcasters, documentaries have been at the forefront of major conversations this year. Whether it's Disney+ taking a closer look at the untimely death of Caroline Flack, or Netflix examining injustice in the US, there have been plenty of thought-provoking series and films. As we near the end of the year, take the time to catch up on some of the best watches of 2025, forcing audiences to think deeper and read further between the lines of stories that have dominated headlines. 25. The Truth About Jussie Smollett Where to watch: Netflix In one of the most peculiar showbiz stories of recent years, Jussie Smollett created a drama that would have felt far-fetched even in Empire, the hip-hop epic that made his name. In 2019, the actor claimed to have been the victim of a racist and homophobic attack – an incident he was later accused of staging – and lengthy legal wrangling ensued. With Smollett interviewed along with police and lawyers, it has plenty to say about the nature of celebrity in the USA. – Gabriel Tate 24. Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer Where to watch: Netflix In 2010, police officers searching a beach in Long Island, NY, for a missing woman got a horrifying surprise: they didn’t find her, but they did find the bodies of many other women, all of them sex workers. The hunt for the Long Island Serial Killer went on for more than a decade, with many observers feeling the authorities’ indifference to the women’s fate hampered the quest for justice. This three-part doc tells the victims’ stories and recaps the facts and twists of the case. – Jack Seale 23. Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing Where to watch: Netflix This is a modern-day horror story about the world of "kidfluencing", where children create social media content, sometimes gaining huge followings along the way. Piper Rockelle's YouTube channel hosted videos of her singing, doing pranks and documenting daily life with a "squad" of friends. On camera it was all smiles, but cast members alleged a cult-like atmosphere and made serious accusations against Rockelle’s mother. – Jack Seale 22. The Diamond Heist Where to watch: Netflix One of the biggest robberies in British history nearly took place in November 2000: a gang of career criminals planned to steal a £350 million diamond from the De Beers exhibit inside the Millennium Dome in east London, in broad daylight. It was an outrageous heist that took months of planning and the careful assembly of a crack team. Just one problem: the police were following the robbers from the start. A three-part documentary makes good use of one of the gang, Lee Wenham, as the main interviewee, going into more detail than most shows would about the thieves' backgrounds, giving the cops their own episode, and setting us up for a thrilling outcome. – Jack Seale 21. Katie Piper: Locked Up in Louisiana Where to watch: U Ever since the acid attack that changed her life, Katie Piper has wanted to understand why people commit violent acts and admits she felt like killing the man responsible. She's spending a month inside a women’s jail in New Orleans where she hears that 75 per cent of the 120 inmates suffered domestic abuse before they committed their crime. It’s disturbing viewing and you may question the life sentences they face. "We all have a choice," says Piper, "but sometimes the choice is me or them." – Jane Rackham 20. The Jury: Murder Trial season 2 Where to watch: Channel4.com Nobody knows what goes on when a jury retires to deliberate a case, other than those who are in the room. This returning documentary series, stripped throughout the week, gives us an inkling. It replicates a real murder case, using actors speaking from court transcripts in front of 12 ordinary people – like a real jury they’re of all ages, opinions and walks of life – to observe the judicial process and see whether they reach the same verdict as the original decision-makers. The case, which has been tweaked to make it anonymous, is about the fatal stabbing of a young man by his girlfriend. What the jury must decide is whether she acted in self-defence. What becomes clear very quickly is how much people’s individual experiences colour their opinions, and how the bigger voices in a group can dominate and even influence the discussions. One man seems to have made his mind up almost immediately, while others are swayed by each new piece of evidence. – Jane Rackham 19. Educating Yorkshire Where to watch: Channel4.com Anyone who feels broadcasters are short of new ideas could point to this reboot. But they'll welcome it anyway, because – who wouldn't? The Educating docu-strand was the prom queen of 2010s TV, a critical and ratings hit that got its best grades for the series set at Thornhill Community Academy in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. Four million viewers enjoyed the relatable snapshots of school life then choked back tears in the episode where stammering teenager Musharaf gave a speech at his end-of-year assembly. The teacher who helped him, Mr Burton, is now the head at Thornhill. As Channel 4 again wire his corridors and classrooms with fixed cameras and radio mics, the staff face a new set of challenges, from an attendance crisis to rising pupil anxiety. – David Butcher 18. Love Con Revenge Where to watch: Netflix If you saw the hit Netflix doc The Tinder Swindler, you’ll recognise Cecilie Fjellhøy as one of the victims of an arch fraudster who targeted single women. She returns for a series that continues to explore the dark world of "romance fraud" – con merchants who roam dating apps looking for marks, convincing them that love is in the air before hitting their victims with requests for loans that will never be repaid. Rather than just documenting the phenomenon, Fjellhøy teams up with fiery private investigator Brianne Joseph to track down these scammers – and wherever possible, confront them on camera. – Jack Seale 17. Attack on London: Hunting the 7/7 bombers Where to watch: Netflix You could perhaps pair this documentary with the excellent Disney+ drama Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes - both recall an extraordinary few weeks in the summer of 2005, when London was rocked on 7 July by co-ordinated suicide bombings during morning rush hour on the Tube and bus network. An already traumatised city was further destabilised by a separate terrorist cell attempting to perpetrate a very similar set of atrocities a fortnight later, creating a pressure-cooker environment in which an innocent man, de Menezes, was shot dead by police. Those who were in London at the time, including survivors of the 7/7 attacks, are on hand to provide first-hand witness statements. – Jack Seale 16. Girlbands Forever Where to watch: BBC iPlayer After last year's BBC Two documentary Boybands Forever, this three-part series was always going to be the follow-up. In charting the highs and lows of being in a 1990s girl band, Melanie Blatt of All Saints is the most candid (episode one would be blander without her anecdotes; some are funny, others horrific), while members of Eternal, Atomic Kitten and Mis-Teeq are among those recounting spats, successes and sinister press stories (the tabloid headlines are appalling). It's a detailed but not encyclopaedic take on the decade (B*Witched, who had four number one singles, fail to get a mention), and despite any analysis of 90s girl bands inevitably revolving around the Spice Girls’ orbit, frustratingly and intriguingly, producers haven’t secured any of the five to take part. There are at least a few nice nuggets from the man who put them together: music manager Chris Herbert relays how watching Friends made him want to apply that same formula to creating a girl group. – Frances Taylor 15. Call Her Alex Where to watch: Disney+ Alex Cooper, the podcaster behind the cultural juggernaut Call Her Daddy, puts herself in front of the camera as she charts her meteoric rise to fame – which didn't come without its setbacks. Following her from an awkward kid growing up to an impressive athlete at university all through to her multi-million dollar podcast deals, it's difficult to not be left impressed by Alex's domination in what begun as a heavily male-dominated field. – Katelyn Mensah 14. Amy Bradley Is Missing Where to watch: Netflix This is a three-part, true-crime doc about a missing-person case that is, as the title implies, still alive – but which concerns a woman who disappeared in 1998. Amy Bradley, 23, was on a Caribbean cruise holiday with her parents when she vanished from the family cabin balcony in the early hours of the morning. Did she fall overboard? Possibly, but she’s never been found and there have been multiple reported sightings of her on land, stretching across three decades. The programme sifts through the theories, the suspects and the efforts that have been made to find Bradley – so far, in vain. – Jack Seale 13. Boyzone: No Matter What Where to watch: NOW/Sky Documentaries Boyzone didn't feature in BBC Two's documentary about '90s boybands, but they got a dedicated three- part retrospective detailing the tensions and traumas that went on behind the squeaky-clean scenes. Laid bare is the behaviour of the band's former manager Louis Walsh. He is never shy of a soundbite, but is particularly boorish here as he relays – without remorse – how he'd make up stories for the tabloids: one even involving an escape from a fictional plane crash. "I never felt guilty," he shrugs. "I was doing my job. And I’d do it all again." – Frances Taylor 12. Our Knife Crime Crisis Where to watch: BBC iPlayer What a sobering hour of television this is. Idris Elba sets out his goal of finding "real, practical solutions" to the deeply distressing rise in knife crime around the UK – although until austerity's funding cuts in youth provision and community support are reversed (in the process easing the pressure on the NHS, education and penal systems), it’s hard to see either being possible. Still, this is an earnest, important and substantial film, in which the actor meets police, youth workers, Keir Starmer and King Charles, but most crucially families of victims, and perpetrators both reformed and incarcerated. Between them, they help Elba correct misconceptions, understand root causes and try to find hope in some of the country’s most troubled parts – and some of the local outreach programmes are inspiring indeed, with many who run them proof of the value of early intervention. – Gabriel Tate 11. Number One on the Call Sheet Where to watch: Apple TV This two-part documentary explores the experiences of leading Black actors in Hollywood, with each episode focusing on Black women and Black men. Told through candid interviews and exclusive access, the stars discuss their breakthrough moments in Hollywood, featuring Denzel Washington, Jamie Foxx and Will Smith as well as Angela Bassett, Viola Davis and Halle Berry to name a few. The series is a joyful tribute to Black excellence on the silver screen, and the time it takes to reach the number one spot on the call sheet. – Katelyn Mensah 10. Bibaa & Nicole: Murder in the Park Where to watch: NOW/Sky Documentaries This documentary series paints a picture of the lives of sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, who, in 2020, arranged a picnic to celebrate Bibaa's birthday as Covid lockdown restrictions began to ease. Thirty-six hours later, they were tragically found dead. Many already know the harrowing details of the case, but this documentary does a stellar job at taking the viewer through the heartbreaking hour-by-hour process that their loved ones endured with the police, naturally looking to them for help in searching for the sisters. Failing in the initial search, the case takes on another horrifying note as it's discovered that police officers had taken pictures of Bibaa and Nicole's bodies whilst supposedly protecting the crime scene. Chronicling the resulting parallel investigations and the race to catch their killer, feelings of anger and sympathy are bound to wash over viewers in waves. The real standout of this series is the inspiring and heartbreaking interview with the sisters' mother Mina, who continues the fight to bring about institutional change. There's sadly enough within this travesty to fill three episodes easily and will emotionally linger with you long after watching. – Morgan Cormack 9. Flintoff Where to watch: Disney+ "It's like a reset – I'm trying to find out what I am now." Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff has made limited media appearances since he suffered life-altering injuries while filming Top Gear in 2022. This feature-length biography sees him tackle his new reality directly, as the England cricket legend tries to come to terms with permanently looking different – and perhaps feeling different for ever, too. That lends deep poignancy to the other element of the film, which is a profile of the sportsman Flintoff once was. As well as the likes of Michael Vaughan and David Lloyd talking about Flintoff’s sporting career, his old A League of Their Own colleagues James Corden and Jack Whitehall recall the brash media figure they used to know. – Jack Seale 8. The Undercover Police Scandal: Love and Lies Exposed Where to watch: ITVX The stories that Helen, Alison and Lisa tell are creepily similar. They were all politically active in their 20s when they met their boyfriends. They describe how an intimate, long-term relationship blossomed although, over the years, they began to suspect they weren’t being told the whole truth. Alison discovered a bank card in a different name, while Lisa found phone messages suggesting her bloke had children. Helen only became concerned when her boyfriend disappeared without trace. He, like the other two, had left a "sorry it’s me not you" letter, which, in hindsight, was clearly a carefully worded exit strategy. All the women were shattered to learn that everything they thought they knew about the person they had shared their hearts and their beds with was false… because these men were undercover cops. This astonishing three-part documentary charts how Helen, Alison and Lisa turned detective to reveal a shocking chapter in police history, which the Met has since described as "abusive, deceitful, manipulative and wrong". – Jane Rackham 7. Unknown Number: The High School Catfish Where to watch: Netflix Very rarely does a documentary force me to rewind multiple times to ensure I gathered everything correctly, but Unknown Number: The High School Catfish is a complete beast of its own. The 90-minute watch unpacks a real-life cyberbullying case that revolves around 13-year-old Lauryn Licari and her then-boyfriend Owen. The pair were relentlessly pursued by an unknown number, with messages containing information that only someone close to Lauryn could have known, forcing concerned parents to turn to the police for help. But it's the reveal of who was behind the 15-month tirade that'll leave you with a pit in your stomach. – Katelyn Mensah 6. One Night in Idaho: The College Murders Where to watch: Prime Video When four young adults were stabbed to death in a student house near the University of Idaho, a small community was devastated and soon become the subject of incessant speculation from online "sleuths". With the suspect now arrested and charged, One Night in Idaho: The College Murders hears the heartache from those closest to the victims, which should always have been at the forefront ahead of online speculation attempting to piece together the crime. – Katelyn Mensah 5. No Other Land Where to watch: Channel4.com This film about life in the West Bank was met with controversy since its premiere last February. Filmed by four activists, two of whom are Israeli and two Palestinian, it gives a frank and measured insight into life in the occupied mountainside community of Masafer Yatta. Lifelong resident Basel Adra is our main guide, opening his cinematic diary in 2019 when the government announces plans to claim more of the area’s land as military space. Like the excellent Ukrainian film 20 Days in Mariupol, which won the Oscar last year, this is less a neatly contained film than a snapshot of an ongoing moment. It’s plain and personal, with a conscious lack of grandstanding: just Adra and his Jerusalem-based co-director Yuval Abraham presenting the situation from ground level. Their film closes in 2023; in real life, their work continues. – Calum Baker 4. Caroline Flack: Search for the Truth Where to watch: Disney+ Winning Strictly Come Dancing and hosting Love Island were amongst the many things Caroline Flack was known and loved for. Tragically in February 2020, she took her own life. At the time, she was facing prosecution for allegedly assaulting her boyfriend, and despite the CPS recommending she receive a caution, the day before she died, she discovered she was to be prosecuted. In this two-part documentary, her mother Christine wants answers to why Caroline was charged and how she was treated by the police and media. "I just hope I can achieve something," she says. "I wish I’d done it then, before she took her own life, and that’s my biggest regret." – Frances Taylor 3. Grenfell: Uncovered Where to watch: Netflix Whether you followed the headlines and the resulting public inquiry or whether you aren't as familiar with all of the details of the Grenfell Tower fire, Grenfell: Uncovered lifts a lid on the tragedy and paints a picture of a heartbreaking case that is far from over. It's no easy feat to map out a wide-spanning and emotionally raw story like this one in a way that will both educate and illicit emotion, but it's one that this 100-minute documentary achieves with marked poignancy. Toeing the line between highlighting staggering systemic failings and figures, this film also importantly weaves in personal tragedy and the stories of the bereaved, the survivors, and the firefighters who attended to the fire on the night of 14th June 2017. It's through their brave interviews that we get the essential human stories of Grenfell, stripped of technical scientific terms and replaced with the kind of emotion that will floor you. By no means an "easy" or "light" watch, Grenfell: Uncovered may feel like too much to bear for many viewers. But in reality, it serves nobody to look away from the facts and stories at the heart of this documentary – which stands to be the most important one of the year. – Morgan Cormack 2. Brianna: A Mother's Story Where to watch: ITVX The murder of Brianna Ghey in 2023 was incomprehensible. She was 16 and lost her life in the most horrendous and brutal manner at the hands of unfathomably young perpetrators. Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe were both aged 15 when they killed her. As we see through snippets of social media videos in this affecting documentary, Brianna and Scarlett had been pally. They’d met at school and did the usual teenage stuff together: colouring their hair, going to McDonald’s. The fact that Brianna believed Scarlett to be a friend is a detail that Brianna's mother Esther Ghey understandably finds especially painful. It's hard to hear the details of this case, particularly the extent of the injuries inflicted on Brianna and to read the depraved text messages between Ratcliffe and Jenkinson. In the wake of her daughter’s death, Esther has been campaigning vigorously for changes she hopes can help protect young minds. "If I can make something positive out of what’s happened to her," she said. "Then it keeps her memory alive." – Frances Taylor 1. The Perfect Neighbor Where to watch: Netflix The Perfect Neighbor is a chilling tale about how a long-running neighbourhood dispute turned fatal. Told completely through police bodycam footage and 911 audio logs, the documentary explores the horrific incident of a mother, Ajike Owens, being killed by her neighbour, Susan Lorincz. Lorincz's freedom spurred protests in the small community in Florida, who ultimately got justice upon her arrest and incarceration. In just over 90 minutes, it'll leave you shaken and and unsettled, asking the question: how could someone do this? – Katelyn Mensah The best Films of 2025 It's been another excellent year for new film releases in the UK – and as you can see from our top 25 below, a very eclectic one too. As ever, the year started with some great awards contenders that had debuted across the Atlantic at the tail end of 2024 – with the likes of The Brutalist, Nickel Boys and I'm Still Here all featuring highly on our list. Meanwhile, it's also been a spectacular year when it comes to horror, with first Sinners and then Weapons capturing the imaginations of the cinema-going public with bold, original new takes on the genre before Guillermo del Toro delivered his version of one of the most iconic of all horror tales: Frankenstein. It's perhaps been a slightly less memorable year when it comes to the biggest blockbusters, but we do have a couple of franchise films in our list as well, including the fourth Bridget Jones movie and the Liam Neeson-starring Naked Gun reboot. But what came out at number one? Scroll down our list to find out. And bear in mind that we only considered films that are currently available to watch at home – so a couple of big-hitters weren't eligible. 25. Mr Burton Where to watch: BBC iPlayer The formative years of Richard Burton come into focus in this absorbing drama that charts the actor’s relationship with the man from whom he took his stage name. Toby Jones plays Philip Burton the teacher in postwar South Wales who sees something in teenager Rich Jenkins (Harry Lawtey) but must help the lad overcome the hurdles of his working-class upbringing and destructive self-doubt. Richly atmospheric, this is an engrossing study; Jones is masterful and there’s eye-catching support from Lesley Manville as his landlady, but Lawtey is the true star of the piece. – Terry Staunton 24. The Librarians Where to watch: BBC iPlayer Kim A Snyder’s provocative, compelling and deeply troubling movie follows American librarians forced to unite against attempts by right-leaning Christian Republicans to ban books that they claim indoctrinate children on matters of race and sexuality. Snyder strives to avoid being overly inflammatory, though she includes footage of Nazi book burnings. And objectivity becomes increasingly difficult as she reveals that influential protest groups are being covertly funded by wealthy religious and political conservatives. – David Parkinson 23. The Order Where to watch: Prime Video Jude Law heads this hugely satisfying crime drama as a world-weary FBI agent hunting white supremacists in the Pacific Northwest. His investigations lead to a militant group suspected of carrying out daring bank raids to fund a war chest for large-scale terrorist attacks. Based on real events in the 1980s, Justin Kurzel’s film follows procedural tropes but is elevated by its central performances. Law is at the top of his game as the seasoned fed, while Nicholas Hoult is unsettling and charismatic as his white-power nemesis. – Terry Staunton 22. A Complete Unknown Where to watch: Disney+ Walk the Line director James Mangold’s immersive, engaging Bob Dylan biopic may not all be true, but it has a real feel for the period and the impact of the musician who arrived in New York in 1961 to meet his idol Woody Guthrie. Timothée Chalamet’s Dylan has a reserve that makes him hard to get to know, and a steely confidence that leads the story to its rowdy, electric finale at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. The women (Elle Fanning and Monica Barbaro) are left rather in Chalamet’s wake, leaving Edward Norton’s Pete Seeger to try to keep the burgeoning star mindful of his musical roots – Tom Folley 21. Black Bag Where to watch: NOW Packing a lot of wit and style into a tight 90 minutes, Steven Soderbergh (Ocean’s Eleven) serves up a killer spy yarn that goes down as smoothly as a dry martini. Michael Fassbender is coolly engaging as the intelligence agent who suspects his wife (Cate Blanchett) is up to no good. As he sets about uncovering the truth, his colleagues (played by Naomie Harris, Tom Burke, Marisa Abela and Regé-Jean Page) get caught in the crosshairs. The film flew somewhat under the radar on release, but is well worth checking out, if only for the brilliantly executed dinner-table scenes that bookend the action. – Josh Winning 20. The Phoenician Scheme Where to watch: Rent/buy Wes Anderson creates another enchanting world for his latest, typically idiosyncratic caper. Benicio Del Toro stars as mid-20th-century tycoon Zsa-zsa Korda, who decides to leave his estate to his only daughter (Mia Threapleton). Meanwhile, Zsa-zsa is forced to confront various colourful characters as he tries to get a long-standing business scheme under way. A classic Anderson confection, full of talent (Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston and Scarlett Johansson are among the massive cast) and immaculate art direction, this’ll hook devotees even if – as ever – Anderson sceptics are unlikely to be won over. – James Mottram 19. The Naked Gun Where to watch: Rent/buy Despite the inspired casting of Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Jr, expectations weren’t high when it was announced that the classic cop comedy series would be rebooted. Yet, director/co-writer Akiva Schaffer miraculously channels the spirit of the originals, ramming his gag-fest with puns both visual and verbal, as well as some perfectly pitched drifts into the surreal. Neeson, his expression forever stuck between hangdog and befuddled, smoothly picks up where Leslie Nielsen left off while love interest Pamela Anderson matches him beat for beat. Simply a pleasure, from start to end. – Calum Baker 18. A House of Dynamite Where to watch: Netflix White House officials face a terrifying race against time as an unprovoked nuclear missile is launched towards the US in this pulsating drama. It begins in the government's Situation Room, as Captain Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson) attempts to handle the situation and keep a lid on her emotions. With the nerve-jangling action spanning just 18 minutes, the story then rewinds to replay events from other perspectives, including the Secretary of Defense (Jared Harris) and the President (Idris Elba). Directed with taut precision by Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty, The Hurt Locker), and working from a rock-solid script by former newsman Noah Oppenheim, the film perfectly demonstrates that, ultimately, it's people who must make the key, fateful decisions. Powerful and thought-provoking. – James Mottram 17. Steve Where to watch: Netflix Cillian Murphy is at the top of his game as the titular head teacher of a residential reform school in this dark drama laced with judicious humour. Already self-medicating to manage emotional and mental difficulties in his private life, Steve’s world falls further into a tailspin when he and his deputy (a terrific Tracey Ullman) learn the school has lost its funding and will close in six months, the bombshell dropped on a busy day that coincides with visits from the local MP (Roger Allam) and a TV news crew. It’s an uncomfortable watch at times, but nonetheless responsible and intelligent film-making that shines a light on social and educational systemic failures. Director Tim Mielants and screenwriter Max Porter (adapting his own novella, Shy) make their points without ever lapsing into preachiness, and the former is to be applauded for coaxing superb performances out of the young actors portraying the pupils, none more so than Jay Lycurgo as the troubled but clearly very bright Shy. A powerful story with equally heart-wrenching parallels in the real world. – Terry Staunton 16. Deaf President Now! Where to watch: Apple TV+ Washington DC’s Gallaudet University is the world’s only higher-education institute for students who are deaf or hard of hearing. In 1988, the school’s board appointed the latest in a 124-year succession of hearing presidents, bypassing two qualified deaf candidates – and outraging the students. This illuminating documentary uses interviews and archive footage to recount the eight days of protests that followed. Coming out shortly after 2025’s Deaf Awareness Week, it’s an engaging and empowering film that uses ingenious sound design to evoke the deaf experience, while shining a much-deserved light on this little-known but impactful youth movement. – Laura Rutkowski 15. Memoir of a Snail Where to watch: BFI Player This delightfully dark and quirky adult animated film follows the tragi-comic life of a snail-loving girl who learns how to come out of her shell. The second feature from esoteric Aussie stop motion animator Adam Elliot – after the excellent Mary and Max (2008) – his cute-but-scuzzy animation style is unmistakable, and thematically, it’s very similar; a biographical movie about bullied kids growing into dysfunctional adults who learn to love themselves (think Tim Burton meets Ken Loach). Thankfully, it’s every bit as good, bursting with wit, invention, charm, poignancy and moments of exquisite vulgarity. – Dave Golder 14. The Long Walk Where to watch: Rent/buy The American Dream of getting rich quickly is given a macabre twist in this searing, yet thoughtful adaptation of Stephen King’s first novel, published in 1979 under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. Set 19 years after a crippling war, it posits a United States under totalitarian rule where national pride is inspired via a televised cross-country walking competition between 50 young men, representing each US state. The winner is promised wish-fulfilling riches, but there is no finishing line, no rest breaks and anyone not keeping up with the pace will receive three warnings, then instant execution. Cooper Hoffman (Licorice Pizza) and David Jonsson (Alien: Romulus) give marvellous performances as the initial rivals whose evolving friendship is the beating heart of an often agonising horror, directed by Francis Lawrence – who knows his way around survival-of-the-fittest dystopia, with three Hunger Games films to his name. – Jeremy Aspinall 13. Nosferatu Where to watch: NOW Director Robert Eggers (The Lighthouse) continues his mastery of gothic horror with this reimagining of the 1922 silent classic. Newlywed Ellen becomes the dark, erotic obsession of vampire Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård). As Ellen’s psychic visions start to intensify, Orlok emerges and unleashes chaos in a bid to possess her. The film boasts an all-encompassing sense of dread, crafted through striking visuals and aided by its stars: Skarsgård makes a chilling Orlok, while Depp delivers a haunting, expressive performance of real conviction. – Taina Popoola 12. Weapons Where to watch: Rent/buy Writer/director Zach Cregger follows his 2022 hit Barbarian with this unnerving and thunderously entertaining horror epic. It follows events in the aftermath of a deeply troubling incident in a suburban US town: one night, without explanation, all but one student in the third-grade class of a new teacher (Julia Garner) vanished from their homes. The non-linear structure – we follow events from six unique perspectives – allows the film to explore the complex ways people's psyches are affected by broken communities, traumatic events and surrounding public storms, and each chapter gradually teases more information about the bizarre events engulfing the town. The result is a propulsive, perfectly paced thriller that leaves things tantalisingly mysterious until a late reveal There are frights aplenty, with Cregger tapping into nightmarish, fairy tale-esque imagery, but also evidence of the director's comedic roots. The deft way in which he juggles those tones makes Weapons a refreshing triumph. – Patrick Cremona 11. Sorry, Baby Where to watch: Mubi Eva Victor makes an impressive debut as writer, director and star with this darkly amusing feature. Young Massachusetts academic Agnes (Victor) struggles to process having been sexually assaulted by her thesis supervisor years ago. Split into a jumbled series of chapters, the film concentrates on Agnes’s everyday life as she receives support from an old friend (Naomi Ackie) and a sweet-natured neighbour (Lucas Hedges). Dotted with deadpan line readings, there’s a wryness to the drama and a care to its imagery that work to offset the underlying sense of melancholy. – Tom Dawson 10. I’m Still Here Where to watch: BFI Player Oscar-nominated for best picture, this true story is set in Rio de Janeiro in the early 1970s and follows the Paiva family – former congressman Rubens (Selton Mello), wife Eunice (Fernanda Torres) and their five children. With Brazil ruled by a military dictatorship, Rubens is arrested – with absolutely no information passed to the family as to his fate. Much of the focus is on Eunice, who herself suffers in this oppressed regime, and the sublime Torres plays her with real strength. Subtly directed by veteran Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles, this is a fine film about resistance. – James Mottram 9. The Girl with the Needle Where to watch: Mubi Director Magnus von Horn reimagines one of the most shocking episodes in Danish criminal history with a masterful adult fairy tale, filmed in striking black-and-white. In 1919 Copenhagen, impoverished Karoline (Vic Carmen Sonne) endures a series of crushing misfortunes before falling in with shady Dagmar (Trine Dyrholm), who runs an illegal adoption agency. Both leads are mesmerising at the centre of this nightmarish and visually astonishing journey. Though steeped in misery, the material never becomes a slog thanks to von Horn’s inventive execution. – Emma Simmonds 8. Wake Up Dead Man Where to watch: Netflix Having previously staged star-studded murder mysteries at a cosy mansion and a lavish private island, Rian Johnson’s third Knives Out film unfolds against the backdrop of a small Catholic parish in upstate New York. This time, Daniel Craig’s Southern sleuth Benoit Blanc is tasked with solving the murder of a priest (Josh Brolin), whose increasingly warped fire-and-brimstone sermons have seen him brush up against Josh O’Connor’s younger clergyman. What makes the mystery so enticing is that it initially appears to be an impossible locked room crime. But Johnson also has fun with his usual flair for satire, making the most of his church setting and allowing his film to grow darker and weirder than the previous instalments. Craig is reliably entertaining as Blanc, while O’Connor and Glenn Close provide stand-out support from the ensemble cast. With a typically convoluted but satisfying narrative powering things along, it all adds up to what might be the best entry so far in this hugely likeable series. – Patrick Cremona 7. A Real Pain Where to watch: Disney+ Jesse Eisenberg writes, directs and stars in this touching comedy drama, loosely inspired by his own family history. He plays an uptight New Yorker who embarks on a tour of Poland with his cousin (Kieran Culkin), intending to honour their late grandmother, who survived the Holocaust. Eisenberg’s sharp script expertly teases out an emotionally complex history between the cousins, while an Oscar-winning Culkin is in fantastic form as the brash, likeable but deeply troubled Benji. Despite the subject matter, it’s a breezy film with an admirably light touch. – Patrick Cremona 6. Bridget Jones: Mad about the Boy Where to watch: NOW After something warm and fuzzy this season? The fourth outing for Helen Fielding’s beloved heroine isn’t a bad place to start. Mixing gentle jokes with daring darker moments, we find Bridget as a widowed mother of two, tentatively embracing life again – something that initially involves a Tinder dalliance with a 29-year-old. However, when she volunteers on her son’s school trip, things start falling into place. Reliable gags land in a fresh setting, but it’s the familiar faces, Bridget’s spirit and some genuinely festive moments that make this an ideal Christmas comfort film – Alex Berry 5. Sinners Where to watch: Rent/buy Director Ryan Coogler follows up his Black Panther films with a muscular original feature that offers a mash-up of history and horror. Bootlegging twins Smoke and Stack (both Michael B Jordan) return to Mississippi where they plan to set up a juke joint. But opening night is interrupted when a silver-tongued white man (Jack O’Connell) wants an invitation to the party. This is an ambitious movie that asks prickly questions about creativity, assimilation and culture. But its great cast (including Hailee Steinfeld and Delroy Lindo) and confident pace keep it deftly entertaining. – Sean McGeady 4. Frankenstein Where to watch: Netflix A work of gothic fiction that has fascinated film-makers for as long as cinema has existed, Mary Shelley’s 1818 tale of the Modern Prometheus gets its most faithful movie adaptation to date, courtesy of horror maestro Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water). Oscar Isaac is the pioneering scientist who harnesses Mother Nature, modern physics and the patronage of an arms trader (Christoph Waltz) to bring to life a creature (Jacob Elordi) stitched together from body parts. With a script in thrall to old-fashioned movie storytelling, this is elegantly made and beautifully crafted by del Toro’s usual team of collaborators. Isaac hovers just on the right side of madness, while Elordi finds brooding poetry in a near-silent performance. Gory and grim it may be, but this is a tragic tale told with captivating style. – James Mottram 3. The Brutalist Where to watch: NOW An Oscar winner for its score, cinematography and haunted lead performance from Adrien Brody, this epic, 215-minute drama is far from a flag-waving take on the American Dream. It’s the story of fictional architect László Tóth (Brody), who survives the Holocaust and reaches New York, eventually meeting a wealthy patron (Guy Pearce) who commissions László to work on a mammoth project. It’s a low-budget but rich and grandly scaled film that captures the uneasy relationships between art and commerce, and America and immigration. The cast is flawless. – Emma Simmonds 2. Nickel Boys Where to watch: Prime Video This audacious, Oscar-nominated adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s novel is an original work of innovation and power. Director RaMell Ross adopts a point-of-view visual style to tell the story of Elwood Curtis (Ethan Herisse), a black teenager wrongly arrested and sent to a racially segregated reform school in 1960s Florida. There, he strikes up a bond with rebellious Turner (Brandon Wilson). The unique shooting style creates a tactile and immersive experience, while Ross adds some beautiful flourishes and well-placed flash-forwards, all performed perfectly by a fantastic cast. – Patrick Cremona 1. One Battle After Another Where to watch: Buy/rent This terrific film from Paul Thomas Anderson is loosely based on Thomas Pynchon's 1990 novel Vineland. The auteur expertly borrows elements and crafts them into something his own, keeping the book's rebellious spirit, absurdist comic tone and thematic weight intact. Bob Ferguson (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a former member of resistance group the French 75, now completely sapped of his revolutionary spirit. But when his old nemesis (a sensationally odious Sean Penn) re-emerges, Bob must rediscover his fight so he can protect his teenage daughter (Chase Infiniti, a revelation). The resulting chase is thrilling, uproarious and perfectly paced, with DiCaprio excelling as a frustrated layabout thrust back into the fold. Anderson stages the film's set pieces in unpredictable, inventive ways, with Jonny Greenwood's frantic, piano-led score the perfect complement. The film feels urgent and timely, with Anderson's choice to put a touching father/daughter relationship front and centre amid the thrills giving it undeniable emotional heft. – Patrick Cremona Visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
The Abandons isn't the mess it could have been – but there's a bigger problem with this Western misfire
The Abandons fails to stand-out amidst a glut of Western series.
As the so-called 'streaming wars' march on, it seems some of the participants are in a bind. Do they double down on the areas in which they have become successful and for which they are known, or branch out and try and take one another on at their own games? When it comes to Netflix, at least when it was in the stage of commissioning a few years ago, it seems they opted for the latter. While Paramount+ may have become known as the home of Westerns thanks to Taylor Sheridan's hugely popular Yellowstone, the original streamer clearly wanted a piece of the pie. In fact, it didn't just want one piece, but multiple. In just the past 14 months, we have seen the debuts of Territory, American Primeval and Ransom Canyon – to varying success. Now, it's the turn of The Abandons, a seven-part series which was first ordered in 2022 and which, according to reports, has had quite the troubled path to the screen. We know for sure that this first season was originally meant to be made up of 10 episodes, but the number has shifted repeatedly over the years, now coming in at an irregular seven. We also know that its creator Kurt Sutter, who had been thinking about the series before his previous show Sons of Anarchy even began, left it entirely just three weeks before shooting was set to wrap. When this news broke, Deadline reported that it was due to creative differences. That report also noted that the first episode had to be cut in two and a new cliffhanger created in the middle, due to it originally running for 1 hours and 40 minutes, and that Netflix bosses felt the episodes were "disjointed and not propulsive enough". Naturally, although I attempted to put this history out of my mind when viewing the episodes, there is a part of me which was looking for signs of this apparent dysfunction in the final product, expecting one almighty mess to have been birthed. Thankfully, on that front, I have some good news. While there are elements of this on display, with strange episode lengths and some abrupt endings, for the most part this is a competently put together series. If you didn't know, I doubt you'd know. However, sadly, I have to report there is actually a bigger problem with the series, one which cannot be ignored. For context – the series stars Lena Headey and Gillian Anderson as the matriarchs of two very different families, both living in Washington Territory in 1854. Headey's Fiona heads up a found family – the titular Abandons. She was unable to have her own children, and instead has raised a group of orphans and outcasts. Meanwhile, Anderson's Constance is the head of the wealthy Van Ness family, who is trying to get her hands on the land held by the Abandons, as it is rich in silver. She and her family will use any means to take the land, but the Abandons will not give it up without a fight. Other stars who play key roles include Nick Robinson, Diana Silvers, Lamar Johnson, Natalia Del Riego, Lucas Till and Aisling Franciosi, with all doing sterling work here. So, what's the problem? Well, the truth of the matter is that The Abandons is just really rather dull. The Deadline report noted a concern within Netflix that the series wasn't propulsive enough, and I would say that despite all the apparent scrambling behind the scenes to rectify this, it is still the biggest problem with the series. Having watched all seven episode, once all is said and done, I have to say that very little of substance actually happened. There's an inciting incident, followed by a whole lot of pontificating and really rather mild family drama. In among this, there are a number of different individual stories, each of which works to a greater or lesser extent, but none of which exactly romp through at a quick pace, nor are any of them in any way substantively new. Perhaps the strongest of these storyline is a romance between Nick Robinson's Elias, a member of the Abandons, and Trisha, the Van Ness daughter. It has some sweet moment and some dramatic moments for sure, and both actors give it their all, making it entirely watchable. Yet it's all just so utterly clichéd – if you haven't watched a star-crossed, forbidden lovers storyline you really haven't engaged with any form of art of media. The odd cliché can be overlooked or even enjoyed - sometimes a cliché is a cliché for a reason, because it's a tried and tested form of storytelling that works on a deeply human level. But when almost everything in a series falls into that camp, you start to wonder what exactly the point of it all is - especially when the whole thing is moving at such a glacial pace. I suppose we'll never know what Sutter's original version of this would have been before any behind the scenes changes were made, but this does certainly feel like a Western made by a committee - a series which is desperately trying to capture a zeitgeist and which is therefore playing into every trope imaginable, with little of its own to say. One would think that given it is led by two female leads in their fifties, it would at least have something novel and exciting to explore there. But, alas, there seems to be no interest in exploring what this means, given the time period and setting. The series also takes itself far too seriously, meaning it's not only narratively dull, but also tonally. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2025/11/ABANDONS101240517MF03155R-4bb50d2.jpg" width="3600" height="2398" alt="Lamar Johnson as Albert Mason, Diana Silvers as Dahlia Teller, Lena Headey as Fiona Nolan, Nick Robinson as Elias Teller and Natalia del Riego as Lilla Belle in The Abandons, riding horses through a dark field, lit up by trees on fire." title="THE ABANDONS" /> As with most series, there are still elements of worth here to discuss. For one thing, it's visually stunning. It's been reported that the series has been given quite the budget, and that certainly would seem to be the case given the incredible locations and visual splendour on screen. As previously mentioned, there's also the matter of the cast – even if the majority of them, if not all of them, are really rather wasted. Headey and Anderson make for compelling nemeses in their scenes together, and there are glimpses of what this series could have been were there more chances for them to shine, and opportunities for deeper character scenes. Were we allowed to see more of this dynamic, perhaps with a slimmed down cast and more focused gaze, then that also could have helped the series stand out from the crowd. A proper cat-and-mouse game between two matriarchs in the 1800s? That sounds like an interesting show. But as it is, we get snippets of so many stories, most of which we've seen many times in different forms before, all in a backdrop which is sumptuous, no doubt, but which is also well explored within the genre, and at this point more an expectation than a bonus. Maybe Western obsessives will find something to enjoy here – I have to confess that while I am certainly a big fan of a number of Western films and series, I am not a real devotee of the genre. However, I would imagine that even they may find themselves growing tired of the show's langorous pace and its stock characters and plots. The fact that The Abandons is perfectly watchable and seems to be largely unencumbered by its behind-the-scenes shake-ups should be of some comfort for Netflix. However, if they thought this would be their rival to Yellowstone, think again. A franchise-starter this ain't – it's just a pale imitation of one. The Abandons is available to stream now on Netflix. Sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream. Add The Abandons to your watchlist on the <a id="OWA8b702c45-bee9-94e4-f018-57518e78041b" title="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" href="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-outlook-id="449c28d9-909e-4aab-b6b8-153454f55d5e" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="0">Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to see what's on tonight. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
How I discovered The Real Salt Path from my investigation into Raynor Winn's hit memoir – and it started on Instagram
Raynor Winn’s memoir The Salt Path sold millions of copies, but how “true” is her story, asks journalist Chloe Hadjimatheou.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Earlier this year I received a message from a stranger on Instagram. They knew Raynor Winn, the author of The Salt Path and they had a tip off: her husband, Moth, the subject of her book, didn’t seem to be as ill as she claimed. Since its publication in 2018, The Salt Path has sold more than two million copies, making it one of the most successful memoirs in decades. In 2024, it was adapted into a film, starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs. Raynor Winn seemed to be everywhere – on TV chat show sofas and on the stage of literary festivals up and down the country. Readers had opened their hearts to this woman and her true story of how her husband Moth had received a terminal neurological diagnosis just days after they had been conned out of their home and left destitute. The couple had then made a radical decision: to walk the 630-mile South West Coast Path of England, rough camping and surviving on a pittance. They told how the physical exertion of the hike, and the beauty of nature, helped to reverse many of Moth’s symptoms. The message of hope and redemption proved a bestselling formula, repeated in two sequels with publisher Penguin calling Raynor Winn’s books “unflinchingly honest”. But my source believed the couple were covering things up. Looking into Moth’s neurological condition, I saw immediate red flags. Corticobasal degeneration (CBD), a rare disease with similar symptoms to Parkinson’s, usually kills sufferers within six to eight years of diagnosis. They can experience muscle stiffness and shaking, have issues with balance and eventually lose the use of their hands and legs, often slipping into dementia, before they lose the ability to swallow. Moth, 65, claims to have had the condition for more than 18 years and has no visible symptoms. He has put this down to the challenging walks described in the books. But neurologists told me it was impossible for the damage done to the brain to be reversed. At this point, my editor at The Observer warned me that it would be difficult to publish. Medical histories are private and this probably wasn’t a story we could pursue. But he gave me a few days to follow up on other information the anonymous tip-off had provided. It’s not unusual for authors to take on pen-names, but Raynor Winn and her husband’s real names, Sally and Tim Walker, were not publicly available. My source provided the names and the location in Wales where they’d lost their house. I travelled to Pwllheli, in north-west Wales, and learnt of rumours that Sally Walker, aka Raynor Winn, had stolen money from her employer and got away with it. A local woman confirmed that Sally Walker had been arrested for stealing more than £64,000 from her late husband’s company. Walker had made good the company’s losses by borrowing money against the family house, leading to its repossession. I also discovered that the couple owned land in France despite claiming to be penniless. Memoir is never entire truth; omission and curation is part of the creative process. But Winn had painted herself as a victim when that seemed far from the truth. And knowing that she’d lied about how she lost her home, cast more suspicion on inconsistencies with Moth’s health. It now seemed plausible that readers may have been sold a lie. Most of all, the suspicion that very sick people might have been misled by Moth’s miraculous recovery felt like a pressing issue of public interest. In my two decades as a journalist, no other story I’ve worked on has received the response that the Salt Path revelations did on publication this summer. Working on a new documentary for Sky has now allowed me to dig deeper into the story. We travelled from Wales to Cornwall and along some of the coastal path, tracing the footsteps – real and imagined – that Winn and her husband took. We made new discoveries: we found a novel that Winn had written years before The Salt Path that contains a level of autobiographical truth absent in her memoirs, and found members of their two respective families who have been prepared to talk to me, lifting the lid on more revelations from their past. On her website, the author called my original investigation “grotesquely unfair” and she has said that The Salt Path was the true story of the couple’s physical and spiritual journey. But when her truth and the facts clash, it seems only fair that readers of her books should be furnished with both so they can make up their own minds about what to believe. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. The Real Salt Path will air on Sky Documentaries and NOW this December. Check out more of our Documentaries coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
I’m This Is Going to Hurt writer Adam Kay, and this is my honest letter to my 10-year-old self
Working for the NHS inspired Adam Kay to write his memoir This Is Going to Hurt. Now he’s penned a BBC series for kids about 10-year-old doctor Dexter Procter – and he has some important tips for his younger self…
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Finger out of your nose, please. First of all, don’t panic about a 45-year-old man randomly writing to you – this is you from the future. I just wanted to tell you a few things before you tear this letter in half and feed it to the class hamster. (Don’t get too attached to that hamster, by the way. There’s an… incident next year.) You can be a writer! Yeah, I know you’ve been told you’re going to be a doctor since you were four, but other jobs are available. Even ones your parents tell you aren’t “proper” jobs, so just follow your heart and your actual interests. Although I would say that if you do stick with the doctor route for a bit, remember to write some diaries. Don’t be ashamed to be smart Look, you’re no Albert Einstein, but you enjoy learning and there are a bunch of subjects you’re quarter-decent at. But at school you’ll pretend you’re no good at them and stay quiet in class when your teachers ask questions, in case other pupils pick on you. Knowing the capital of Belize is nothing to be ashamed of (Belmopan, as you know), and you need to embrace your inner nerd. Talking of which… You’re not cool You’re going to spend the next decade agonising over how to be cool. Sadly, whatever you wear or however you style your hair isn’t going to convince anyone. (Those frosted tips at university are a catastrophic mistake, by the way – you’ll look like a melted waxwork of Justin Timberlake. You’ll hear about him in about six years.) Eventually, you’ll wake up and realise that it doesn’t matter in the slightest what other people think of you, and it’s OK to be different – the people who actually matter in your life won’t care about anything like that. One day you’ll write a TV show called Dexter Procter: the 10-Year-Old Doctor (see, you can be a writer!) all about the fact it’s fine to be different. Don’t worry, it’s funny too – give it a watch in December 2025. (The series will also be on BBC One over Christmas.) Adults don’t always know best You know how half the people in your class at school are idiots who you wouldn’t trust to open a carton of milk? Well, they grow up to become adults who you still wouldn’t trust to open a carton of milk. (Oh, there’s some bad news for cartons, too – they go out of fashion in a few years and milk all comes in plastic bottles.) Despite what they’ll repeatedly tell you, just because someone’s older than you doesn’t mean they know best. I mean, apart from me. I’m definitely right about all this. Get your revenge Most of the sayings that adults parrot out are absolute nonsense: for example, words are more than capable of hurting you, and sticks and stones are quite unlikely to actually break your bones compared with, for example, skiing. But there’s one saying that’s very true: revenge is a dish best served cold. Keep a mental record of anyone who’s ever wronged you, and include thinly veiled versions of them as the baddies in every book and TV show you write. You’re gay, by the way, and that’s fine Life will be confusing and strange for a long while yet, maybe for ever, and you’ll always be asking questions – why do the radiators make that noise at night? What’s the point of daylight savings time? Why do paper cuts hurt so much? What does third party insurance actually mean? But pretty soon you’ll start asking quite a big question – why do I feel this way? Big answer: it’s because you’re gay. You’ll feel like you’ll never have a “normal” life, whatever that means, and it will terrify you, but it shouldn’t. One day you’ll fall in love with a man and he will also in fall in love with you for some reason. Then you’ll get married (bit of a parliamentary legislation spoiler for you there) and have children (I’m serious) and it will be chaos and it will be heaven and everything in between. There are no shortcuts Unlike Dexter Procter, you’re not quite clever enough to get A*s in 87 separate A-levels. You’ll only do well when you put in the hard hours. Some of that work will be fun, and some of it will leave you covered head to toe in blood (you’re going to be an obstetrician, by the way, not a serial killer), but all of it will get you where you need to be. Eventually. Actually, maybe there is a shortcut Just in case you can’t be bothered doing any of that work, the Lottery numbers the week after you turn 18 (oh, they start a National Lottery in a few years) are 2, 7, 10, 15, 27, and 45. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Dexter Procter is available to stream now on BBC iPlayer. Add Dexter Procter to your watchlist on the <a id="OWA8b702c45-bee9-94e4-f018-57518e78041b" title="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" href="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-outlook-id="449c28d9-909e-4aab-b6b8-153454f55d5e" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="0">Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. 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Escape to the Country newcomer Richie Anderson: "I’m not just there to be the brown guy with an accent"
The host reveals he was inspired to leave city life behind by the TV series he now presents.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. As you can tell from my accent, which I like to say is as broad as my shoulders, I’m from the Black Country – not the countryside. I grew up on a council estate in Smethwick that had the nickname Concrete Jungle. I’m very proud of where I come from, but I didn’t encounter much green as a child and the only rural scenes I knew were the views from the train on football trips, following West Bromwich Albion for away games. That and a yearly holiday to Devon. After Smethwick I studied journalism in Leeds, and then, when I got a job on Zoe Ball’s breakfast show at Radio 2, I moved to London. I could hardly have had a more urban start to life. But now when we wake up in the mornings, my partner Dean and I can hear the cows mooing. Draw back the curtains and we see green fields and trees. Open the window and we can smell the muck being spread by the farmer. So, how did I get here? You could say my life’s been changed by a television programme. When I first moved down south, I was very excited. I had a dream job and the big city was all mine. But in reality, I struggled with life in London. Away from my other half, I was living on my own and finding the truth in that old cliché – big cities can be lonely places. Not just that; working in the TV and radio industry in London can feel like living at 100 miles an hour and I found it impossible to switch off. Life in the capital was making me unhappy. One thing kept my spirits up. When I returned home, I’d have a nap in the afternoon and would often wake up in time for Escape to the Country on BBC One. I found I was increasingly looking forward to a show that offered a glimpse of a better, calmer life away from the city. I began to realise that I needed my own escape to the country. One episode in particular convinced me to take the plunge. It came from Northamptonshire, which was described as “like the Cotswolds without the crowds”. It was also perfectly positioned between the Midlands and London. I rang up Dean and said, “Let’s just do it.” But I was worried. I went to school with people of all races and religions. I had lived in three of the most diverse places you could wish for. If we moved to the country, would I be the only brown person in our village? Would we be the only gay couple? The only young people? It turned out my preconceptions about country life were outdated. From the moment we arrived we were made very welcome. If you watch some TV dramas about rural Britain, you might get the impression it is inhabited entirely by older, middle-class people. In fact, I’ve found the countryside is getting younger and more diverse. My neighbours on one side are Polish; on the other, mixed heritage like me. And now, being part of the Escape to the Country team myself, I am working on a programme that shares that diversity. I’m not just there to be the brown guy with an accent – if you watch the show and the people it features, you’ll see a genuine commitment to providing a truer picture of our modern countryside. Escape to the Country changed my life. I hope that I can help other people, whatever their background, change their lives by showing them that the countryside – whether it’s to escape for a day out or to call it home – is there for all of us. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Escape to the Country is available to watch on BBC One. Add Escape to the Country to your watchlist on the <a id="OWA8b702c45-bee9-94e4-f018-57518e78041b" title="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" href="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-outlook-id="449c28d9-909e-4aab-b6b8-153454f55d5e" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="0">Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
As All's Fair season 2 beckons, critical contempt for the hit Kim Kardashian show misses the point entirely
All's Fair is returning to our screens, showing that even zero-star reviews can’t stop a determined TV drama.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. It’s important to say from the off that no one sets out to make bad TV; also that any self-professed expert should think long and hard before pouring scorn on anyone else’s creative enterprise. As Theodore Roosevelt opined, “The credit belongs to the man [or woman!] in the arena, who… fails while daring greatly.” Teddy’s words come to mind with the news that season two of All’s Fair is on its way – despite critics’ valiant attempts to bury it at sea. This is Disney’s all-female legal drama that cost a whopping $69.7million, with a hefty proportion going on the salary of real-life law student Kim Kardashian in her first acting role. The rest of it has gone on clothes, cars, Oscar-nominated co-stars, but perhaps not the script, hence its rare 0% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Equally rare, The Guardian and The Times both gave it zero stars – which turned out to be generous, after the Daily Mail dug in and awarded it minus three stars. Ouch! Why so harsh? Well, you could point to the barn-door acting, the bling, the mixed message of sisters doing it for themselves, as long as “it” involves roasting their rich husbands for every last dollar. You could be generous and say the fighting over jewellery is a metaphor for autonomy and emancipation – although I fear it’s really just about the jewellery. If there’s another drama to be made about women’s righteous anger (and after Riot Women I’m not sure there is), this isn’t it. This comes hot on the heels of Robin Hood, which The Guardian called “the most gloriously bad TV of the year”. Indeed, its Star Wars-esque opening caption hints at what’s to come; no need to film all those wars when they can be explained away. Instead, MGM+’s purse has stretched to casting Sean Bean as the Sheriff of Nottingham, who brings us his meting out of medieval justice as perfected in Game of Thrones, very possibly wearing the same cloak. Young Robin endures his own version of Batman’s origin story, a trauma that hardens him with every ping of his bow, and of course there’s some forbidden young love in the glades. I’m no Aaron Sorkin, but I started mouthing the dialogue before it was delivered. It’s all completely unnecessary but very welcome on a winter night. Critical contempt misses the point. Shows like these deliberately provide the same kind of nonsensical escape as And Just Like That, Emily in Paris and a dozen reality TV shows that get tagged “guilty pleasures” (no one should ever feel guilty about watching TV!). I’m guessing Kimmy’s All’s Fair castmates have altered their style to match hers; the result is Made in Chelsea level acting in scenes redolent of the “plays” in Ru Paul’s Drag Race, which is exactly what fans of this show are used to. It’s not just critic-proof, it’s critic-dependent. The more so-called experts put it down, the more curious folk (like me) will seek it out. You couldn’t buy the kind of publicity the Daily Mail gave All’s Fair for free. Nicole Kidman once said of her marriage to Tom Cruise, “When you’re loved for your faults you feel really safe.” Yes, I know he left her a year later, but I’ve always thought it a sweet sentiment, and true of many TV gems. Blake’s 7 and Crossroads are forever fondly remembered not despite their obvious flaws, but because of them – wobbly background walls and phones that carried on ringing long after being answered, respectively. Just writing that made me smile, as did the news that All’s Fair’s Tomatometer rating has risen to an impressive 3%. With that, plus its returning A-list line-up, it already has all the stars it needs. This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. All's Fair is available to stream on Disney+. You can sign up to Disney+ from £5.99 a month now. Add Down All's Fair to your watchlist on the <a id="OWA8b702c45-bee9-94e4-f018-57518e78041b" class="x_OWAAutoLink" title="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" href="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-outlook-id="449c28d9-909e-4aab-b6b8-153454f55d5e" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="0">Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Paddington The Musical review: London needs this musical now more than ever
Michael Bond's beloved bear is being very well looked after at Savoy Theatre.
On his journey to becoming a national symbol it has become abundantly clear, a hundred times over, that everything Paddington Bear touches turns sticky, orange, marmalade-scented gold. From record-breaking films, to being a part of the late Queen's Platinum Jubilee, to appearing on every postcard in London, it's almost unfair on other famous characters that Michael Bond's Peruvian Bear should add 'West End star' to his CV – while poor Winnie the Pooh became a horror movie. When seeing Paddington the Musical this weekend I was almost expecting to see a chink in the blue duffle coat armour at last – thinking the pressure of bringing this British icon to life would be too much. How glad I am to be wrong, because this show is simply wonderful. From the minute Paddington enters the stage, the ensemble belting out his name in a pleasingly Hamilton-esque introduction, I sat with an ever-present pool of tears lining my eyes because he is so. Damn. Cute. For those wondering, the role is a combination of on-stage performer Arti Shah and the off-stage voice of James Hameed, who also pilots the puppetry of Paddington's face. Their partnership, with Shah's excitable movements and Hameed's light, innocent voice, give off a palpable magic for kids and adults alike. Not since Les Misérables have I heard so many gasps and sniffles coming from a theatre crowd. The story follows the same plot as the 2014 movie; A young bear migrates from the Peruvian jungle in search of a home in London, only to be found and taken in by the kind Brown family. While Paddington causes havoc at their home in Windsor Gardens, a troubled taxidermist is desperate to get her hands on him and finish her collection. With music and lyrics by Tom Fletcher, the songs definitely carry McFly's brand of universal appeal, blending orchestral layers with fluffy pop and few healthy belters for good measure. The ubiquity of the score means it could happily slot into many a musical, however, the songs are then elevated tenfold by Luke Sheppard's direction and Tom Pye's set design. A good example is the number 'Don't Touch That,' where Paddington arrives at the Browns' house for the first time and becomes overwhelmed by all the newness around him. In his excitement, Paddington runs from pillar to post, destroying the set with sparks, bubbles and, inexplicably, pieces of the ceiling raining down around him – it's a hilarious scene, made better by Mr Brown's (Adrian Der Gregorian) conniptions. Another perfect moment is the second act's ode to marmalade – you knew they had to have that in there – where the entire stage is transformed into a sea of dreamy orange, complete with dance breaks, feathered hats and interaction from the crowd. It is these moments of excess, that one message becomes clear: this is a musical that loves musicals. In a traditional style reminiscent of Cole Porter, Paddington isn't afraid to give you kick lines and hearty ballads, no doubt impacted by Tom Fletcher's upbringing in musical theatre. But, it seems to me the perfect way to introduce your child to the spectacle that musicals can really be. Of course, none of this would work without the cast, who warmly float between cheer, sadness and sharp humour – there's certainly a few jokes only adults will enjoy – with all members earning their moment to shine. It's hard to pick a standout, but for me it would be Victoria Hamilton-Barritt as the villainous Millicent Clyde, who somehow manages to be delightfully hammy and sympathetic, attacking the role with her deep vocals and unapologetically delivering the best song of the show. Otherwise, I found Amy Booth-Steel's character Lady Sloane an unexpected and hilarious hit and Brenda Edwards' Tanya brought heaps of warmth and soul to the stage. And, of course, Bonnie Langford is a tour de force, reminding everyone of the West End legend she is with splits, high kicks and a staggering solo. In any other show I would perhaps call out the shameless amounts of padding in act two, but considering I didn't stop smiling for two hours, I can let that slide. Honestly, this show is exactly what it promised and more. Cutting right into your soul with its message of kindness, love and acceptance, it's a musical we need now more than ever. For anyone who doesn't like it, I'd advise you to have a good hard stare at yourself. Buy Paddington the Musical tickets at LOVEtheatre Where can I see Paddington the Musical? Paddington has found his new home at the West End's Savoy Theatre. The esteemed venue sits right on the strand, and is best travelled to via Charing Cross (on the Bakerloo and Northern Lines) or Leicester Square (Piccadilly and Northern Lines). When can I see Paddington the Musical? The show is currently scheduled to run until October 2026. Performances take place every day except Wednesdays with two shows on Saturdays and Thursdays, and only a matinee on Sunday. How to get Paddington the Musical tickets Paddington tickets are now live at LOVEtheatre starting from £29, although be aware most of December is now sold out. Buy Paddington the Musical tickets at LOVEtheatre Make sure you also check out the best West End shows and our list of 40 Les Misérables backstage secrets. Also, here's how to get cheap Cadbury World tickets.
David Dimbleby reveals why he’s investigating the monarchy as royal institution must "adapt or die"
The veteran broadcaster on the monarchy's power, wealth and public role and how it may evolve ahead of his new BBC series, What's the Monarchy For?
Over the years, I’ve broadcast on many royal events –jubilees and weddings, state occasions and funerals. In my BBC series, What’s the Monarchy For?, I’m doing something quite different – looking in depth at the institution, how it works, its power, its privileges and how it tries to retain public support. The late Queen, in a famous speech, once said that no institution – including the monarchy – should expect to be free from scrutiny. I am taking her at her word. I have always been curious about the role of the monarchy in Britain’s public life. My father, Richard Dimbleby, who provided the commentary on the Queen’s coronation in 1953, was both an admirer of the Queen and an ardent monarchist. He called it, “the enduring strength of Britain and the wonder and envy of a large part of the world”. His passion was founded on the belief that the monarchy was a powerful force in keeping Britain united against the misery and chaos he had witnessed as a reporter during the Second World War. I came to monarchy from a different angle. I did not revere it in the way he did and I never understood the bowing and scraping that seemed to accompany the Queen wherever she went. That said, I followed in my father’s footsteps by accepting the job of commentator on a variety of formal state occasions, all of which provided fascinating challenges as a broadcaster – how much information to give, when to speak and when to stay silent. You could say I accepted the idea of monarchy without endorsing the flattery and flummery that went along with it. So, my enquiry into the nature of monarchy is not into whether Britain should be a monarchy or a republic, though inevitably I touch on that. It is a look at the institution itself, the powers and influence it wields, the inordinate wealth it has accumulated and the way it goes about creating an acceptable public image. This last being crucial, since only by retaining the support of a sufficient number of its citizens can it ensure its survival. In making this series, I learnt how Buckingham Palace devotes great energy to keeping abreast of public opinion and how sometimes – as with the death of the Princess of Wales, or the Andrew saga – they’ve misjudged public feeling. Over the past two years I have interviewed a wide variety of people, both those who support monarchy and those who do not. I have talked to the Sovereign’s closest advisers, including former private secretaries and press officers at the palace, as well as senior politicians. It is not as easy to get people to open up about what they do as you might think. The palace, in particular, has always seemed to adopt the Mafia principle of omertà. Speaking out was not of course met by death, although in earlier reigns it would have been. The modern punishment is exclusion from the enchanted circle, whether as a friend or an employee. It took some persuasion to find politicians who would agree to be interviewed. David Cameron bravely stepped forward and talked about his audiences with the late Queen Elizabeth. George Osborne robustly defended giving the Sovereign Grant, a generous financial settlement that meant the royals’ spending would no longer be scrutinised yearly by the House of Commons. Two powerful private secretaries to the late Queen talk about crises the monarchy has faced – though you have to concentrate to catch their admission of failures to keep in step with public opinion. In this three-part series, I explore the influence the monarch has and at Charles’s attempt to abandon the role of an opinionated Prince of Wales for that of an opinion-free king. I look at the much-vaunted constitutional powers of the Sovereign to appoint prime ministers and to open and close Parliament, and how, when Boris Johnson was prime minister, that went catastrophically wrong. I also look at the impact of the institution at home and abroad, where the royal family has celebrity status; an international brand used by successive governments for their own purposes, whether wooing Donald Trump, repairing relations with Ireland, or insisting on state visits from dictators it thinks it politic to woo. We start the series with a reminder of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s invitation to President Trump to come to Britain on a second state visit, producing an envelope from his inside pocket like a magician producing a rabbit from a hat for the astonished children at a birthday party. “This is really special,” he cooed. “This is unprecedented.” Like a good conjuror, Starmer knew how to grab the attention of his audience. But what is most interesting is what goes on behind the scenes, hidden from public view. I did not realise, for instance, that the monarchy has the power to see any proposed legislation that affects its private interests before it goes to Parliament – and has the prerogative power to suggest amendments to anything that it believes may adversely affect it. The late Queen saw over a thousand such pieces of legislation and saw changes made to at least 160 of them. Some of these exclusions are from important laws that affect everyone else: the Race Relations Act, for example – which guarantees equal employment rights for everyone – does not apply to royal staff, whether working at the top of the tree or employed as a cleaner in one of the palaces. The same with the Equality Act and Health and Safety regulations. Royal finances have always been murky territory to explore, with obfuscation seeming the easiest resort when awkward questions are asked. The two Duchies – Cornwall, whose profits go to the Prince of Wales, and Lancaster, which goes to the King – are often portrayed as benign landlords and champions of the local economies. There was a telling confrontation in 2005, when a parliamentary committee tried to understand how the two Duchies ran their operations. Faced with public scrutiny, their representatives answered in a somewhat opaque fashion. And little wonder, given the revelation that the Duchy of Cornwall – which owns land in 23 counties and in London – charges market rents for the use of its land by NHS trusts, charities, the prison service, the armed forces and schools. You might wonder why they need further public funding at all, let alone the settlement invented by George Osborne as Chancellor of the Exchequer, which guaranteed an income stream based on the profits of the Crown Estate. Read more: King Charles III confirmed to star in all-new documentary special for Prime Video Channel 4 documentary on AI in the workplace reveals unprecedented presenter twist This is another curious institution. It is made up of lucrative property given up by George III in 1760 in return for a fixed royal salary, the Civil List. If you ask who the Crown Estate belongs to, you are assured that it is not the private property of the monarch to dispose of as they wish, but it is nevertheless owned by the monarch “in right of the Crown”. The distinction may elude many. Its declared aim is to maximise profit for the good of the whole nation. Whether leasing a huge house to Andrew for a peppercorn rent lasting 75 years maximises profit for the nation is for them to explain. I had not realised that while in recent years the Sovereign has paid income tax and capital gains tax, it is all on a purely voluntary basis and they don’t have to pay other taxes to which everyone else is subject, including death duties. Royal wealth, therefore, grows year by year. The King is the first billionaire to take the throne. The public mood is all important to monarchy, for obvious reasons. Once the monarchy had abandoned its executive role, gradually giving it up to Parliament (no more executions of opponents), it existed only with the consent of the public. Keeping in step with public feeling became a matter of pressing concern for the Sovereign and the Sovereign’s advisers. But judging the public mood is notoriously difficult. It is subject to irrational shifts and, with their first response to the death of Diana and the snail’s pace abandonment of Andrew in the face of his relationship with Epstein, the palace can get – as they put it – “behind the curve”. The series has been a fascinating voyage of discovery into the workings of the institution. At a time when opposition to the very idea of monarchy is rejected by small majorities in Scotland and Wales and is growing across the UK as a whole, an in-depth examination of the institution is timely. As the old adage goes, “Adapt or die”. Watch this space. The next issue of Radio Times is out on Saturday 29th November – <a class="_mizu194a _1ah3dkaa _ra3xnqa1 _128mdkaa _1cvmnqa1 _4davt94y _4bfu1r31 _1hms8stv _ajmmnqa1 _vchhusvi _kqswh2mm _syaz14q2 _ect41gqc _1a3b1r31 _4fpr8stv _5goinqa1 _f8pj14q2 _9oik1r31 _1bnxglyw _jf4cnqa1 _30l314q2 _1nrm1r31 _c2waglyw _1iohnqa1 _9h8h16c2 _1053w7te _1ienw7te _n0fxw7te _1vhvg3x0" title="https://www.buysubscriptions.com/print/radio-times-magazine-subscription" href="https://www.buysubscriptions.com/print/radio-times-magazine-subscription" data-renderer-mark="true" data-is-router-link="false" data-testid="link-with-safety">subscribe here. 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I have one message for you: Please watch Stand Up to Cancer because it saves lives
Nobody is immune from cancer, so don't delay screenings, writes The Last Leg host Adam Hills.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. My dad had stomach cancer when he was 55 and leukaemia when he was 69. Just before he died he told me, “Good luck with everything in London.” When I was asked, two years later, to host Stand Up to Cancer, his words had even more resonance. I felt like he’d been saying, “Do this for me.” My dad died at the end of 2012. It’s 13 years down the track, but I still feel like I’m doing this for him. My co-presenter and friend Davina McCall’s connection to cancer has become even more personal over the last couple of weeks, having revealed she’s undergone surgery for breast cancer. She’s said it was caught “very, very early, which is incredibly lucky”. When I saw the news, I sent her a message saying, “I’m always amazed by the amount of preparation you do for Stand Up to Cancer, but you’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty this year!” Her response? Well, she wrote back, “This is why I f**king love you!” I’ve said this many times: the best way to make brilliant live TV is to stand next to Davina McCall. Her message is to get checked, don’t delay. That sums up exactly what we want to say with Stand Up to Cancer. We need to get that message out there. According to figures from Cancer Research UK, at least nine million people in the UK aren’t up to date with their cancer screening. I admit that I’ve also, in the past, felt a fear of screening. In Australia, you have a bowel cancer test when you’re 50. [Bowel cancer screenings are offered to people over 50 in England, Scotland and Wales and those over 60 in Northern Ireland]. I didn’t do mine until I was 54. I feared the worst and was squeamish about posting an envelope with my poo in it. Now I understand the importance of not delaying and of getting checked early. It can literally save your life. In 2024, the Princess of Wales and the King both announced their cancer diagnoses. That is a reminder that anyone can get it. Nobody is immune because of rank, privilege or wealth. We present Stand Up to Cancer every two years and, since its UK launch in 2012, it has raised over £113 million, funding 73 clinical trials and projects involving more than 13,000 cancer patients nationwide. The money has funded research such as robotic and laser-assisted cancer surgery, AI to help detect and treat cancers, and even lollipops that could help detect mouth cancer. Every time we get up to host the show, it feels like there’s been another breakthrough, another treatment, a less invasive form of radiation therapy or chemotherapy. But because it’s not sexy – it’s scientists working quietly in a lab – we don’t hear enough about that. This year, as well as special editions of Celebrity Gogglebox and The Last Leg, we’ll feature, for the first time live on UK television, clinical consultations with cancer specialists, from Addenbrooke’s and Royal Papworth Hospitals. These will unfold in real time to demystify what happens inside a cancer clinic and hopefully take away some of the fear around diagnosis. The producers have asked me, “Is there anything you’re not up for on the night?” Well, in 2021 I had my butt cheeks waxed while doing a reverse bungee jump outside Wembley Stadium to raise funds for Stand Up to Cancer, and in 2020 I had a prostate exam live on air to encourage men with symptoms to get themselves checked. I’m not sure there’s any part of my body that’s unscathed! But if I have one message to RT readers, it’s please watch because it helps. Our job is to entertain you as a viewer and keep you watching for three hours. But it’s also to show you how your donations help, because they really do. A fiver can help save a life. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. To find out more about Stand Up to Cancer and how you can get involved or make a donation, visit its official website. Stand Up to Cancer's special night of programming airs on Friday 12th December on Channel 4. Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what else is on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
What are embarrassing TV moments in an age where nobody actually gets cancelled and there's no such thing as bad publicity?
We used to enjoy watching celebrities go off-piste – but now those moments are called "content" and have lost their frisson.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. It’s not often you feel sorry for Tom Cruise. Whether he’s diving headfirst into Paris’s Olympic stadium, defying gravity perched aloft Dubai’s Burj Khalifa or just donning a pair of Ray-bans to ride a motorbike along an ocean-front, he invariably epitomises cool, as if he were the love child of The Fonz and Huggy Bear – that is, with one exception. In 2005, he turned up on Oprah Winfrey’s chat show, ostensibly to promote his latest film. Instead, intent on expressing his love for future wife Katie Holmes, he variously shook his host’s shoulders, fist-pumped the floor and finally leapt onto the couch. Were we all having what he was having? Not so much. Instead, Winfrey spoke for everyone when she pointed out, “We’ve never seen you behave this way before.” In that brief, shining moment, Cruise “went viral” before it was a thing and proved he shares hallowed turf with Noel Edmonds (solemnly addressing his own Guardian statue in his recent documentary), Holly Willoughby (asking This Morning viewers, “Are you OK?” We’re fine!), Guy Goma (who went for a job interview at the BBC and ended up live on News 24) and Judy Finnigan (jaw-droppingly top-dropping at the NTA Awards). All have given us TV moments to watch through our fingers but never fully turn away from. Now they’re among those featured in an irresistible 5 documentary series (most embarrassing of all, it includes your friendly columnist as a nodding head, but don’t let that put you off). But why can’t we get enough of such clips? What puts the “fest” in “cringe”? View oEmbed on the source website It ill becomes us to dwell on the most obvious answer, everyone’s favourite German word schadenfreude, that is, pleasure derived from another’s misfortune, but it’s clearly a factor. Specifically, though, TV aims to offer us a world shinier, blander and more scripted than our real lives, so when humanity in all its foibles succeeds in breaking through, it’s both immensely jarring and wonderfully relatable. It’s no fun when there’s a clear victim – a young Taylor Swift was ill-prepared for Kanye West to storm her stage at the 2009 MTV VMAs, and a pair of judges were sacked after they shredded a young contestant on New Zealand’s X Factor, shouting “You’re a laughing stock” – but for the most part, such moments offer a refreshing antidote to all the blandness we’re otherwise fed. View oEmbed on the source website Except, these kinds of clips pretty much all date from TV times gone by. These days, there’s so much media on offer that very few what we used to call “watercooler moments” have the power to cut through the noise and stop us in our tracks. While the nation can still pause for an irate BGT contestant to throw an egg at Simon Cowell, it’s no more eventful than the slurry of such incidents available on TikTok; it’s Beadle’s About on tap. Bloopers used to be edited out, saved for the director’s reel and revealed at the wrap party. Now they’re edited in, shared with millions and called “content”. Something more profound, too, has occurred along the way. From politicians to presenters to fake heiresses to Tinder swindlers, very few public figures still remain in thrall to a single invisible referee that used to guide our behavioural norms; instead they strive for clicks, views and comments to measure success. We live in an age where there really is no such thing as bad publicity, and nobody, but nobody, actually gets cancelled. That we’ve reached this state of affairs is far more embarrassing than Judy’s button-popping boo-boo or even Tom’s sofa-leap of love. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. The Most Embarrassing TV Guests airs on Saturday 6 December at 10.35pm on 5. Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what else is on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Down Cemetery Road is stellar TV – but the real scene-stealer isn't who you think
Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson are great in the series but it's time we talk about Fehinti Balogun.
*Warning: This article contains spoilers for Down Cemetery Road episode 6.* We already knew Zoë was in a precarious situation going into the sixth episode of Down Cemetery Road, but nothing could quite prepare us for the sheer amount of tension that built throughout the latest episode of the series. If you listen closely, you may be able to hear phrases such as "Oh, TV is so back!" or "This is bloody brilliant" ringing out in the distance. Well, those are being cried out by me. That's because episode 6 of the (already) stellar drama is, quite simply, excellent – and really, it's all down to the star that is Fehinti Balogun. Captivating from the very first episode, Balogun has brought the character of Amos to life in such a way that you can't help but want more of him on our screens. There's absolutely no doubt about it: Amos is the antagonist of the series. Whether he's the main one is something to be disputed the closer we inch to the finale and come to understand the powers-that-be a bit better. What we do know, though, is that Sarah (Ruth Wilson) and Zoë (Emma Thompson) are the thorns in his side that he's intent on removing. For all intents and purposes, we're supposed to side with them and not Amos. And while I'm not saying that I side with a serial-killing hitman, it's hard not to absolutely love what the character brings to the dynamic and feel of Down Cemetery Road. Hell, I'd even go so far as saying that the series wouldn't be as great as it is without both Amos and Balogun. In the show's latest instalment, entitled Neglected Waters, the drama comes into its own. While some of the previous episodes may be seen as slightly slower in pace, episode 6 is a lesson for any screenwriter or director in how to build up tension perfectly. Trains have been used time and time again throughout TV and film as apt locations for the most twisted of tales. From Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train, to The Girl on the Train, Murder on the Orient Express or the more recent Nightsleeper, there's clearly something about being in an enclosed space rattling along the railway that is ripe for building pressure for characters and viewers alike. In Down Cemetery Road, we already knew Amos had spied Zoë following him to his train cabin in the previous episode and while she went into this one assuming she had the upper hand, we always suspect that Amos is several steps ahead of most. Never will the British Transport Police's "see it, say it, sorted" announcement take on such a sinister note than when relayed by Amos, who slips into the seat opposite Zoë on the train. And who knew playing Bananagrams with strangers would end up being Zoë's only way of ensuring she wouldn't be killed that night? All the while, Amos never so much as breaks a bead of sweat, simply enjoying the lengths that Zoë is having to go to in order to try and outsmart him. We've seen it throughout the series but Balogun's straight face is the stuff of pure poker table fear; it simply doesn't give anything away. But as well as being superbly written, Amos is a character that has unexpected layers which are proving ever more enjoyable to peel away. Episode 3 showed a rare side of emotion to the character, revealing that the body he had cut up and disposed of was, in fact, his brother Axel. It's his unwavering commitment to get Zoë in this episode, though, that is not just the perfect cat-and-mouse chase but also only continues to underline Balogun as a gem within this series. Going up against the likes of Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson is no easy feat for any actor, I imagine, but Balogun makes it all look easy. A villain can only make a protagonist look better than they already do and whilst the likes of Thompson and Wilson certainly don't need to be propped up by anyone else with their existing acting chops, Balogun brings out the best of both of them in this series. Through Amos's looming and anxiety-inducing presence within the storyline, it only serves to create a depth of emotion and panic that carries this series. There are multiple gut-wrenching close calls within the recent train scenes alone, with Zoë using the appropriate term of "you sneaky little f**ker" once she realises that Amos has done something to the train to get all the passengers evacuated. He wants to kill her, it's simple. Some may think otherwise but the gun in his pocket (that has a silencer attached to it, no less) speaks volumes. Amos is one-track minded when it comes to his mission but we already know this. Whilst he could've entertained a very keen lover in previous episodes, it was clear his mind was preoccupied with the work he has to get done. Throw in the personal connection of his brother being killed and, well, it's as personal for Amos as finding Dinah is for Sarah. The predator-prey circling that underpins this entire episode notches up further when Amos (under the guise of 'Andy') hijacks a taxi with his new American friends in the passenger seats. From taking polaroids with them the evening prior, to shooting them both dead in cold blood, Amos never fails to shock us. What's his next move? Really, I don't want to be able to guess it and that's the mark of truly terrific TV. But it doesn't stop there – Amos forces himself to start crying and calls the police to report their murders, cleverly implicating Zoë in the crime as the perpetrator and making sure she'll be unable to move freely through the small Scottish fishing village that they're all descending upon. We've seen Balogun's ease at slipping into accents previously within this series but they never fail to surprise, only demonstrating his character's complete ease at manipulating people. Could Amos be the perfect TV villain? He's unintentionally very funny, no-nonsense, slick and just damn good at being a bad guy. Sure, he kills people with absolutely no remorse and fits all the markers of a psychopath, but he's the kind of antagonist that you can't help but enjoy watching, whether in his scenes with the leading actresses or in moments of comedic gold with Hamza (Adeel Akhtar). View Green Video on the source website Balogun's performance throughout the series is one that has me immediately thinking of the awards circuit and the actor hopefully scooping up a raft of nominations for this role. While Balogun clearly has all manner of talents in his various lines of work also as writer and activist, we can only hope that Down Cemetery Road cements him as a regular on our screens in the near future. Because while Down Cemetery Road has been a joyous web of tension and unease to watch unfold, it's really Balogun that has made this series extra special. Down Cemetery Road episodes 1-6 are available to stream on Apple TV, with episodes being released weekly – sign up to Apple TV now. Add Down Cemetery Road to your watchlist on the <a id="OWA8b702c45-bee9-94e4-f018-57518e78041b" class="x_OWAAutoLink" title="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" href="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-outlook-id="449c28d9-909e-4aab-b6b8-153454f55d5e" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="0">Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Has the new Robin Hood gone "woke"? A Robin Hood expert weighs in on the debate
Dr Sean McGlynn is a university lecturer and author of Robin Hood: A True Legend. He writes extensively on Robin Hood and medieval history.
The new Robin Hood series from MGM+ has produced an arrow storm of criticism from viewers who dislike its historical inaccuracy, with accusations of "wokery" unsurprisingly making their way into the discourse. Others, at the same time, are enjoying its modern updating and creative invention. Both sides have a point. Viewers who do not approve of the dramatic licence taken by the series’ makers draw attention to a number of issues that are modern-day interventions rather than being true to medieval England. One insertion is that Robin Hood’s closest ally, Little John, is a black man with dreadlocks. The chances of this bearing any resemblance to reality in late 12th-century England are almost zero. If Little John was of African descent, then something extraordinary would be happening today – instead of the Robin Hood legend we would be talking of the Little John one, so exceptional would be the scenario. We would not be watching films and TV series on Robin Hood, but on Little John. It is inconceivable to have such a character not being one of the most famous people of the Middle Ages, comparable to that of Joan of Arc in France. In the early stories of Robin Hood, Little John is a figure of almost equal importance and heroism to Robin, featuring in all the ballads and tellings of the legend. He also appears as a named companion of Robin in Scottish chronicles from the early 15th century. As one would expect, at no point is any reference ever made to his racial ethnicity. The extreme rarity of people of colour in 12th-century England would have immediately drawn the overwhelming attention of writers had Little John been black. The makers of the new Robin Hood also distort historical reality by making the “Saxons” (i.e., the English) as worshippers of a female goddess, Godda. By the time in which the series is set, England had been Christianised for 500 years. Pockets of paganism and folk religion would have survived, but any found by the church or monarch would have been destroyed by English kings long before the Normans (very much the bad guys in the programme) arrived. The Merry Men also include a woman disguised, for a while, as a man. This is Much the Miller’s Son of the original tales now being the Miller’s Daughter. While such a character has never appeared in any of the Robin Hood stories, there certainly were plenty of women criminals, so this is not such a stretch. Read more: I'm an expert historian and here's how accurate Robin Hood on MGM+ is to real events Robin Hood star teases potential season 2 as Sean Bean series approaches finale next month Such additions to the tale have been criticised by some as being an historically inaccurate attempt to make the story fashionable and relevant to our 21st-century multicultural society in which less than 5 per cent of the population regularly attends Christian services. How, then, in purely historical terms, can it be that viewers who have no problem with these modern embellishments are equally right in their opinions? The key here is that while there are the real facts discussed above about the historical setting and medieval writers supporting the critics, the earliest tales of Robin Hood are highly unlikely to be factual ones. This is because the story of Robin Hood was, from the start, designed as entertainment. Just as modern audiences like to be transported away from daily life into exciting stories of heroes and derring-do, so, too, did medieval ones – and all those in the centuries since. In the numerous medieval outlaw tales, of which Robin Hood was just one, audiences relished the often-gratuitous violence, revenge, coarse humour and mostly happy endings where the hero succeeds and where justice is restored. By the time of the earliest surviving Robin Hood tales in the late-15th century, the legend was already at least two centuries old. It is anyone’s guess how much the tale had already changed over that time. Notably, neither Maid Marian nor Friar Tuck were in the first stories, being added only later. View oEmbed on the source website The legend has lasted the test of time due to its almost limitless potential for adaptation. It has been made to appeal to all classes and audiences in different times. Thus, towards the end of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign in the 1590s, Robin was no longer a yeoman but elevated to the ranks of the nobility as Earl of Huntingdon so he could now be a hero of the upper classes. By the 20th century, Robin was re-imagined in many forms, two notably being as an anti-communist freedom fighter of the Cold War and the DC Comics superhero Green Arrow from the 1940s. The 21st century sees the changes continuing. The Green Arrow was adapted to the Arrow series, in which the hero fights corporate corruption and terrorism in the post-9/11, post-2008 financial crisis world. In the 2018 film Robin Hood he is something of an environmentalist. In the new series, Robin Hood and his Merry Men (and Women) offer yet another variation. While there are many fascinating historical clues about Robin Hood, he has always been an infinitely adaptable character from literature and culture. And so he remains today. Robin Hood is streaming now on MGM+. Add Robin Hood to your watchlist on the <a id="OWA8b702c45-bee9-94e4-f018-57518e78041b" title="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" href="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-outlook-id="449c28d9-909e-4aab-b6b8-153454f55d5e" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="0">Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. 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Subtle, soul-searching dramas tackling Northern Ireland’s Troubles are proving that few escaped this era unscathed
Writers are starting to explore Northern Ireland’s violent history to create soul-searching TV.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. In the very first reel, we’re reminded that “the Irish have been arguing over the same sh*te for 800 years”. So it comes as no surprise that the drama Say Nothing – about the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the toll they took, including a burden of silence carried by many to this day – has already drawn as much criticism as praise from all sides. Adapted from Patrick Radden Keefe’s non-fiction bestseller, it stars Maxine Peake as the former paramilitary Dolours Price, narrating and reflecting on her violent past – as the real Price and others did for Boston College’s “Belfast Project”, an oral history of the Troubles – before the drama flashes back to chart how Price and her sister Marian evolved from peaceful protestors into key members of the IRA unit that carried out the 1973 Old Bailey bombing. True, there’s a caperish quality to some of their “fundraising” antics – the sisters dress up as nuns to rob a bank at gunpoint – that presumably won’t sit well with victims of such violence. There’s nothing about loyalist paramilitaries’ equal and opposite activities, and the Republican mission is positioned as one of ideological zeal, with no account of the economic disparity suffered by Catholics. And Gerry Adams has, of course, denied ever being part of the IRA or its activities, the disclaimer after every episode providing a wry counterpoint to his vivid depiction on screen. Whatever it gets wrong, Say Nothing succeeds in bringing home the cost wrought to so many by virtue of era and circumstance – when living in a particular street, or drinking in a particular pub, construed a political act. Equally evocative is Trespasses, also adapted from a bestselling book and set at the height of the Troubles. The best TV drama I’ve seen this year, it depicts the forbidden love affair between teacher Cushla (Catholic) and lawyer Michael (married, Protestant), and delicately weaves the personal with the political. The stakes are made clear by the rotten fate of a Protestant-Catholic couple living on a nearby estate. After a lovers’ tiff, Michael asks Cushla, “We’re all right?” She replies, “We’re doomed. Apart from that, we’re grand.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2025/11/unnamed-file-ca2eeaf.jpg" width="5938" height="3959" alt="A man in a dark suit gently kisses the forehead of a woman wearing an off-the-shoulder white dress with pink trim. She holds a brown clutch and leans slightly toward him with a small smile. They are standing in a warmly lit room with wood paneling and abstract artwork on the wall behind them, creating an intimate and tender atmosphere." title="Trespasses" /> Nearly 30 years after the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, a host of writers from Northern Ireland are leaning into its violent past to create subtle, soul-searching drama. Historians pin the start of the Troubles to 1968, which means it’s taken nearly as long as they lasted for writers to speak up – why? The answer is the same reason their stories remain powerful now: that no one who lived through that era – one of armed soldiers patrolling streets, helicopters whirring overhead and threat all around – emerged unaffected. Every resident of Northern Ireland, particularly Belfast, was steeped in “fight or flight”, too busy trying to get through each day to build the narrative, let alone provide the complex political, cultural, religious context these stories demand. Three decades later, we meet characters both real and invented, ordinary people rendered extraordinary through circumstance, capable of the worst of behaviour, but also of unexpected kindness and courage. The stories are embedded in the era, but the humanity is timeless. Nowhere is the contrast between ordinary life and extraordinary setting more charming than in Derry Girls. When a bomb threat closes a nearby bridge and Aunt Sarah complains, “they want ordinary people to suffer”, it transpires she’ll have to miss her appointment at the sunbed salon. For three series, writer Lisa McGee had us laughing out loud with her take on the past, but finally brought a lump to the throat with an ending where every generation votes “Yes” in the 1998 referendum for peace. Say Nothing and Trespasses also conclude with modern-day scenes. It’s telling that, even in exploring the past, all three reach for upbeat, optimistic bookmarks to all that went before. The latest issue of Radio Times is out on Tuesday – subscribe here. Say Nothing is on Monday and Tuesday at 9pm on Channel 4. Trespasses is available on Channel 4 streaming. Add Say Nothing and Trespasses to your watchlist on the <a id="OWA8b702c45-bee9-94e4-f018-57518e78041b" title="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" href="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-outlook-id="449c28d9-909e-4aab-b6b8-153454f55d5e" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="0">Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Line of Duty could be entering its #MeToo era – but let's hope it doesn't waste the opportunity
Shining a light on sexual predators within positions of power is eerily topical for Line of Duty. Will the BBC drama pull it off?
This article contains mentions of sexual assault, which some readers may find distressing. After months (well really, years now) of speculation about the future of Line of Duty, fans were able to breathe a collective sigh of relief this week when season 7 was finally announced. It was the jewel in the BBC drama crown after all, so why wouldn't we be seeing more of AC-12? Not only were we all treated to the confirmation of the series return and leading cast news, we were also given an insight into what twisted road of corruption we'll all be going down. The BBC's description for season 7 teases a rebrand for AC-12, with anti-corruption work having "never been more difficult". Nevertheless, we're set to see Steve (Martin Compston), Kate (Vicky McClure) and Ted (Adrian Dunbar) tackle "their most sensitive case so far". The synopsis states that the season will be concerned with "charismatic" new character Detective Inspector Dominic Gough, who has won plaudits for multiple takedowns of organised crime, but stands "accused of abusing his position of trust to act as a sexual predator." It adds: "But is Gough’s case a deliberate distraction from a bigger threat still operating in the shadows?" While the nation attempts to remember their shared season 6 finale disappointment, wonders just how Jed Mercurio will rectify the H anticlimax, and speculates about which starry name may or may not step into the role as Gough, my mind couldn't help but turn to recent headlines. With Line of Duty seemingly stepping into its #MeToo era, we could be getting a season of television that is not only as gripping as its previous instalments – but could be its most topical yet, if it knows what to do with such sensitive subject matter. Equally, it could be the season that may be the most difficult to watch for many survivors at home. You don't have to scroll far to find a news report about a police officer abusing their position of power – and when it comes to doing so for sexual gain, there are a slew of recent cases that are the substance of any stomach-churning storyline. At the time of writing, disgraced former Met Police officer David Carrick's name is emblazoned on several news outlets once again, having just been handed another life sentence. On Wednesday 19th November, the serial rapist was found guilty of sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl in the '80s when he was 14 and raping a former partner 20 years later. He had already been serving 36 life sentences (with a minimum of 32 years), having admitted to 71 offences of sexual violence committed over a 17-year period. Just the other month, many were left shocked after secret BBC Panorama filming exposed evidence of misogyny and racism inside the Metropolitan Police. The footage, which was taken of officers at Charing Cross police station, contained sexualised comments and racist views about immigrants and Muslims. Last month also saw a misconduct hearing held for a former anti-corruption officer with Warwickshire Police, who had used his position for sexual gain and had started a relationship with a vulnerable woman, whom he had initially met when he arrested her as a teenager. There's also the gross misconduct case of a former Staffordshire Police officer who was found to have exchanged sexually suggestive messages with a witness, and allegedly established an inappropriate sexual relationship with a vulnerable woman after he "placed his phone number in her bra". Sadly, this is just a hyper-focused snapshot of the news cycle as it relates to recent reports of misconduct within UK policing. I could very much continue to go on about the real-world headlines that continue to make many people (including myself) simply despair, but let's turn our attention back to Line of Duty. Rather sadly, for the aforementioned reasons, the seventh season could actually be coming out at the best possible time. While DI Dominic Gough will be investigated by our trusty trio, it stands to reason whether or not he will actually be guilty of his crimes, of course. We know the way of this series by now, not only does it throw up all kinds of twists but it has also only delved further into this wider H conspiracy. Could an innocent Gough have simply gotten on the wrong side of one of his colleagues or perhaps, angered an OCG? It's always a possibility that he could be framed for crimes he hasn't committed. But in an ideal world of topical TV, Mercurio and his team would pen scripts that not only shine an important light on the eerie parallels to real life institutional failures, but could also prioritise the narratives of victims and those affected too. Placing the stories of victims at the forefront of the storyline would be a powerful move for the primetime series, allowing a window into the full-scale impact of such devastation. Sexual assault and rape (which could be crimes that Gough stands accused of committing) should never just be thrown in as a plot device for a high-stakes drama. Crucially, Line of Duty can't just centre Gough here but could really give a voice to those often left unheard. Gough, a senior ranking police officer, could very well be handed his just desserts alongside the ongoing corruption storylines that underpin Line of Duty, which would, I think, make for an inspired and well-rounded storyline. But perhaps these are simply the TV dreams of one angry writer (me) hoping to see justice served, even fictionally, on one of the country's most popular dramas. Mercurio has certainly proven that he has the chops to bring the meatiest, edge-of-your-seat storylines to life, but whether he'll be brave enough to take the opportunity and run with the plethora of unfortunate inspiration at his fingertips, we'll just have to wait and see. Line of Duty seasons 1-6 are available to stream on BBC iPlayer. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
5 things Stargate needs to learn for a successful revival as '90s phenomenon returns to screens
The revival could be a hit – if it follows our simple five rules.
Stargate is officially coming back to screens and, having franchise veteran Martin Gero on board is an excellent start for the new series – but there are other things it needs to get right. After over thirty years of storytelling, spanning multiple mediums including films, television series, books and games, the iconic '90s sci-fi franchise Stargate is officially set to return. The news was confirmed this week by Prime Video after an announcement video confirmed that a revival series has been greenlit by Amazon MGM Studios – excitingly with franchise stalwart Martin Gero on board as creator, writer, executive producer and showrunner. It was also confirmed that Dean Devlin and "master of disaster" Roland Emmerich, who were the major players behind the original 1994 Stargate movie, are also on board as executive producers. This is undoubtedly fantastic news for Stargate fans who have missed the many adventures through time and space since the final episode of Stargate Universe aired back in 2011(!), but we can’t help but wonder just where the wormhole will take viewers next. Described as a “bold new chapter” in the ​​iconic science fiction franchise, not much else has been revealed about the upcoming series. But we have five initial suggestions that we think could help turn this revival into a hit. Read on for our full list of things the Stargate revival show should do in order to succeed. 5 things Stargate needs to learn as '90s phenomenon returns to screens 1. Balance accessibility for new viewers with meaningful nods for long-time fans One of the major factors that will surely make or break the new series is satisfying both Gaters (die-hard fans) and new – or more casual – viewers who will be delving into the franchise for the first time, with the show acting as a clear jumping-on point. Striking this balance is undoubtedly one of the hardest elements to get right in a revival, reboot, or any new series set within an established universe. You don’t have to look far to see how difficult it is to nail: both Star Wars shows The Mandalorian and Ahsoka have creaked under the weight of introducing nostalgic characters from other formats. This is particularly true of the former, as the show – which primarily began as a Western-esque series about Din Djarin’s endearing relationship with Grogu – has ballooned considerably. View oEmbed on the source website At the same time, the new series should be able to stand on its own without getting too bogged down by what came before. Familiar alien foes (such as the iconic Goa’uld and the Replicators), returning locations and planets (like Chulak and Abydos), and a few meaningful, plot-driven cameos can help satisfy long-time fans, but the story itself should remain accessible for newcomers. Thankfully, Martin Gero has confirmed that he’s making the show for fans and newcomers alike – and potentially even those who don’t currently love a sci-fi franchise. “This is a show for everyone, everywhere,” he reiterated. It’s fantastic to have the original creators on board to help shape a new version of the show, one that aims to carve out its own unique chapter in the Stargate universe – and hopefully, complete with its own unique team (complete with the dysfunctional but endearing dynamic!) 2. Remember what made the franchise beloved, without copying and pasting it There are so many brilliant elements that drew such a huge fanbase to the beloved Stargate universe. Whether it’s the unique premise allowing for countless adventures exploring other worlds, cultures, and technologies through the titular gateway; the blend of science fiction and ancient mythology (particularly Egyptian); the excellent character development; or the genuine humour – there’s just so much to enjoy. The “everyday people in extraordinary settings” angle also adds a strong sense of relatability to the show, with many of the core team made up of military figures or scientists based on Earth. It’s an accessible jumping-on point that helps ground the more fantastical elements. Where the franchise suffered in its later stages was in diluting its original formula, particularly with the introduction of characters from another show (Farscape). While the crossovers between SG-1 and Atlantis were incredibly fun and often a real highlight, the later additions to the SG-1 cast felt like a departure from the grounded, human-focused military science fiction that defined the series. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2025/11/GettyImages-153945003-66aceb0-e1763574157821.jpg" width="2288" height="1530" alt="Stargate Atlantis cast: Joe Flanigan as Lt. Col. John Sheppard, Jewel Staite as Dr. Jennifer Keller, Robert Picardo as Richard Woolsey, Jason Momoa as Ronan Dex, Rachel Luttrell as Teyla Emmagan, David Hewlett as Dr. Rodney McKay" title="Stargate Atlantis cast: Joe Flanigan as Lt. Col. John Sheppard, Jewel Staite as Dr. Jennifer Keller, Robert Picardo as Richard Woolsey, Jason Momoa as Ronan Dex, Rachel Luttrell as Teyla Emmagan, David Hewlett as Dr. Rodney McKay" /> Likewise, Stargate Universe marked a significant tonal shift, embracing a much darker atmosphere with far less of the humour fans loved. This revival gives Gero a valuable opportunity to right some of those past missteps and take the franchise back to its roots – but with a new story. Recent franchise reboots and legacy sequels have often strayed into overly familiar territory, taking beloved instalments and almost recreating them beat-for-beat (Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Ghostbusters: Afterlife, for example). There’s a real opportunity here for the Stargate creative team to carve out its own identity instead of falling into that same trap. Thankfully, the Stargate revival is a new adventure rather than a straight-up reboot, and the creators – many of whom worked on previous iterations – can craft a brand-new story within this rich science-fiction sandbox. It’s a chance to acknowledge the past while confidently dialling up some chevrons and guiding the franchise into its next phase. And it’s clear that Martin Gero knows exactly what people love about the franchise: “I think what’s amazing about the Stargate construction is that it takes place today. It takes place on Earth, the Earth that you recognise. But yet this gateway to the stars allows us to tell these amazing stories with epic scope, [an] incredible sense of humour and again, like a sense of presence in the real world.” 3. Bring something new to the universe One of the biggest draws of the Stargate franchise is the unique titular device itself. The ‘Astria Porta’ gateway allows for near-instantaneous travel and almost endless adventures across the cosmos. Think the TARDIS – but instead of a blue box, a physical portal to the stars. This central mechanism alone opens the door to a multitude of storytelling opportunities, especially when paired with the franchise’s recognisable blend of military drama, ancient mythology, and science fiction. SG-1 laid the groundwork for this beloved formula, while the second series, Stargate Atlantis, built on it by taking the concept to a whole new level. Travelling to – well – Atlantis in the Pegasus Galaxy, the show used the city’s Stargate as the hub for a joint international expedition. Stargate Universe, meanwhile, bucked this trend in favour of a more survival-based narrative, following a multinational team of soldiers and civilians forced through a Stargate after an attack. And the prequel series Stargate: Origins travelled back in time – and to the planet Abydos – to explore the early mysteries surrounding the gate’s discovery. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2025/11/GettyImages-154227119-34565de.jpg" width="3000" height="2000" alt="Christopher Judge as Teal'c, Amanda Tapping as Maj. Samantha Carter, Richard Dean Anderson as Colonel Jack O'Neill, Michael Shanks as Dr. Daniel Jackson in Stargate SG-1" title="Christopher Judge as Teal'c, Amanda Tapping as Maj. Samantha Carter, Richard Dean Anderson as Colonel Jack O'Neill, Michael Shanks as Dr. Daniel Jackson in Stargate SG-1" /> There are so many opportunities to introduce new species and technologies across new worlds through the classic planet-of-the-week structure, all while exploring different mythologies along the way. Previously, the franchise has delved into Egyptian gods and Asgard, inspired by Norse mythology. Other major mythologies that could make brilliant additions - each capable of shaping a whole new suite of alien races - include Mayan and Incan, as well as Celtic. Additionally, alongside a refreshed military-scientific central team (hopefully based on Earth once again), potentially with ties to previous teams, the new series can bring the franchise up to date by weaving in contemporary sci-fi concepts, modern moral quandaries (much like Star Trek and Doctor Who), cutting-edge science (including AI, nanotech, and alternative energy), and fresh thematic explorations each week. 4. Focus on character-driven storytelling One of the biggest criticisms of franchise sequels, spinoffs, and extended universes is nostalgia-driven storytelling that reuses familiar story beats at the expense of real character development and world-building. Star Trek: Picard, The Mandalorian, and Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi have all leaned heavily on these elements, sometimes overshadowing the main story. While the Stargate revival could potentially fall into the same trap if the creative team relies too heavily on cameos from fan-favourite SG-1 and Atlantis characters or repeats familiar storylines, it also has the opportunity to stand out from the overly familiar landscape of current sci-fi and fantasy. The core characters in both SG-1 and Atlantis consisted of a diverse cast ahead of its time, with strong female leads and representation of different cultures and mythologies. They were afforded compelling arcs throughout the series – none more so than Christopher Judge’s Teal’c, who evolved from a Jaffa warrior serving the Goa’uld into a rebel fighter and trusted friend of the main team. The revival now has the opportunity to introduce a new central team of fan favourites for a new generation - with nuanced, layered characters whose personal growth drives the wider plot, even within the planet-of-the-week structure. By balancing character development with expansive world-building, the series could deliver a fun, engaging sci-fi adventure grounded in relatable, character-driven stakes, in a similar vein to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. 5. Make it (intelligent) fun! While certain concepts and storylines in fantasy and sci-fi shows can feel a little silly or on-the-nose, the central storytelling device in the Stargate franchise is actually grounded in science. The SG-1, Atlantis, and Universe teams all worked with scientific advisors to help guide the storylines concocted in the writers’ room. Notable contributors included Mika McKinnon, a freelance scientist and geophysicist, who helped ensure that concepts – particularly wormhole theories – were as consistent with real-world physics as possible. Another key element for the revival to capture is the sense of awe, wonder, and fun - something often missing in today’s sci-fi landscape. The humour throughout SG-1 and Atlantis, largely thanks to the team dynamics and especially Colonel O’Neill’s sarcastic quips, was one of the franchise’s most beloved features. The new series also has the chance to bring a whole host of alien species to life using modern technology and a much bigger budget. “We’re going to be able to do things that we could not do in 1997, and even beyond that,” consulting producer Brad Wright explains. “We’re going to be able to do almost anything in terms of visual effects and everything our imagination can come up with now.” Fire up the dial-home device – we’re counting down the days to the next adventure in the cosmos! Add Stargate to your watchlist on the <a id="OWA8b702c45-bee9-94e4-f018-57518e78041b" title="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" href="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-outlook-id="449c28d9-909e-4aab-b6b8-153454f55d5e" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="0">Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Sci-fi coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Malice ending explained: Adam's big reveal is a big anti-climax – but maybe that's the point
We've seen it all before, but does that really matter?
*Warning: Contains major spoilers for all six episodes of Malice.* Speaking to RadioTimes.com ahead of the release of Prime Video's Malice, comedian Jack Whitehall, who plays a man hellbent on revenge, said that viewers might experience a complicated emotional response to its antagonist when all is revealed. "You're left with a very strange feeling as to what you feel about Adam," he said of his character, who pretends to be a tutor-cum-"manny" in a bid to take down David Duchovny's wealthy venture capitalist – and alpha-male douche – Jamie Tanner. "And I think that's quite important, to have those moments of feeling almost sympathetic. Through the back half of the series, you really see him as a true villain, and you're really wanting him to get caught, and really praying for the safety of the family. But then at the end, there's just this... I don't know how to describe it. "It's just this strange note that it's left on with him, where maybe you do [feel sorry for him]. I think some people will feel sorry for him." Killing a kitten and a dog (you b**tard!) certainly doesn't help Adam's case. And there's also the double murder (maybe I should have started with that) – first Damien, whom he thwacks over the head with a cricket bat before dumping his body in the Thames – and finally Jamie, whom he shoots point-blank in the head in Greece, shortly after shooting another man dead. All horrible, obviously. Details of another murder – the death of a kid in Bangkok – are also touched upon briefly. Then there's the plethora of other non-murderous but still terrible acts Adam commits, from poisoning the Tanners' old nanny to his decision not to call off the burglary after learning that the daughter, April, was going to be at the Tanner house when it happened. But his white-hot hatred of Jamie burned too bright to ignore – the reason for which was naturally held back until the finale for maximum impact. Yet the big reveal ended up being a big anti-climax. Malice ending explained You didn't have to be a genius to know what was coming long before we got there. From Channel 5 drama The Catch starring Jason Watkins, to the aptly named Revenge, to the character of Sawyer in Lost, there are countless stories about people avenging their parents – and in Malice, Adam is on a mission to make Jamie pay for what happened to his own, who died in tragic circumstances when he was just a child. Adam's dad, Colin Tilderman, killed Jamie's mother before he then took a load of pills and set fire to the family home. And according to Adam, Jamie was to blame. He had invested £15 million in the family's luggage business, which had been going for 150 years. But everything fell apart when Colin couldn't make his interest payments and, in a short amount of time, Jamie had washed his hands of Adam's dad, whose pride and joy had been left in tatters. Cue fade to black. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2025/11/Jack-Whitehall-Malice-0603219.jpg" width="1909" height="1273" alt="Two men stand facing each other in a tense confrontation inside a modern, softly lit room. One man, wearing a blue polo shirt, leans slightly against the wall while speaking; the other, in a light green collared shirt, listens intently. The setting features neutral décor, wicker furniture, and a large window in the background." title="Malice" /> It's a desperately sad story, and one that makes sense within the context of the show and this particular genre of TV. But it’s also an uninspired one; we’ve seen that before in various different guises. Yet in hindsight, perhaps the series was never really about the “why”, but the journey getting there – James Wood's script was incredibly moreish – and also what it has to say about grief and the emptiness of revenge. When Adam first boards the boat that will carry him away from the scene of Jamie's murder, he initially looks pleased with himself. He set out to destroy the venture capitalist and he did just that. But as Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah swells – a song that the musician described as "a hallelujah to the orgasm" – it soon becomes clear that Adam isn’t triumphant or relaxed or happy after killing Jamie – his own climax, if you will. Instead, he looks thoroughly miserable, like he could burst into tears at any moment, as it finally dawns on him: Jamie's demise will not resurrect his parents or bring him an ounce of peace or comfort, for the past cannot be undone. While he may have felt satisfaction when he pulled the trigger – who doesn't love it when a plan comes together? – Adam’s parents are still dead, and he remains trapped in the throes of his grief, seemingly forevermore, unable to come unstuck and move forwards. By refusing to ever truly engage with his pain and instead channelling it into destroying Jamie, it has only escalated, becoming all that he is rather than just a part of his life. Read more: Jack Whitehall talks his dark new psychopath role and his plans for an all-new sitcom Malice's Jack Whitehall on the "strange" challenge of playing a villain while adjusting to fatherhood There's also something cruelly ironic about Adam making several children fatherless – Damien's kids will also grow up without their dad – given what he himself has experienced, something which might have crossed his mind in that moment. Some might, of course, argue that Jamie's children are better off without him. But that wasn't Adam’s choice to make, and certainly not in the manner that he did. And who knows what the impact of that will be on the Tanner kids? Will their own grief manifest into something utterly monstrous, like Adam's? So while condoning the actions of Whitehall's character, even with the full extent of Adam's pain laid out before us, isn't an option, those aforementioned comments do ring true. It's difficult not to feel sorry for him – and not just because of the manner in which he lost his parents, and at such a young age, but also because of the person that he has become in the aftermath of their deaths. And that's also particularly sad given the moments when we get a glimpse of the man he could have become, particularly during his interactions with sweet Dexter, the youngest Tanner, if he hadn't withdrawn into himself and allowed revenge to consume him. For all that is darkly fun and entertaining about Malice, the moment when Dex asks his mum if his dad is "coming soon" while police sirens wail in the distance — blissfully unaware that anything is wrong as he enjoys his ice cream — leaves you cold. Malice is streaming now on Prime Video – try Amazon Prime Video for free for 30 days. Plus, read our guides to the best Amazon Prime series and the best movies on Amazon Prime. Add Malice to your watchlist on the Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
If Donald Trump destroys the BBC, there would be a horrible historical logic – so here's who I would pick as Tim Davie's replacement
With editorial failures and resignations at the top of the BBC, as well as the threat of an American takeover at ITV, broadcasting as we know it is facing the greatest challenge it has ever seen, writes Mark Lawson.
Historians may cite last week as the beginning of the end for British broadcasting. On Remembrance Sunday, 9 November, both the BBC and ITV faced threats to their existence as we know them. As the corporation lost its two most senior editorial figures at once – director-general Tim Davie and chief executive of news Deborah Turness resigned over the handling of complaints about an episode of Panorama that misleadingly edited a speech by President Trump – ITV was considering a reported bid of £1.6 billion from Comcast (the American owners of Sky) for all of its on-air networks and the ITVX streaming site. The ITV story is simply financial. Television advertising and sponsorship are collapsing and so ITV’s shareholders perhaps hope to release the value in the broadcast business before it falls further. The logic for Comcast is presumably the possibility of selling advertising and subscriptions across a super suite of digital and terrestrial channels. However, as ITV Studios, which provides most of ITV’s content, would now be separately owned, it’s unclear how the supply line of shows such as Coronation Street and I’m a Celebrity… might be affected in future. The BBC situation is also financial, though complicatedly and now doubly so. It is massively funded (and its pension scheme underwritten) by £3.66 billion of licence-fee income. But support for what some see as a legally enforced broadcasting tax has reduced during a series of scandals – and dissent will surely have been accelerated by recent events. Negotiation with the Government of a new BBC Charter (from 2027) – including funding methods – starts next month, though with the BBC currently lacking a team to attend and a Trump lawsuit still hanging over them. Having threatened to sue for $1 billion unless he received an apology and compensation he regarded as adequate, last week Trump got a qualified “sorry” (though the BBC still claims the speech tampering was accidental) and no money. Trump has not publicly accepted the apology and has warned he will still sue for “between 1 and 5 billion dollars.” The new risk for the BBC is whether to use licence fee money to fight a very rich American President in court. Doing so would please many staff, though further inflame enemies. So what went wrong at the BBC? On Monday 10 November on Radio 4, Today presenter Nick Robinson delivered an on-air monologue that described a right-wing conspiracy – of newspapers, politicians, think tanks – seeking to bring down the BBC. That’s half the story – there are businesses and politicians who crave a reduced or removed BBC. The crucial other half of the story is that the BBC, and especially BBC News, keeps handing lethal weapons to its enemies. If the BBC were to be destroyed by Trump, there would be a horrible historical logic. BBC News has a decade-long history of getting the 45th and 47th Presidents catastrophically wrong. On US election day 2016, a senior journalist (still on the payroll) announced that, as Trump had no chance of winning, discussion should turn to President Hillary Clinton’s policies. Again, last November, a BBC viewer might have concluded that Kamala Harris would win and perhaps (and this is where it becomes editorially problematic) should win. It’s understandable that many, even most, BBC staff might personally have preferred on two occasions a female president to an oddly coiffed, strangely tanned former presenter of The Apprentice, found liable in civil law for sexual offences and whom they regard as anti-democratic. But journalists should report what they see, not what they hope. (This seems also to have been an issue in some coverage of Brexit and the Gaza war.) Much of the BBC (with the exception of some on the Americast podcast) never took Trump seriously, but the current consequences of crossing him show how serious he can get. Another ominous aspect for the BBC is a sense of multiple crises gathering. As front pages of newspapers reported the downfall of Davie and Turness, middle pages contained stories about the BBC Complaints Unit upholding 20 complaints against newsreader Martine Croxall for changing the words “pregnant people” on her autocue to “women”, while making a facial expression interpreted as disapproving. Some titles also serialised or summarised Andy Webb’s Dianarama, a new book about the 1995 Panorama interview with Princess Diana that a retired judge later found to have been secured by reporter Martin Bashir through faked documents and false claims. For two Panoramas almost 30 years apart to be found guilty of serious journalistic malpractice – with Webb’s book further deflating the reputation of some former bosses – suggests something more endemic than occasionally accidental. After what can be seen as slow and clumsy reactions since the Trump Panorama problem was known months ago, BBC Chair Dr Samir Shah might not need his free 2026 BBC desk diary. A basic rule of journalism is that, if you call someone “litigious”, they sue harder and Shah foolishly called Trump that. In his statement on the departure of Davie and Turness Dr Shah seems to be representing and defending the interests of BBC staff and executives rather than licence-fee payers. That has long been a fault line in the corporation and apart from the future funding model, the supervisory and disciplinary structures of the BBC will be a huge part of Charter renegotiation, whoever leads it. If I were in the nightmare scenario of being BBC Chair, I would appoint Dorothy Byrne, smart and tough former head of Channel 4 journalism, for six months as interim DG. After that, who knows? The two current broadcast empire meltdowns may overlap because any sale of ITV could release senior talent, including CEO Dame Carolyn McCall and director of television Kevin Lygo. However, such is the BBC mess – with potentially more to come – that, were they to begin an application, family and friends would surely divert them at once to a psychiatrist. It has come to this: no sane person would take what was, until now, the biggest job in British broadcasting. Read more: So, is it all over for our national broadcasters like the BBC and ITV? Not so fast Former BBC News boss argues BBC's "survival is at stake" amid "chilling" political landscape Check out more of our TV coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
How anime has led the way in the battle against climate change
Tackling environmental topics is in the very DNA of the medium.
Storytelling naturally reflects the culture and climate it's produced in – yet few films and shows appear to be tackling the biggest threat to both. According to Climate.gov, 2024 was the warmest year since global records began in 1850 (by a wide margin) and the 10 warmest years on record have all occurred in the past decade. Floods and heatwaves are increasing as the climate crisis grows, yet Western takes on this issue remain few and far between, especially when it comes to children's fare where they could make the most impact. Since Ferngully left a lasting impression on millennials in the early '90s, not many animated films have continued where it left off. Just The Lorax and Pixar's Wall-E stand out as two notable exceptions when it comes to tackling environmental issues in animation. It's a different story in Japan, however. Anime has long incorporated themes of this nature, tapping into traditional Taoist and Shintoist beliefs that prioritise ecological harmony and respect for the natural world. The Godfather of Anime, Tezuka Osamu, did so as far back as the '60s with Kimba the White Lion, and more adult stories like the Black Jack manga, where an unlicensed surgeon used his money to fund environmental projects. It's Studio Ghibli that often comes to mind first, however. Even before the studio was named as such, co-founder Hayao Miyazaki wrote and directed Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, a post-apocalyptic saga where the key to surviving a polluted world came from understanding the resilience of nature and the interconnectedness of all living things. View oEmbed on the source website Plenty of other Miyazaki films continued this outlook further including Spirited Away, where the cleansing of a polluted river spirit is vital to the story and My Neighbor Totoro, which celebrates the beauty of rural life and preserving natural spaces. Aside from Nausicaä, however, it's Princess Mononoke which comes up most regularly in these conversations, thanks to the central conflict between forest spirits and human encroachment where industrialisation threatens life itself. Crucially, Miyazaki avoided any obvious route in, offering up a more complex examination of both sides without outright condemning one or other. Humanity is violent throughout the film, for example, but Lady Eboshi, its leader, also cares deeply for those in need, building an entire community for lepers and other social outcasts. That's not to say Miyazaki let humans off the hook entirely. "I’ve come to a point where I just can’t make a movie without addressing the problem of humanity as part of an ecosystem," he said in an interview with Asia Pulse around the film's release in 1997 (via Asia Pulse). The same is also true for Studio Ghibli co-founder Isao Takahata, who put his own unique spin on that conflict in Pom Poko, swapping out wolves and forest spirits for shape-shifting Tanuki (raccoon-dogs indigenous to Japan) who engage in extreme guerilla tactics similar to radical groups like Earth First! and the Earth Liberation Front. Such ecological concerns aren't just limited to Studio Ghibli. A host of different anime creators have explored similar issues, from child-friendly fare like Doraemon, Dr Stone and Miyori's Forest to more mature titles such as Parasyte: The Maxim and Makoto Shinkai's Weathering With You. One that's endured longer than most is Pokémon, which has encouraged climate awareness since the '90s with a celebration of biodiversity that fosters love for all living things. Most Pokémon are inspired by real-life plants and animals, after all, including one whose transformation has been influenced by climate change directly. A species named Corsola is a coral-themed Pokémon that needs clean water to live. Polluted waters discolour and even break the growths on its back. The Pokémon games Sword and Shield introduced an evolved version of Corsola that's essentially dead as a result of global warming. The Cursola have changed type from water to ghost, bleached like real coral that's died due to ocean acidification and global warming. It's just as well that this franchise is using its power for good because the global popularity and impact of Pokémon cannot be overstated. Just this week, protesters showed up at the United Nations climate conference dressed as Pikachu, aiming to stop the financing of coal and natural gas projects across Southeast Asia. What this reflects so well is how anime often speaks to the power that systemic organisations hold in such cases, emphasising the need for structural change over individual consumer behaviours which come to the fore more in Western equivalents. Yet despite all this, climate education in Japan is nowhere near as strong as you might think. Despite the severe issues the island nation faces due to climate change, from massive rainfall to intensifying heatwaves, indifference to these problems is growing. According to a 2023 Cabinet Office survey that polled 3,000 adults (via The Japan Times), only 31 per cent of 18 to 29-year-olds and 30.3 per cent of those in their 30s replied they were interested in climate issues. Meanwhile, 60.4 per cent of respondents over 70 said they were interested, which isn't ideal because you'd want this to flip the other way where the future of this planet is concerned. That's not to say anime can't inspire real change where the climate crisis is concerned. In a 2019 study, researchers from the University of Tokyo found that including animal characters in animated shows can increase public interest in real wildlife. Through their research, (now Associate) Professor Fukano Yūya and his team found that animals in a popular anime called Kemono Friends received 4.66 million more Google searches and 1 million Wikipedia page views than they had in the 18 months prior to broadcast. Crucially, this boost in interest led to increases in real-world conservation activity as the specific species featured received larger public donations across Tokyo zoos. Kelvin Tang, a postdoctoral climate education researcher at the University of Tokyo, tested this connection directly in a 2023 workshop (via The Japan Times) where he introduced 10 young children to ideas around climate change through simple cartoons and videos. Asking them to draw a picture of how they envision Japan's future climate 50 years from now, some drew a burning forest or even a burning Earth while others drew pretty flowers or grassy fields. "I see this as a hope," says Tang, "because some students, after learning about climate change, about this alarming situation, still have that hopeful future (in their minds),” he said. The resulting conversation led to students suggesting what they can do to help, whether it be turning off lights or reducing meat consumption. "The key is to find how to really harvest this hope," adds Tang, "for them to be an agent of change, to change these concerns into constructive action." In the same article, attention is drawn to a new series of anime shorts called Future Kid Takara, where the kid and a scientist go back in time to flee environmental disasters and discover the "beautiful Earth" that no longer exists for them in the future. Early signs of climate change here and now portend the apocalyptic era they hail from. The 11-episode series aims to inspire hope for positive change among elementary school students with educational, classroom use in mind. By organically conveying this vital message in an animated story like Future Kid Takara, the idea is to educate but also empower young people to change the future together, shaking off the mindset that hope is lost already. With such a long history in this field, anime remains the perfect vehicle to mainstream these concepts already and inspire further change. It's in the very DNA of this medium, after all. But it's not just Japanese animation that should aspire to make a difference. Powerful storytelling across the board is needed on a global scale to inspire action at a time when our reliance on fossil fuels is increasing as fast as the temperature is worldwide. Check out more of our Fantasy coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
It: Welcome to Derry risks ruining Pennywise for good with one fatal mistake
Welcome to Derry dares to hold Pennywise back – only to reveal far too much.
Eddie who? Richie whatshisname? As strong as the cast were in Andy Muschietti's IT, Pennywise is always the first name that comes to mind when you think of his twofold adaptation. As such, it didn't take long for Bill Skarsgård's deranged clown to dance its way into our hearts and nightmares alike (while showing up occasionally in my therapy sessions too). It's safe to say then that if there's one thing we'd want to see more of in the prequel series Welcome To Derry, it's Pennywise, even if it was reduced to a weird gross baby puddle by the end of IT: Chapter Two. The show is set 27 years before the events of the first film, making it easy to bring Pennywise back in its full splendour. Yet for the first few episodes, Skarsgård doesn't show up at all. IT is there, of course. It's in every nook and cranny of Derry, its evil seeping into every brick and the mind of every resident. Stephen King's most recognisable antagonist even shows up to terrify a new batch of kids each week, but not in his most recognisable form. Instead, IT appears as various nightmares made flesh, from Lilly's pickled father to a baby-faced demon in the premiere. It would have been easy to simply rely on the iconography of Pennywise, maximising the show's scares by giving viewers what they came for. But what you want isn't always best for you. Muschietti and his team smartly recognised that in writing this show, choosing to hold back on revealing Pennywise in full until five episodes in. Risky? Yes, but this was actually the best way to reintroduce a once-terrifying character who audiences have grown somewhat desensitised to. How could you not after Pennywise was meme'd into oblivion back when the films first came out? Building on the tension that comes with waiting to see it, this idea that Pennywise could leap out at any moment, helped remind us how scary IT really is while erasing those dancing memes from our minds completely. It's unfortunate then that Welcome To Derry risks undoing all this, not through how much Pennywise is shown but rather because of how much its backstory is. In King's original novel, we learned that Pennywise is a monstrous shape-shifting entity that crash-landed millions of years ago in Derry. This cosmic force of horror can shapeshift into your nightmares to feed off your fear, although its true form is that of golden lights, or "deadlights," that can drive anyone mad upon seeing them. Every 27 years, IT emerges to feast, mostly on children, before hiding away again below the town that's poisoned by IT's presence. This raises a number of questions. Why does IT favour the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown? Why doesn't this inter-dimensional entity venture out beyond Derry? And why does IT love to float so goddamn much? In an early interview with SFX (via GamesRadar), Muschietti teased that answers will be coming in season one of Welcome To Derry and beyond: "We're opening a window. Everything that we are setting up in season one, that will really manifest in two and three, is a look into all the bigger questions about IT. 'What does IT want? Why is IT here?' All the cryptic elements of IT that we're going to ruin and explain." View Green Video on the source website It's safe to assume that Muschietti was joking about his plans to "ruin" the wider mythology, but he accidentally did it anyway. The whole point of IT and Pennywise specifically is that this unknowable entity of unspeakable evil can't be explained away or ever fully understood. There's no logic to nightmares, and IT is a nightmare personified, the very essence of what you fear most sculpted out of the darkest recesses of your mind. Every horror fan knows that what you imagine will always be so much scarier than what's shown on-screen. That's why the '90s IT miniseries starring Tim Curry faltered when Pennywise's true form was revealed to be that of a janky-looking spider at the end. And it's not just what's shown that can have an impact either. Over-explaining is just as bad in its own way, especially with an evil as abstract and weird as this one. In episode four, Welcome To Derry dives deep into the origins of Pennywise, adding lore that wasn't even included in the original book. It's revealed that a dagger made from the same material as the meteor that Pennywise landed with can hurt the monster. In centuries past, thirteen sacred shards crafted from that metal were buried deep in the earth around Derry's western wood where IT lived, trapping it there. Each one was buried in a turtle shell, hinting at the role Maturin the cosmic turtle has long played in the battle against Pennywise. Sounds silly, right? What works on the page doesn't always translate well to screen, especially when it comes to aquatic reptiles of a cosmic nature. And that's also true of IT's expanded origin story, which Muschietti hints will be delved into further throughout future seasons. That's going to be a disaster if the military storyline we've seen so far is anything to go by. Lines like "Derry is a prison and we're looking for the bars," aren't just absurd in isolation. They also speak to just how odd and misjudged it is to see military officers try to weaponise something as unknowable as Pennywise. Even the name itself, IT, speaks to an ambiguity that's central to the power this idea has to unsettle us, a power which this narrative undercuts brutally. The result inevitably demystifies IT and robs the entity of its power. As smart as it was to tease Pennywise's physical appearance in the prequel, it was anything but wise to begin chipping away at its mystique. And therein lies the show's true horror. Because if Stephen King never explained why Pennywise stays in Derry, for example, why should the show? And more importantly, why should we care? It: Welcome to Derry continues on Sky Atlantic and NOW on Mondays. Add It: Welcome to Derry to your watchlist on the <a id="OWA8b702c45-bee9-94e4-f018-57518e78041b" title="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" href="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-outlook-id="449c28d9-909e-4aab-b6b8-153454f55d5e" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="0">Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Sci-fi coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond preview – worth the wait?
After eight years of development, Prime is back with a bang.
It's been eight years since Metroid Prime 4: Beyond was first announced. Eighteen years since Metroid Prime 3. Over such lengthy waits, you could forgive fans for losing hope in the game – that it was doomed to development hell, that it may not even arrive, or simply losing interest in it. But for the most part, Metroid fans are as excited for Metroid Prime 4 than they ever have been (if not more so), and following a hands-on preview, I can say that they are certainly right to be. Metroid Prime 4 opens up with a short, tutorial-like level that explains the basics of the game to you. After taking down a rather simple boss at the end, a mysterious explosion of energy ripples across the planet, and Samus awakes moments later in the jungle of an unknown world. Viewros is, or rather was, home to the Lamorn, a once-highly advanced but long since dead civilisation. Samus, lucky her, is the chosen one, selected by the last of the Lamorn to take their knowledge off-planet to spread their story with the universe. Unfortunately, she'll first have to find three keys to get the teleport working – thus begins our story proper. For anyone that has played previous Metroid Prime titles, Metroid Prime 4 doesn't massively shake things up, but polishes them to a mirror sheen. Gunplay is fantastic, and as someone that typically only plays shooters on PC and therefore cannot aim with a controller to save his life, I am exceedingly thankful for the Switch 2's new mouse functionality. At first, your weaponry is very bare bones, limited to just your most basic blaster shots. As you proceed, Samus will begin to restore her suit's capabilities, adding missiles and the like back into her arsenal. The jungles of Lamorn look fantastic, and are a joy to explore. As you proceed through, you're encouraged to make heavy use of Samus's visor to scan anything and everything you see. Beyond interesting factoids about the flora and fauna, this does deliver some very helpful information about how best to dispatch the various hostile creatures you come across. The world is also full of puzzles, none of which are particularly hard to solve, but are satisfying nonetheless. Between the jungle setting, puzzle-heavy gameplay and the concept of the Lamorn and their lost civilisation, I couldn't help but feel like Metroid Prime 4 has an air of The Legend of Zelda about it – a big plus, in my book. Central to Samus's abilities in Metroid Prime 4 are the psychic powers afforded her by the Lamorn. These abilities allow Samus to telekinetically interact with various doors, orbs, switches and more, shifting everything into the right place to solve some harder puzzles. They also have some combat applications, allowing Samus to guide missiles in slow-motion towards their target, something that comes in very handy upon fighting the next boss. View Green Video on the source website Going into this preview, the one thing I was most excited for was the prospect of the new motorcycle that has been so heavily teased, but alas, the motorcycle comes in a later section of the game. I had around 75 minutes to play Metroid Prime 4, and while that feels like enough to see the basics of what the game has to offer, I was certainly disappointed not to have longer. Not because I didn't think that 75 minutes was enough to see what Metroid Prime 4 has to offer, but the very opposite. The best thing you can say after one of these preview events is, "I wish I could have played more." It's safe to say that this was all I was thinking as I left the jungle for the next Lamornian vista to explore. When a game takes so long to come out as Metroid Prime 4, a certain mythos forms around it, with expectations growing higher and higher as the years pass. I can't say for sure whether Metroid Prime 4 will live up to those lofty expectations for some fans. What I can say, however, is that Metroid Prime 4 is shaping up to be everything I wanted from it, and certainly the follow-up to 3 that we've been waiting for. I just hope the rest of the game continues what this preview has started. Metroid Prime 4: Beyond releases on 4th December 2025 for Nintendo Switch 2 and Nintendo Switch. Check out more of our Gaming coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
V for Vendetta isn't just another cash-grab remake – it could be the most important
I'm officially done with cash grab remakes. That's not a particularly hot take. In fact, I think it's how a lot of TV audiences have been feeling over the past few years. Particularly within the sci-fi and fantasy genres, finding a new, original series to watch instead of a sequel, prequel or, most dreaded of all, a remake, has been like finding a needle in a haystack. The reasons for that are pretty clear. The TV industry as a whole has been facing a funding crisis, making commissioners less likely to take a gamble on something new, and more likely to rely on an IP that's already proven itself worthy. It's a sad state of affairs but probably inevitable. But, while we've been bombarded with remakes, there are still some that are worth getting on board with, and a TV adaptation of V for Vendetta could very well be one of them. It's been reported that DC is developing a V for Vendetta TV series on HBO, with Pete Jackson penning the show and James Gunn and Peter Safran on board as executive producers. Based on Alan Moore and David Lloyd's graphic novel of the same name and released in 2005, the original movie followed Natalie Portman's Evey as she encountered masked freedom fighter V, an anarchist attempting to ignite a revolution against a fascist totalitarian regime. For the past 20 years, the film has stayed in the cultural and political zeitgeist in more ways than we could have predicted – particularly with the Guy Fawkes mask used as a symbol of anti-establishment rebellion (perhaps most recognisably by the hacktivist group Anonymous). So, if the movie is still culturally relevant, why do we need a remake? Well, it's the type of story we need to hear again and again, especially in the midst of the current political climate. Across the globe, we're currently facing the rise of the far right – and we have been for some time. To speak specifically of the UK, it's clear to me that a culture of racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and sexism has become normalised, with 'debates' about the rights of immigrants and trans people in particular permeating the media landscape on a daily basis, and the rhetoric of Nigel Farage and Reform becoming inescapable. View oEmbed on the source website It terrifies me that progress seems to be going backwards in some ways. Just yesterday, the US Supreme Court thankfully rejected an appeal to its same-sex marriage ruling, which was made a decade ago in 2015. But the fact that it's even a discussion, to me, is a clear sign of the lack of progress made in those 10 years. In a political climate like this one, we don't have the luxury of being subtle in our media and entertainment, and it's essential that we see our world reflected back at us – particularly in our sci-fi. In fact, if a sci-fi film or series isn't lifting a mirror to, and commenting on, our society, it's not doing its job. V for Vendetta certainly did its job on this front with its depiction of a totalitarian regime taking over Britain. With a remake, DC and HBO are going to place the story squarely back in the public consciousness, hopefully to the point that it cannot be avoided. Plus, crucially, there's more story to tell. The original movie may have done justice to the graphic novel, but it certainly didn't cover it all. There's a lot more nuance that can be explored in what will presumably be at least a six-part series. In the graphic novel, V is more ruthless and villainous, with the character being somewhat toned down for the movie. A series, however, would allow the time for a different, more ambiguous V to be explored. A series would also allow for a longer time frame to be shown. We can see the ins and outs of how Britain fell under the thumb of a totalitarian regime (which I'm expecting to be chillingly prescient), but also what happens after the end of the movie. Ultimately, even though the original film is still so culturally important, a V for Vendetta series would do two crucial things that not many remakes can offer: it would say something important about our society and current political climate, and it would give us something different to the original film. And that is something I'd take any day over a Harry Potter remake. Check out more of our Sci-fi coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
I’m the new MasterChef judge and I was utterly surprised to be asked to take over
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. I'm over the moon about presenting the new series of Celebrity MasterChef. I was utterly surprised to be asked. For me, this was taking on the mantle of a show that I've watched religiously from the moment it began in 1990. In this country, we treat food very seriously. Yes, it's an entertainment show but, at the heart of it, it's about the joy of food, the science of food, the precision of food… I think when you ask people who work in television what it's like, they always say the same things about how thrilled they are, but I genuinely am – I've lived and breathed this show for ever, and now I’m front and centre! I'm reminded of home by… corned beef hash Specifically corned beef hash made in a pressure cooker. I remember standing in our kitchen on Harold Street in Currock, Carlisle, in the north west of England in 1978 and my mother opening up the pressure cooker and spooning this corned beef hash with carrots, onions, peas and potatoes into bowls. If it wasn’t runny enough, we’d have it with ketchup. Now, when I'm with Anna Haugh [Dent is presenting this series with JohnTorode, but from next year Haugh will be her MasterChef co-host], every time someone uses a pressure cooker, I turn to her and say, "1970s childhood"! The first dish I learnt to cook was… asparagus risotto I've cooked since I was a child, but the first fancy thing I learnt to cook was an asparagus champagne risotto with aged Parmesan — which was very, very glamorous in 1998. Back then I was living in Camden, in a big, shared house with five incredibly ambitious women who all worked in the media. Whenever I had a date night, I would try to woo whoever was coming round for dinner with my risotto. When I cooked on the MasterChef Battle of the Critics Christmas special in 2023, I made this dish. I knew two things – firstly, that if you can master that risotto with depth and manage to get it out on the plate, people are always impressed. And secondly, I knew it was possible in that amount of time, because I’d done it with rollers in while trying to choose a dress. My debut as a restaurant critic was reviewing… curried goat and jerk chicken It was 1996 and I was working at Marie Claire. They allowed me to edit a page called The London Section and it was the first time I’d written a restaurant review. I ate curried goat and jerk chicken at Mango Room in Camden. At that time, I hadn’t actually eaten much Caribbean food. I’d lived in Carlisle, and then Scotland, so to come down to London was incredible. It was like I was suddenly living in technicolor. I loved it, but that’s when I realised how hard it was to be a critic. I really liked people like Michael Winner who did Winner’s Dinners in The Sunday Times. I thought he had a wonderful job, because all you do is go and eat dinner and then say what you think — but writing that review made me realise that you go into a place like Mango Room and it’s a small, independent restaurant and the staff’s heart and soul. The money you spend pays for people’s children’s food, so you have to take it seriously. I’ll never forget the taste of… sheep's testicle mousse How did it taste? Exactly as it sounds. The restaurant world celebrates nose-to-tail eating, and I often have to eat things I don’t like — they want me to eat part of the spleen or the duodenum canal and it’s, "Isn’t this delicious, it’s part of the bowel?" It happens all the time, so I spend my life faintly smiling at valves that have been stewed in wine. Part of my job is to be adventurous, but I do spend a lot of my time thinking, "Are we being serious here?" The bit I will never be OK with is the amount of money that needs to be spent in some restaurants. When I pay £650 for two people, there will always be a part of me that thinks, "I could have given that money to [youth club charity] the Rock Youth Project in Currock." My MasterChef highlight is… Saucy steak with potatoes and buttery vegetables I didn’t have time for emotion during filming – I was too busy presenting to think about home or my family or anything else. Then one of the celebrities brought up this venison dish that was autumnal, and I just cried. But all of them were amazing — they all brought their personalities. I remember one celebrity coming on and I don’t think she’d really cooked that much until she arrived. She completely lacked confidence in herself. Everything she did cook was mega-healthy, I don’t think she ever allowed herself butter and sugar. But we got her cooking incredible steak and potatoes with sauces and buttery vegetables. From that moment, you could see her just come to life. As told to Steve O’Brien. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Celebrity MasterChef will air on Monday 17th November at 9pm on BBC One and iPlayer. Add Celebrity MasterChef to your watchlist on the Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Get rid of the BBC? Careful what you wish for…
Once the pride of Britain, the BBC now faces its biggest crisis yet – but would we really be better off without it?
Decades ago, I joined a cruise in blue waters off the southern coast of Turkey, where our captain spoke no words of English except "tips here" – until somehow, through the usual blustering British-person-meets-rest-of-world chats, he established where I worked. For the next three days, I was summoned to mealtimes with a shout of "BBC" that echoed across the Med. It was a different time: when our national broadcaster’s brand was considered up there with Coca-Cola for global recognition, and the NHS for trustworthiness. 30 years later, and mentions of "the BBC" once again abound, but this time to a collective eye-roll at yesterday’s headlines that a catalogue of controversies has culminated in both the director-general and the CEO of BBC News falling on their swords over the editing of a 2021 Donald Trump speech. Monday saw the BBC Chair Samir Shah add his apology for the "error of judgement" that caused the furore. Tim Davie’s resignation speech included reference to the intense personal and professional demands that have punctuated his five years in British media’s top job – those years have seen a roll-call of on-air talent disappearing from screen after a litany of behaviour variously criminal (Huw Edwards), allegedly bad (Gregg Wallace) or political (Carol Vorderman, Gary Lineker). The departures of Davie and his news chief Deborah Furness are more redolent of 2004. I was among those queuing up, some in tears, to bid a fond farewell to Greg Dyke after he quit as D-G, as did his Board Chairman, after the government complained about the news coverage of the dossier – "sexed up" as alleged by reporter Andrew Gilligan – putting the case for Iraq’s nuclear weapons and justifying invasion. We know the rest. Possibly apart from some of those involved in that debacle, there were no calls then for the binning of the BBC – this week’s episode feels more rotten and existentially threatening. We learned through a memorandum leaked to The Telegraph that the BBC desperately tried to audit its own failings with an external report, both the act and results of which have given plenty of ammunition to those on both sides – that this whole thing is a politically-fuelled conspiracy to bring down the broadcaster, or that this internal, secret wrangling is more proof it’s the right time, with just two years to go before Charter Renewal – to completely disband the 103-year-old institution and rebuild in an entirely different image, one more fit for the commercial and cultural realities of 2025. Be careful what you wish for. Of course, the BBC has its faults – I cringe at some of its attempts to keep up with the kids: buying the rights to Drag Race about half a decade too late, pulling BBC Three off the linear platform before U-turning at great expense, the self-satisfaction it displays when it builds an entire schedule around one formerly charming event like Eurovision, its reliance on too few, over-exposed presenters... Nevertheless, it remains the gold standard, not just for the UK but for the world. Overseas friends cite The Goodies, Doctor Who, Kenny Everett as a central part of their childhood TV diet. They’re always surprised to learn dramas like Brideshead Revisited and Downton Abbey weren’t actually BBC titles — "it feels like something they’d do”"— pointing to the fact that the BBC’s production and training ecosystem has long ensured all broadcasting boats rise. Countries from Canada to Australia to South Africa have built their own national broadcasting institutions in the BBC image, citing the worthwhile aspiration of "trust", "authority", "grown up TV". It’s a point of abject embarrassment that, while these broadcasters build on that original vision and continue to flourish, our homebuilt mothership is left struggling to justify its existence. Among Winston Churchill's many famous quotes, he called "democracy the worst form of government, except for all the others" – and the same is true for the BBC and its place in the firmament. Look to your left, to Russia and neighbours, and you find state-sponsored, state-controlled, state-supporting TV – propaganda not programmes. Look to your right, and you have American TV. The transparently commercial imperative – the first ad break often coming straight after the opening credits – used to be a source of mirth for foreign viewers, but has now evolved into something far more nakedly and ruthlessly driven. Meanwhile, pushing against the two walls of legislation and commercial rivals like Chewbacca in the trash compactor, the BBC tries gamely to balance our diets with wholesome fodder and some glittering, expensive jewels, in a way that only it can. Of course, it needs tidying up, refreshing, streamlining, reforming – but let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Life without it would look very different, and we would all be the poorer. Check out more of our TV coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Pluribus season 1 review: Vince Gilligan's sci-fi masterpiece will take you to your happy place
Rhea Seehorn is magnificent in this unique sci-fi masterpiece.
TV titan Vince Gilligan is known for writing bad guys. Think Walter White in Breaking Bad or Saul Goodman in Better Call Saul. But for his highly anticipated follow-up, Gilligan dares to imagine a world where there are no bad guys, where evil has been eradicated in its entirety. And therein lies a very different kind of horror. Pluribus begins with a scientific discovery gone awry, as is often the case with post-apocalyptic stories of this nature. One simple mistake breaks the world as we know it, unleashing a virus that melds the globe into one collective group mind. The horrific imagery that follows evokes everything from the devastating stillness of 28 Days Later to the chilling paranoia embedded throughout Invasion of the Body Snatchers (in all its incarnations). So why was Pluribus surrounded by so much secrecy prior to its release? We've seen this all before, right? Well no, it turns out that Gilligan's twist on the genre quickly takes these familiar tropes in wildly unexpected directions that intrigue, unsettle, and might occasionally test your patience at points. Without spoiling too much, this global shift in thinking isn't hellbent on domination. The virus has essentially won already, yet that was never its goal. Melding the world's population into one singular mind was just necessary, a biological imperative akin to breathing. The result is a happy one, creating a utopia on earth where there is no more crime. Discrimination is a thing of the past and every caged animal has been set free. At its core, this apocalypse brings peace and happiness to everyone on earth except the one woman who can't stand it. Carol Sturka, an unhappy romance novelist who peddles "mindless crap" numbers among the very few people on earth who have retained their minds still, somehow immune to the virus. As such, the collective is keen to draw Carol into their embrace, quite happily informing her that they're working on ways to push through and infect her somehow. It's in this tension that the show's defiance of straightforward tone and genre is most evident. Much like Carol herself, Pluribus pushes back against notions of good and evil, what's right and wrong, in a funhouse mirror version of the grey areas Gilligan played with so adeptly in his previous works. With a placid smile (smiles?) and kind reassurances, the virus wishes to erase Carol's individuality and assimilate her completely. But would that be so bad? Other survivors reject Carol's idea of "saving humanity", believing themselves to be saved already in what could be considered a new utopia on earth. It would be easy to read this as a push back against group think or conformity, but Pluribus doesn't offer easy answers. Instead, the writing opens itself up to interpretation on multiple levels (unlike Carol's own tawdry fantasy series). This idea that the ones who wish you harm will smile at you as they do so also speaks to religious extremism, gay conversion therapy, and even our political reality, while assumptions that the virus is bad also touch on the differences between individualist and collectivist societies. Pluribus does offer easy answers in another sense, however, as the virus readily gives up information Carol seeks in her attempts to uncover what's really happening. These tranquil admissions might lack the tension that a puzzlebox mystery show usually provides — with one even going so far as to undercut its own horror almost immediately — but this in itself sets Pluribus further apart as an entirely unique viewing experience. That's also true of its scale. Gilligan's return to TV makes full use of that Apple TV budget with vast settings that ram home the global impact of what's happened. Jumps back and forth in time expand this even further again, plus international locales beyond Albuquerque, New Mexico (also the setting of both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul) are just a plane ride away, easily accessible thanks to "The Afflicted" and their endless altruism. While you're sometimes left wondering at the implications of this global shift beyond Carol's perspective, Pluribus constantly finds ingenious new ways to touch on that through dialogue or outlandish scenarios that could only come from a premise this strange. Hearing a child draw on the group mind to discuss the ins and outs of gynaecology is as disconcerting as it sounds, for example, while a politician talking to Carol through her TV delivers one of the premiere's most shocking moments through what's essentially exposition. Pluribus is alien in more ways than one, so it was smart to ground this story through a protagonist like Carol, a cynical grump whose anger is as useful as it can be destructive. Her outrage at what's become of humanity spikes against the happiness of the collective, creating a push and pull dynamic that grows central to what Pluribus has to say. Gilligan wrote this story specifically for Rhea Seehorn following their work together on Better Call Saul, and it's the exact kind of calling card that could nab her an Emmy at last following three previous nominations. Whether she's seething or yearning, raging or grieving, Seehorn is magnificent, adding dimension upon dimension to Carol against the smoothed-out flatness on the faces of everyone who surrounds her. Pluribus is essentially a one-woman show in that respect, yet Karolina Wydra also does phenomenal work as Zosia, an avatar for the collective who Carol comes to rely on. Her prominence deliberately complicates our perception of what's happening while also giving us a face to connect with in this multitude of billions. Pluribus works as an inverted version of Sense8 in some ways, another marvellously inventive spin on what's possible within sci-fi. Elements of Lost's puzzle box enigma, the existentialism of The Leftovers and even the quirkiness of The X-Files — a show Gilligan worked on extensively before Breaking Bad — are also apparent in the DNA of Pluribus (not to mention the influence of seminal sci-fi authors such as John Wyndham or Kurt Vonnegut). Much like the virus does to everyone except Carol, Pluribus twists familiar storytelling beats into something new and otherworldly. The result is one of this year's most inventive stories across any medium, making Gilligan's return to TV a bonafide rarity in a sea of recycled ideas we've seen countless times before. Beyond the premiere — a truly perfect hour of television — you'll need to be open to seeing the bigger picture at points, and patience is vital if you're to go along with some of the wilder swings this show takes. But if you're up for it, prepare yourself for what could eventually turn out to be a genuine masterpiece on the same level as Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul. All it took was for Gilligan to make everyone and no-one the bad guy all at once. Pluribus is now available on Apple TV. Check out more of our Sci-fi coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast. 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These are the 10 stars who should be on a potential Celebrity Traitors season 2
The Celebrity Traitors has only just ended and has undoubtedly shot to the top of many people's best TV shows of the year lists. Whether it was Alan Carr getting the giggles, Celia Imrie's flatulence or Joe Marler's angelic walk down across a rickety bridge, The Celebrity Traitors has proven to be a must watch. With 11.7 million (and growing!) people tuning into the first episode alone, it's no surprise that audiences have been keen for yet another season with even more beloved famous faces taking part. The best thing about The Celebrity Traitors is its all-star cast, who have left all egos at the door and excelled in the game, and I reckon these 10 celebrities listed below could do the very same... Celebrities who should appear on a potential Celebrity Traitors season 2 Bob Mortimer Daisy May Cooper Charlie Cooper Nicola Walker Alison Hammond Olivia Colman Rob Beckett Chunkz Greg Davies Diane Parish If you need furthering reasoning as to why, scroll on. Bob Mortimer Bob Mortimer has been making audiences laugh for almost four decades and admittedly and ashamedly so, I only really got into his work in 2022 amid the release of The Satsuma Complex. But it was seeing him in Last One Laughing: UK that truly made me want to see every single TV show he'd been in, thus signalling a binge watch of Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing. The comedian was heavily rumoured for The Celebrity Traitors, but that sadly never came into fruition. However, with show execs reportedly wanting him for another season should the BBC re-commission, I have high hopes. Daisy May and Charlie Cooper The brother and sibling duo have been entertaining the nation since 2017 and were both reportedly set to take part in the series before dropping out due to timing constraints. But with their TV reunion on BBC Three's NightWatch, in which they sleep over at the UK's spookiest places, and their subsequent hilarious press tour that followed, has only cemented their need to be in the Traitors castle. All I can think about is that Daisy May being a Traitor and Charlie a Faithful would be absolute cinema. Nicola Walker Maybe I'm biased because I think The Split is one of the greatest dramas in recent years, but the dynamic Walker's Hannah Stern had with her sisters and mother is the exact kind of energy needed at a Traitors roundtable. Olivia Colman If you have ever had the pleasure of watching clips from Olivia Colman on press tours promoting her latest projects, then you'll know exactly why she needs to be on The Celebrity Traitors. Her hilarious and witty nature will give the castle the Alan Carr vibes that has made this series so enjoyable. And she's no stranger to sniffing out the truth, having starred in the acclaimed Broadchurch. So maybe she could give David Tennant a call too? Alison Hammond Alison Hammond was definitely on plenty of people's minds when the news of Celebrity Traitors was revealed. Having already appeared in a Traitors-themed sketch for Red Nose Day, providing all the laughs, it seems a natural progression for the TV presenter. Rob Beckett Another Last One Laughing alumni, Rob Beckett could quite possibly be the worst Traitor in the castle if he were to appear on the show. In the Prime Video series, Beckett's attempt at trying not to laugh or smile was a sight to be seen, which could only be a recipe for TV success when trying to keep hold of a secret. Chunkz Celebrity Traitors featured Niko Omilana this year, and would make sense for the BBC to follow suit with another content creator, but perhaps another whose pranking skills isn't used against him. Chunkz's YouTube career is fairly impressive, especially his videos in which he has to guess an intruder among a group of people... Greg Davies Greg Davies could be the best signing of the bunch. A good Faithful who would be banished quite soon, if his sarcastic comedy style has anything to do with it. Diane Parish Diane Parish needs to avenge the early banishment of Tameka Empson! Outside of her appearance as Denise Fox on EastEnders, the actor is incredibly funny and would provide laughs when needed. But I have a strong feeling she'd take the show incredibly seriously, as one should, and would be able to tap into her acting skills to progress further in the game. The Celebrity Traitors is available to watch on BBC iPlayer. Add The Celebrity Traitors to your watchlist on the Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what else is on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Kim Kardashian's All's Fair performance is indeed shocking – but the show's biggest problem lies elsewhere
The reviews of All's Fair are rightfully bad – but we need to point the finger of blame elsewhere.
*Warning: This article contains spoilers for the first 3 episodes of All's Fair, which are now available to stream on Disney Plus.* You may be sat wondering if all the negative reviews, the fanfare and the resulting memes are all true. Is All's Fair really that bad? It is – let's get that out of the way first and foremost – but nothing can quite prepare any viewer for the overwhelming onslaught of just how bad it is, that will leave many cringing for their favourite actresses. A lot of the reaction has, rightfully, been pointing its finger at reality star and businesswoman Kim Kardashian, who has been part of the cultural zeitgeist for decades now. Having had various small-time cameos in films nobody talks about over the years, her big acting break came in 2023 by way of American Horror Story and its series creator, Ryan Murphy. At the time of that show's release, reception to Kardashian's acting was a mixed bag. Some thought her lack of acting prowess left the general performance feeling flat, while others thought that Kardashian only dialled up the camp factor of the show. Some would take heed of that feedback and perhaps not initiate Kardashian into leading lady stardom – but not Ryan Murphy, oh no. Instead, he's put her front and centre in All's Fair as successful legal partner Allura Grant. We're introduced to her new life almost like an episode of The Kardashians or MTV Cribs, getting a walkthrough of her luxury wardrobe, her staff, and house that anybody would be envious of. However, by the end of the first episode, we quickly find out that not everything is a bed of roses in Allura's life, as her younger husband Chase (Matthew Noszka) admits to having an affair and wants a divorce. Heartbreaking stuff, right? Expect you wouldn't quite know it, as the archetypal girls debrief chat that we're thrown into after Chase's admission sees Kardashian looking as polished and straight-faced as ever, changing into a fur coat and kitten heels as her unlikely comfort outfit of choice. Why isn't she wearing a tracksuit and eating a tub of ice cream? You may ask. All's Fair seemingly doesn't have room for tired, unglamorous clichés, thank you very much. And you know what – as much as the show is painfully bad in every facet of what makes a TV show good, at least it doubles down on its ridiculousness. As a lead of any series, it's the job of that actor to prop up the series and embody the kind of performance you can't quite look away from. So, I understand why many are taking the opportunity to moan about Kardashian's execution. However, a bad workman always blames his tools, and while the buck could be passed to Kardashian, I think the biggest problem with All's Fair are the writers behind it: Ryan Murphy, Jon Robin Baitz and Joe Baken. How the three of them have bandied together to create such awful dialogue that makes the likes of Sarah Paulson, Teyana Taylor and Glenn Close feel cringe-worthy is a complete and utter travesty. Murphy has certainly shown storytelling chops over the years with the likes of Pose, American Horror Story and even Eat, Pray, Love. Perhaps those titles are why the short-term memory starts to kick in for those who agree to work with him. But all you have to do is look at his recent controversial Netflix anthology series, Monster, to realise that crafting nuanced characters isn't exactly his specialty. We can't laugh out loud at the lines that are being delivered by the star-studded cast without also thinking of just how Murphy, Baitz and Baken crafted these women on the page. I'm not saying three men can't come up with a female-led series, but when their dialogue is full of sentences that sound like they've been ripped straight from the internet or someone's idea of how women would speak, it really does beg the question of why they didn't seek some help. There are multiple lines throughout the episodes that are so bad, they're like getting literal whiplash multiples times over. It's almost as though between them, these writers have never even known a woman, let alone written one. "Ten years ago today, we stepped away from the patriarchy and towards something of our own," Niecy Nash-Betts says in the premiere episode. You can almost hear the script writers shouting 'Girl Power!' when they came up with that one. "Pin your wig down Allura, because this might blow it back," is another especially memorable line delivered by Nash-Betts, while Paulson has been reduced to an angry enemy who dishes out insults referencing Ozempic, "fat, treacherous lawn chairs" and "c**t burgers". Even in somewhat reduced roles in the outset of the series, both Paulson and Taylor at least try to bring their skills to the table. They're natural scene-stealers in their own right, after all, but it's almost heartbreaking to think of someone like Taylor going from the heady heights of standout 2025 film One Battle After Another, to this. Wading through the mud of such clunky and genuinely mind-numbing dialogue is a job in its own respect, but it's one that none of these actresses seem to have come out of having achieved, sadly. The episodic legal cases that are supposed to keep everything moving forward and feeling procedural also just feel lazy and half-hearted. Judith Light's Sheila Baskin screams that she only slept with an unattractive man because he used to look at her the way her husband did all those years ago. Oh, how poetic! Another woman jumps from their legal office headquarters – and let's not forget Jessica Simpson, whose mildly sympathetic arc turns into an acid-throwing nightmare. In the midst of haphazard storytelling, no emotional buy-in to any of the characters, and various plots chucked onto one another that may leave you with a headache, it also seems that it was one step too far to ask for Nash-Betts's character to not be reduced to a stereotype. While being a partner at the firm is a big win for Nash-Betts's Emerald Greene, Murphy should've perhaps taken a lesson from the TV drama world of Shonda Rhimes's Scandal or How to Get Away with Murder if he needed to learn how to craft a Black woman with nuance – and not just a single mother who is regularly depicted as either shouting at her children or being 'sassy'. But it's abundantly clear that I'm not just asking for the impossible when it comes to All's Fair as a series, but also of this writing team in general. If they put nearly as much thought and consideration into the craftsmanship of the scripts as they did into the (admittedly excellent) wardrobe, perhaps we wouldn't all be complaining that it's currently the worst thing on TV. Episodes 1-3 of All's Fair are available to stream on Disney Plus in the UK now, with episodes being released weekly. You can sign up to Disney Plus from £4.99 a month now. Add All's Fair to your watchlist on the <a id="OWA8b702c45-bee9-94e4-f018-57518e78041b" class="x_OWAAutoLink" title="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" href="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-outlook-id="449c28d9-909e-4aab-b6b8-153454f55d5e" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="0">Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Squid Game: The Challenge has upped the ante in season 2 and is all the better for it
In this season of Squid Game: The Challenge, the stakes are higher than ever before.
*WARNING: Contains spoilers for Squid Game: The Challenge season 2 episodes 1-4* If, like me, you're often the cynic among TV watchers, especially when it comes to spin-offs, you may have been equally as hesitant about Squid Game: The Challenge. Though upon its initial release almost two years ago the series proved to be a popular hit among viewers on Netflix, with the series going on to win a BAFTA and 1.42 billion minutes of viewings in the US, for me, something was still missing. Sure, it had all the same games known from the drama series and a few new ones thrown into the mix, but it admittedly left me thinking: Is that all? Aside from the obvious, and legal, factor that no deaths occur in the reality series, it felt very much the same. So when season 2 rolled around, I was dubious – but I was immediately proven wrong. The second season opens to an immediate test of character, something which the contestants are tried on quite a lot throughout the episodes, and sees the 456 contestants split in half, with twin brothers Raul and Jacob going head-to-head as leaders of each group and split into two rooms. In each room is a podium, and the leader must press the button when the team believe 456 seconds have elapsed. The scenes are completely anxiety-inducing, as you soon realise 228 players will be wiped from the game and the brothers split up, ramping up the cash prize to extraordinary amounts. With so many programmes, particularly those made by Studio Lambert, excelling at leaving audiences at the edge of their seats, it's impressive that the series didn't fatigue me with its multiple twists and turns. Upon realising the brothers are safe, despite being on the losing team, you soon realise there are plenty more tricks up the producer's sleeves, ensuring no one can guess what's about to happen next – not even the players. Similarly to Studio Lambert's latest Traitors outing, audiences and players alike may think they know what's to come, but a spanner is thrown in the works each time to keep you on your toes. Whether it's the introduction of the hidden room in Squid Game: The Challenge or the secret missions given to players, the episodes become juicier by the second. And in an age with so many programmes attempting to replicate a shock factor that keeps people talking even after a series has aired, Squid Game: The Challenge hits the nail on the head. Perhaps the most stressful watch in the first four episodes is the newly-introduced Catch. While pretty simple on paper, given it's a literal game of catch, the layers of two people being at risk of elimination and player 098's incessant commentary grips you from the very start. But nothing can prepare you for when Viper takes to the middle spot and plays the game with a contestant unwilling to participate. Ultimately, Viper along with his fellow player 390 are eliminated from the game, also eliminating Jonti in the process, who chose Viper to play on his behalf. "My dreams have been shattered," Viper says upon his elimination, and it soon became clear how badly he wanted to win the money – how badly every single player wanted the money. "You've got the spectacle of all the players being in the same space. You've got the drama of the game playing out in the centre of the room," series director Diccon Ramsay said of the game. "It's a really good example of how we use a game to drive the story and not just be pure spectacle." And that couldn't be more apparent, with it becoming clear to audiences and players alike how important it is to have alliances in a game like this, even when the games become more childlike and on first glance, easier than before, which only leaves you gasping for more. It's clear that Squid Game: The Challenge isn't just a game of chance or luck, which makes it all the more enticing viewing. The first four episodes of Squid Game: The Challenge season 2 are available to watch now on Netflix. Sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream. Add Squid Game: The Challenge to your watchlist on the Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Liverpool fans booing Trent Alexander-Arnold is a raw, emotional reaction – don't police the pain
Who are we to tell hurt Liverpool fans how to feel betrayed?
First published on 12th May 2025, updated ahead of Liverpool v Real Madrid on 4th November 2025. "Liverpool fans are being told their reaction to Alexander-Arnold leaving is emotional more than sensible." On Monday 5th May, Jamie Carragher led a chorus of hot takes following the Liverpool club statement confirming Trent Alexander-Arnold would depart at the end of his contract. Real Madrid awaited. Several months later, the inevitable has happened, Liverpool welcome Real Madrid to Merseyside, Alexander-Arnold is back at Anfield. And he's wearing white. 'Football fans may or may not boo an opposing football player' is a tepid story at best. We'll wake up to highlights of the, err, team sheet being read out on BBC Breakfast over our cornflakes in the morning. It is boring – really boring. And yet, so long as the highest-profile football personalities and outlets continue to stoke the story with their scorching takes, the story will continue to burn. But this is why most of those prominent voices have completely missed the mark. They've fallen foul of the first rule of football punditry: don't tell football fans what they should feel. Back in May, during his piece for The Telegraph quoted above, Carragher wrote: "My response to that is who is really the naive and deluded one when analysing how fans feel about such transfers?" and questioning whether Man Utd, Chelsea or Arsenal fans would be happy to see one of their favoured sons departing for a European heavyweight. He continued: "If that image of the homegrown talent living the dream is an illusion, people feel let down ... Fans are obviously going to be upset ... By leaving Liverpool, Alexander-Arnold is making it harder for his own club to win their 21st league title and seventh European Cup. That is bound to stir emotions ... With Monday’s statement, the unconditional support Alexander-Arnold enjoyed from the Kop when he was fully committed to Liverpool has gone." Carragher, a one-club Liverpool legend, spoke with the emotion of a native. And he was right. He didn't call for boos, but he seemed to understand, with precision, the sadness of watching a homegrown hero fly the nest. That was Monday, then Sunday came. "I was shocked... don't boo your own player!" said Carragher on Sky Sports Super Sunday after Alexander-Arnold was subjected to hostility by a significant portion of the crowd at Anfield as he was substituted onto the field. "I'm surprised how many. For me, I don't believe any player putting on that red shirt who goes on to win trophies should be being booed. Booing one of your own players while they're playing is not for me." On Monday, Carragher judged the mood perfectly, which makes his Sunday surprise jarring – where did he expect that raw emotion, that hurt, would go? At this point, it's worth stating, as a football fan, I agree with Carragher's sentiment. Booing your own player is not a particularly clever, edifying or productive use of oxygen, but if that's how some choose to vent their sadness, their sense of loss and betrayal, who has a right to police the outpouring? You can't help but fall in love with the notion of the one-club, homegrown footballer. That's how football should work, right? Football should be about the young lad daydreaming of Anfield at school, knee holes in his eighth pair of school trousers this term, the bane of his mum's life, a pair of Clarks' finest black shoes scuffed and battered from clipping a prime Sports Direct Sondico against the wall outside his home, rudimentary goal posts chalked, scratched or marked with jumpers on either side. He doesn't see the red bricks behind the goal, he sees the Kop. He's not himself, he's Steven Gerrard. He's not having a kickabout with his mates after maths, it's a Champions League final. They're in Croxteth, but they're in Istanbul. The bright young thing goes to a half-term football camp down the local leisure centre, there's a scout there, who drifts over to the boy's parents for a chat. First contact. A decade passes, the lad has captained every rung of the youth ladder and finally breaks into the first team to rapturous applause from his own. It's all he ever wanted, and now it's everything he has. That story has been replicated across the land in every generation. Fans love it because their story ended at the camp. The scout didn't call back. The phone never rang. The locals' daydreams are imputed to those for whom the dream lived on. Homegrown players are often the most celebrated in the good times and most criticised in the bad times – or when they leave. Fans only ever dream of playing for their club, their beloved, and because 99.99 per cent don't get the nod, they're stuck perennially fantasising about pulling on their team's shirt, they don't progress to wondering how they'd feel playing for that boyhood club after a decade, after hitting virtually every target, after lifting every trophy. Humans always want more; our lot is never enough. Alexander-Arnold has spent 21 of his 26 years in the Liverpool ecosystem, won the Premier League twice, and added triumphs in the Champions League, FA Cup, League Cup, Community Shield, Champions League, Super Cup and Club World Cup to his CV. With that lot in the cabinet, it's hard to ignore the appeal of a few years in Spain: playing for arguably the biggest, most successful club in the history of world football alongside several of the world's brightest stars on one of the world's grandest stages... with a bit of sun thrown in for good measure. But for those fans who understandably can't yet see beyond the betrayal, it hurts. They're getting nothing in exchange for one of their own. Their favourite player, a local lad, is being exported to a direct continental rival, for free. What are they supposed to do? Cheer? Of course, when the keyboards stop clacking, Trent's legacy as a Liverpool all-timer will be solidified, he will be remembered for more than one quick-thinking corner versus Barcelona. And he's even young enough to come back. The prodigal son returned after all. But for now, don't police the pain. Don't sanitise it. The Premier League has fostered an increasingly sterile culture that demands non-celebrations from former players and nauseatingly inauthentic "RESPECT [clapping emojis – and remember more emojis equals more RESPECT]" for likes. Booing TAA is a raw, emotional, even uncomfortable response – but don't try to suppress it. Check out more of our Sport coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
My daughter Caroline Flack died without a voice - and this is my biggest regret about her difficult final days
We mustn’t forget the woman behind the headlines, says her mother, Christine Flack.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. We found a handwritten note from Caroline the other day. Caroline’s twin sister, Jody, discovered it while packing up boxes of her things. Caroline loved leaving me notes, but this one was written for herself and was a list of all the things she loved, everything that made her happy. She’d included her job – hosting Love Island, the ITV dating show that she’d made her own – her close family and the beautiful London home that she had worked so hard to buy. Caroline had made a brilliant life for herself and most of the time she was happy. She loved musicals – we’d seen Hamilton and Waitress. She laughed a lot, loved dancing and was always singing in the car. Five years on from her death, these are the moments I try to remember. But Caroline was also vulnerable and suffered highs and lows, even while growing up. She was in hospital in her late teens after a relationship ended and feared talking openly about her mental health. I did my best to protect her as a child. Now I must protect her in a different way. Caroline died, aged 40, without a voice and with the world believing that she was a domestic abuser. I want the real Caroline to be remembered – not the Caroline that was portrayed in the press in the weeks before her death. Which is why I have made Caroline Flack: Search for the Truth, a two-part documentary for Disney+. View oEmbed on the source website It’s my biggest regret that I wasn’t shouting about the injustice before Caroline took her own life on Valentine’s Day in 2020, while facing prosecution for allegedly assaulting her boyfriend, Lewis Burton. Now I have nothing to lose. The worst thing in the world has already happened. I need to get the truth out there. I’m not here to defend domestic violence. Caroline hit Lewis with a mobile phone after becoming concerned he was cheating. But the facts are that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) recommended Caroline receive a caution. She had no previous convictions, Lewis did not support the prosecution, and it was not deemed to be in the public interest. A senior Metropolitan Police figure appealed against that decision and Caroline was then charged with assault by beating. Caroline discovered she would be prosecuted the day before she died. When I have thought about how Caroline died and how awful she must have felt on that day, I’ve not been able to stop asking questions. Why did the police lock her in a cell for 24 hours after she was hospitalised for self-harming? Why did the CPS charge her amid a media frenzy? And how could the tabloids print such intrusive information? In 2023, the Met apologised for not keeping a written record of why they charged Caroline. But I couldn’t get more answers. That’s why I wanted to make this film. Having cameras with me, I hoped, would open doors. I firmly believe this was a show trial and Caroline was treated differently simply because she was a celebrity. In my documentary, a very significant figure agrees with me, having seen the evidence the producers and I have obtained. I remember my last conversation with Caroline. She had moved to a new flat, away from the press intrusion that was plaguing her life. She was happy and we all believed that the CPS wouldn’t press charges. I looked at her, with her hair scrunched up on top of her head and her tiny, size two shoes, and said to my partner, “How can someone so little be causing so much havoc?” And that was my thought that day. Then she heard that the CPS would charge her. With that, and the tabloid coverage, I think she just couldn’t see a way out. I’ve not been able to rest since Caroline’s death. Perhaps when other people see this documentary – which is, I hope, also a celebration of Caroline – and all the ways in which my beautiful daughter was failed, I might be able to finally stop searching for answers. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Both episodes of Caroline Flack: Search for the Truth will be available on Monday 10th November on Disney+. Check out more of our Documentaries coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.