BLOCKBUSTER
Thurs 3 Nov, Netflix
Timmy Yoon (Randall Park) is an analog dreamer in a 5G world. He’s spent his entire adult life dedicated to his first love: movies – a passion which has kept him at his first and only job, managing his hometown Blockbuster Video (ask your parents what that is…).
Then Timmy is alarmed to learn his store is officially the last Blockbuster in America. He now has no choice but to take action to stay open and keep his friends employed. Timmy and his staff quickly come to realise this might actually be exactly what their community needs to rekindle the human connections lost in a digital age.
MANIFEST
Fri 4 Nov, Netflix
Revived by Netflix, this supernatural drama now gets a fitting final season. We may get some answers about the group of passengers and crew of a commercial airliner, who suddenly reappear after being presumed dead for five and a half years.
It’s now two years after a brutal murder turned their lives upside down, and the Stone family is in shambles. A devastated Ben continues to search for his missing daughter. With the passengers’ every move now being monitored by a government registry, their impending deaths, secrets and retribution begin to collide on a mind-bending, and deeply emotional final journey. Compelling, thoughtful and occasionally frustrating, there’s nothing quite like this show.
THE MOSQUITO COAST
Fri 4 Nov, Apple TV+
Based on Paul Theroux’s best-selling novel, The Mosquito Coast follows the dangerous journey of Allie Fox – a brilliant inventor and stubborn idealist, who uproots his family on a dangerous quest to find refuge from the US government, cartels and hitmen.
This new season sees the family, after barely escaping Mexico with their lives, venturing deep into the Guatemalan jungle to meet up with an old friend and her community of refugees. However, trouble is never far away, as they become entangled in a conflict between a local drug lord and his associates. At odds about whether to settle down or keep moving, the family need to act fast.
THE CROWN
Weds 9 Nov, Netflix
While fans got a sneak peek into how this monarchical melodrama might end the other week, it’s business as usual for the Windsors. It’s season five, things are starting to hot up. HRM is suffering from an ‘annus horribilis’, and no application of royal app-ointments will shift that (sorry!).
The main cast has nearly all changed, with Imelda Staunton giving it 110% laser-focus as Her Majesty. There’s no space for messing about, with relationship issues between Princess Diana and King Charles, a nation facing up to a new millennium and a tragic car crash in Paris thundering towards the whole family.
MYTHIC QUEST
11 Nov, Apple TV+
Few shows manage to successfully recreate the absurd world of gaming, which is why tech-comedy Mythic Quest stands out. It follows a group of developers tasked with building worlds, moulding heroes and creating legends. But the most hard-fought battles don’t occur in-game – they happen in the office.
We respawn in season three as two of the game’s leading creatives have left to pursue their next dream. But, as always, their strong personalities lead to chaos. Back at the planet’s most successful MMORPG, everyone must settle into new roles. Imagine It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia meets Silicon Valley, only with more debilitating dysfunction and inherent videogame geekiness.
THE ENGLISH
Fri 11 Nov, BBC One
Emily Blunt makes a brief return to the small screen in this, a collaboration between BBC2 and Amazon. Written and directed by Hugo Blick, this six-part miniseries takes us to the 1890s American West, where an aristocratic woman is tirelessly pursuing the man she believes responsible for her son’s death.
This epic Western blurs themes of identity and revenge, in a unique parable on race, power and love. Together with a Pawnee ex-cavalry scout, Blunt’s character must face increasingly terrifying obstacles that will test them to their limits, physically and psychologically. Soon an intertwined history will truly be understood, when they come face-to-face with the future they must live.
ECHO 3
Weds 23 Nov, Apple TV+
Based on the award-winning and hard-hitting Israeli drama series When Heroes Fly and the eponymous novel by Amir Gutfreund, Echo 3 takes us to South America for an action-packed thriller. We follow Amber Chesborough, a brilliant young scientist who is the emotional heart of a small American family. When she goes missing along the Colombia-Venezuela border, her brother Bambi and her husband Prince set out to discover what has happened.
These two men have significant and very relevant military experience, along with complicated pasts. But they struggle to find her in this intriguing and layered personal drama, set against the explosive backdrop of an endless secret war.
WILLOW
Weds 30 Nov, Disney+
An epic period fantasy series with a modern sensibility set in an enchanted land of breathtaking beauty, Willow features a diverse international cast with Warwick Davis, Jonathan Kasdan, Ron Howard, Wendy Mericle, Kathleen Kennedy, and Michelle Rejwan serving as executive producers.
An aspiring magician from a Nelwyn village and an infant girl destined to unite the realms helped destroy an evil queen and banished the forces of darkness. Now, the adventure continues, as an unlikely group of heroes set off on a dangerous quest to places far beyond their home, where they must face their inner demons and come together to save their world.
