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February has plenty of new shows to keep you occupied. Loved Adolescence? The screenwriter, Jack Thorne, has turned his hand to a new project. Also this month: a comedy-thriller from the creator of Derry Girls and some peak Millennial nostalgia with the return of Scrubs.
I’m particularly looking forward to ABC iview’s Australian comedy Dog Park and the Amazon Prime thriller Vanished, but whatever your preference there are intriguing options for your watch list.
Netflix
My top Netflix recommendation is How to Get to Heaven from Belfast (February 12).
The Northern Ireland high school sitcom Derry Girls is one of Netflix’s enduring gems, so the arrival of a new show from creator Lisa McGee is a streaming event. This comedy-thriller moves the focus from teens to 30somethings, as a trio of high school friends are contacted by their long-lost adolescent bestie, only to learn soon after that she has mysteriously died. Saoirse (Roisin Gallagher, The Lovers), Robyn (Sinead Keenan, Unforgotten), and Dara (Caoilfhionn Dunne, Andor) mobilise for a quest to rural Ireland. Expect comic chaos, friendship’s fierce humour, and the odd appearance by a Derry Girls cast member.
Also on Netflix: It’s always a boon when a hit streaming show operates on a yearly schedule, so kudos to The Night Agent (February 19) for delivering a third season just over 12 months since the previous one concluded. Created by Shawn Ryan (The Shield), this action-thriller has added several layers of conspiratorial plotting and creepy powerbrokers, but the focus remains steely former FBI agent Peter Sutherland (Gabriel Basso, A House of Dynamite) trying to crack a mysterious global plot before it’s too late. Don’t be surprised if once again Peter has an inexperienced source he must keep alive as assassins cluster.
January highlights: His & Hers hit all the sweet spots of a trashy, unpredictable thriller, Ricky Gervais: Mortality was the comic’s latest wayward set, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck reunited for the narco cops drama The Rip, and Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials went old school British murder-mystery.
Binge
My top Binge recommendation is The Burbs (February 8).
Definitely getting an Only Murders in the Cul-De-Sac vibe from this black comedy, which stars Keke Palmer (One of them Days) and Jack Whitehall (Malice) as newlyweds Samira and Rob, who move from the city back to Jack’s childhood home in the suburbs. The cheery conformity throws Samira at first, which may be why she’s so suspicious of a new neighbour’s odd comings and goings. This is an update of the 1989 Tom Hanks movie of the same name, with Samira’s unlikely crew of ageing amateur sleuths giving Palmer some idiosyncratic foils for her tart comic energy. A supporting role for Girls5eva MVP Paula Pell? Big tick.
Also on Binge: The best performance in Yellowstone belonged to Kelly Reilly, who was a lit fuse presence as Beth Dutton in the hit modern-day western. Now the British actress comes home, starring in the crime thriller Under Salt Marsh (January 30). Reilly plays Jackie Ellis, a former police detective from a small seaside town who quit her job after she couldn’t solve a case involving a family member’s disappearance. When a new incident sheds light on Jackie’s burden, she’s drawn right back in. The supporting cast is first-rate, with Rafe Spall (Trying) as a combative former colleague and Jonathan Pryce (Slow Horses) as the town’s figurehead.
January highlights: The life and crimes of Australia’s most infamous bank robber, Brenden Abbott, inspired the crime drama Run.
Disney+
My top Disney+ recommendation is Scrubs (February 26).
Yes, rebooting a sitcom that petered out in 2010 is a Millennial nostalgia play, but we need every comedy we can get these days and all the original Scrubs talent, starting with creator Bill Lawrence (Ted Lasso), are clearly game. The once-young doctors of Sacred Heart teaching hospital, J.D. (Zach Braff), Turk (Donald Faison) and Elliot (Sarah Chalke), are now in their 40s so we can expect to see plenty of intergenerational workplace embarrassment and slapstick setbacks. This revival has a short run of just nine episodes, but fingers crossed for a good gag or two about The Pitt along the way.
Also on Disney+: Uber-producer Ryan Murphy already has the Horror Story, Crime Story, and Monster franchises, but now he’s pivoting to romance for Love Story: John F Kennedy Jr & Carolyn Bessette (February 13). The first season of this biographical anthology examines the high-profile 1990s relationship of John F. Kennedy Jr (Paul Kelly), son of the assassinated US president, and fashion industry executive Carolyn Bessette (Sarah Pidgeon). This was America’s version of royalty, and it came with a tragic ending. The contemporary commentary could go many ways, but Murphy has nailed the supporting cast, with Naomi Watts (All’s Fair) as John’s mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and Alessandro Nivola (The Brutalist) as Carolyn’s employer, fashion designer Calvin Klein.
January highlights: A comic actor came home to stand-up with the sharped-edged special Kumail Nanjiani: Night Thoughts.
HBO Max
My top HBO Max recommendation is Smiling Friends (February 4).
HBO Max is leaning into adult animation this month, introducing absurd, chaotic and often hilarious shows from America’s Cartoon Network cable channel. Co-created by Australian Michael Cusack, Smiling Friends follows the workplace misadventures of a charity whose employees’ task is to spread happiness. Spoiler: it doesn’t always go to plan. The episodes are short, absurd, and grab from everywhere, with the animation styes as likely to vary as the pop culture subjects. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is the live-action show it often gets compared to, but there’s actually a touch more deranged empathy.
January highlights: Game of Thrones nailed its latest prequel, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, the second season of highwire medical drama The Pitt continued to deliver, and, somehow, Industry, found new ways for its high-finance characters to risk it all.
Stan*
My top Stan recommendation is Lord of the Flies (February 8).
A classroom staple for decades, William Golding’s 1954 novel about a group of pre-teen British schoolboys who become stranded on a tropical island and soon abandon civility for chaos has been adapted for the screen several times. This latest effort has the ideal writer in Jack Thorne, who co-created Netflix’s Emmy award-dominating Adolescence, this era’s defining portrait of dangerous boyhood turmoil. Director Marc Munden (The Sympathizer) had a cast of approximately 30 unknown 10- to 13-year-olds for the shoot in Malaysia, revisiting the book’s classic story of co-operation and morality being supplanted by rivalry and violence. It is, worryingly, more relevant than ever.
January highlights: Brooke Satchwell delivered the performance of her career as a grieving woman struggling to stay afloat in the Australian comic-drama Dear Life.
Amazon Prime
My top Amazon Prime recommendation is Vanished (February 27).
Just quietly, The Big Bang Theory star Kaley Cuoco has been building a worthy slate of thrillers since she left the hit sitcom. HBO Max’s The Flight Attendant and Binge’s Based on a True Story are now followed by this vacation gone haywire mystery. American Alice (Cuoco) and her boyfriend Todd (Sam Claflin, The Count of Monte Cristo) are enjoying a romantic European adventure when he suddenly disappears mid-train journey. It’s a classic Hitchcockian gambit, with Alice as the American trying to find her partner even as the local police and various other interested groups circle. Let’s see how far the show can push her.
Also on Amazon Prime: The erotic thriller had its heyday in the 1990s, with Hollywood films such as Basic Instinct and Single White Female, but the genre is definitely going through a spicy resurgence. The latest offering is 56 Days (February 18), an American series that follows the torrid relationship between Ciara (Dove Cameron, Schmigadoon!) and Oliver (Avan Jogia, Orphan Black: Echoes) from two perspectives: a day-by-day coverage of their mutual obsession, and the police investigation that begins on day 56 when an unidentified body is discovered in Oliver’s bathtub. The source material is Catherine Ryan Howard’s best-selling Irish novel.
January highlights: A decade between seasons didn’t stop espionage thriller The Night Manager and its all-star cast delivering exquisite tension, Steal reinvented the heist drama for the 21st century, while a Miami Vice box-set spotlighted retro style.
Apple TV
My top Apple TV recommendation is Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (February 27).
A spin-off from the Monsterverse franchise (which started with 2014’s Godzilla and 2017’s Kong: Skull Island), the first season of this science-fiction series tried to thread a fine needle. With a focus on uncovering Monarch, the mysterious organisation that has long studied MUTOs (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms), the show was an action-leaning drama told over different timelines. It lacks the blockbuster budget to have the giant CGI creatures constantly fighting and/or levelling cities, so the human cast has been to the fore. Season two returns with one of them, Shogun‘s Anna Sawai, now a star, but Monarch’s smartest call was having father and son Kurt and Wyatt Russell play the same character in different centuries. Their dual performance forges a fascinating bond.
January highlights: Idris Elba was once more under the gun as the hostage-thriller Hijack moved from a British passenger plane to a Berlin subway train.
ABC iview
My top ABC iview recommendation is Dog Park (February 1).
Grumpy rejection crashes headlong into community embrace in this new Australian comedy from creators Amanda Higgs (The Secret Life of Us) and Leon Ford (Upright). Roland (Ford) is knee-deep in a midlife crisis, absent his wife and trying to cope with a teenage daughter and a dog, Beattie, he never wanted, when he inadvertently discovers that Beattie has a ripping social life at the local dog park. With the cheerily optimistic Samantha (Celia Pacquola, Rosehaven) determined to include both Roland and Beattie in the daily catch-ups, the reticent owner slowly begins to discover the power of connection. Genuinely funny and feel-good is a tricky combination, but when they click on screen it’s a joy.
January highlights: The biographical drama Goolagong shed new light on the struggles and success of an Australian sporting legend.
SBS On Demand
My top SBS On Demand recommendation is Trespasses (February 4).
Based on the acclaimed 2022 novel by Irish writer Louise Kennedy, this Northern Ireland drama drew extensive praise when it debuted in Britain last year. Set in a small town outside Belfast in the mid-1970s, it’s a love story set against the growing sectarian violence between the Protestant and Catholic communities. The division is so bad that Catholic school teacher Cushla Lavery (Lola Petticrew, Say Nothing) and prominent Protestant barrister Michael Agnew (Tom Cullen, The Gold) can only meet in secret. The list of telling supporting characters here is headed by Gillian Anderson (The Crown) as Cushla’s bitter, alcoholic mother, Gina.
Also on SBS On Demand: At this point it thankfully appears we can expect at least two interesting projects a year involving Marc Fennell, whether it’s a documentary series (Framed), podcast (Stuff the British Stole), or hosting a classic quiz show (Mastermind). His latest offering is Australia’s Greatest Conman (February 24), which uncovers that truth is stranger than fiction in the story of John Friedrich. Friedrich rose to national prominence in the 1980s through the non-profit organisation The National Safety Council of Australia and its elite land and sea rescue squad. Plaudits flowed, but Friedrich was also committing fraud on a hitherto unmatched scale. Both the who and why remain unclear, which is prime Fennell territory.
January highlights: The overwhelming British crime thriller In Flight made escaping an impossible bargain gripping, plus a remarkable story from Australia’s history came to light with the documentary The Colleano Heart.
Other streamers
My top recommendation for the other streaming services is Paramount+’s CIA (February 24).
Dick Wolf is not slowing down. Ever since creating the original Law & Order in 1990, the American writer and producer has been an episodic machine, adding the Chicago and FBI franchises to his vast list of credits. Wolf’s latest procedural is an investigatory odd couple, partnering up rogue CIA officer Hart Hoxton (Tom Ellis, Lucifer) with by-the-book FBI agent Bill Goodman (Nick Gehlfuss). Might they learn a little from each other as they resolve each case in a 43-minute episode? Quite probably. The pair’s brief to investigate domestic terrorist threats to America could be a fraught fictional topic, however, given the real-life headlines concerning the country’s law enforcement bodies.
January highlights: The 10Play chess series Rematch captured the moment when man-versus-machine became a reality, while 7Plus’s 9-1-1 continued to deliver the outlandish.
* Stan is owned by Nine, which also owns this masthead.
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