Ludwig (Series 2)
David Mitchell returns as the puzzle-setter-turned-sleuth
Year: 2026
Did you know that David Mitchell turned down the lead role in Caribbean crime drama Death In Paradise? The Peep Show star admitted he has always wanted to play a detective ever since he saw Joan Hickson as Miss Marple and John Thaw as Inspector Morse on TV in the late 80s. Well, he finally got his wish when he took on the role of puzzle-setter-turned-sleuth John Taylor in the hugely entertaining Ludwig, and he’s back again for a second series here.
Ludwig was one of the best shows of 2024, and fans will be pleased to know that Mitchell’s Ludwig is still terrible at so many things – even opening a door is a struggle in the opening episode – but excels at solving seemingly impossible cases.
This time John has a fancy new title and will be helping Cambridge police with more ‘impossible’ cases as a Crime Scene Consultant. Picking up from the end of the last series, the disappearance of John’s identical twin brother remains unsolved but with sister-in-law Lucy (Anna Maxwell Martin) by his side again, it’s a case he’s determined to crack. New faces in the cast include Mark Bonnar and Siân Clifford, and look out for guest stars such as Stephen Merchant in future episodes. (Six episodes)
A Beautiful Obsession
Oscar-winner Kevin Macdonald’s documentary about Pep Guardiola’s last two seasons at Manchester City
Year: 2026
Certificate: 15
Directed by Oscar-winner Kevin Macdonald (Touching The Void) and closely produced with Manchester City, this four-part documentary takes us inside manager Pep Guardiola’s last two seasons at the club – 2024-25 and 2025-26.
The series is extraordinary in a couple of ways. Firstly for its level of access, which takes us into changing room meltdowns, boardroom meetings and even into the voice notes exchanged between club chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak and CEO Ferran Soriano. Macdonald partly explained that access by the fact that both men are keen film fans, and apparently wanted to go the extra mile to make the series special.
The other extraordinary element is how much raw emotion is on display, from the players’ unfiltered reactions to wins and losses to Guardiola, a very emotionally available Catalan who is shepherding the club through a brutal losing streak just as he separates from his partner of 30 years. This was a streak that, coming off four league victories in a row, felt almost like a curse to the players. The series then becomes a portrait of what it means to no longer be a winner. Do you carry on, or quit? And does it change who you are?
It’s a testament to Macdonald’s film-making skill that we can empathise with the journey of what is essentially a bunch of millionaires losing football matches and still finishing strongly compared to most in the Premier League. The director didn’t know much about the game going in, which probably helps with that – his interviews with Guardiola are largely chats about life and emotion. (Four episodes)
Love Is Blind: UK
Matchmaking show where couples get engaged without meeting, now back for series three
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Running in the US (and various other countries around the world) since 2020, this dating show format is intriguingly simple. Fifteen men and 15 women spend ten days chatting to each other from inside purpose-built ‘pods’, without ever seeing who it is they’re talking to.
It’s only when they decide to propose to one of the disembodied romance-seekers that they get to see if the voice-to-voice connection they’ve forged can survive face-to-face contact. If it does, then subsequent dates might just lead to a wedding at the end of the series.
Real-life husband and wife Emma and Matt Willis (she from shows such as Big Brother and he from the band Busted) take on the hosting duties on a smart and addictive reality romance show that’s been quite a hit, and shown us several intriguing couplings – chiefly Sabrina and Steven. It ends with a reunion special so we can see how everyone, including Sabrina and Steven, fared as a result of the experience.
In the second series standouts include Ashleigh, who works in cabin crew and has to endure way too many airline jokes for her own good in the opening episode, and laughs gamely (too gamely?) at most of them. Among the men, look out for Patrick, a ‘human design coach’ who follows his spleen. Where will it lead him?
In the third and latest series the daters include 30-year-old chef Jack from Cornwall, who thinks he’s ‘one of a kind’ and seems to talk without a filter. He strikes an early spark with 28-year-old executive assistant Faye – will it blaze into something bigger? (Three series)
You’re Killing Me
Brooke Shields stars in a sassy cosy-crime series
Year: 2026
Certificate: 12
Brooke Shields stars in this odd-couple cosy crime series as mystery writer Alison ‘Allie’ Chandler who, despite a string of bestsellers, is now the ‘wrong side of 40’. Her million-dollar movie deal has just fallen through because the studio don’t want another ‘menopausal mystery’ and she’s being urged by her agent to try something new to bring in a younger audience.
Enter true-crime podcaster Andrea ‘Andi’ Walker (Amalia Williamson) who rubs Allie up the wrong way after a spiky interaction where it’s clear the two women don’t speak the same language. But they do have a need to reinvent themselves in common and, teaming up to solve a murder, they become partners in a new book venture, sparring their way through more murder cases along the way.
A big part of the fun is in how Gen-X Allie and Gen-Z Andi clash generationally, and while it’s easy to take swipes at how Allie might not be as tech-savvy as Andi, she gives as good as she gets. Shields throws herself into the physical comedy, too, while Williamson is powered by knowing quips and mean eye rolls. There’s also Tom Cavanagh (The Flash) as the duo’s ‘real’ detective liaison and Allie’s love interest, or as Andi puts it her ‘enemies to lovers arc’, making this a welcome addition to the cosy-crime strand. (Six episodes)
The Great ADHD Myth?
Dr Max Pemberton investigates the surge in ADHD diagnoses
Year: 2026
Certificate: pg
Mail columnist and NHS psychiatrist Dr Max Pemberton investigates the huge surge in ADHD diagnoses and asks whether it really is a neurodevelopmental disorder or a response to modern life. He also wants to know if it is the right course of action, or even ethical, to medicate people with ADHD, particularly in children and particularly when the long-term effects remain unknown.
He speaks to a range of leading experts who share his concerns about the explosion in ADHD diagnoses, and spends time with a young family who explore, under his supervision, holistic lifestyle changes as a way to reduce their son’s reliance on medication. It’s a unique and thought-provoking documentary that couldn’t be any more timely. (47 minutes)
Buried With Michael Sheen
The actor investigates forever chemicals in the hills and valleys of Wales
Year: 2026
Certificate: 12
Chances are you’ve heard of forever chemicals: toxic, man-made substances that do not break down easily in the soil nor, more worryingly, in the human body. There have been a number of high-profile cases of cover-ups and legal battles that have brought the issue to global attention, most infamously the Teflon scandal in America, and now actor Michael Sheen is investigating cases of toxic contamination much closer to home.
This two-parter is an expansion of the BBC Sounds podcast Buried: The Last Witness, with Sheen joining forces with husband and wife environmental journalists Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor to continue the work of late whistleblower Douglas Gowan, who focused on the dumping of a toxic compound called polychlorinated biphenyl, or PCB, a known carcinogen, at multiple sites in Wales.
Sheen visits Anniston in Alabama, a town that won a multi-million-dollar legal battle against Monsanto, the chemical company that opened a plant in Newport, Wales in 1949. The people of Anniston won their case in 2003, could the people of Wales have a similar case against the American chemical giant? (Two episodes)
Heroes
The gripping pre-Marvel superhero drama, starring the late Hayden Panettiere
Year: 2006-2010
Certificate: 15
A cheerleader discovers she can heal from any injury; an artist realises he’s painting the future; a geeky computer whizz finds he can teleport; and a cop becomes aware he can hear people’s thoughts. What connects these seemingly separate people?
This ambitious US sci-fi drama threads many disparate storylines together, with a cast that includes Milo Ventimiglia and the late Hayden Panettiere, and Zachary Quinto on great form as the villain, Sylar. Bet you’ve forgotten Christopher Eccleston was in a few episodes, too.
Series one is absolutely brilliant, even if the following three didn’t live up to the very high bar which that sets. It’s notable that it came along in 2006, not long before the Marvel Cinematic Universe kicked off with Iron Man in 2008. (Four series)
Nashville
Rival queens of country battle it out in Nashville
Year: 2012-2018
Certificate: 12
Written by Callie Khouri, who won an Oscar for her screenplay for road-movie classic Thelma & Louise, this soapily addictive US show is set in a fictionalised version of Nashville’s country music scene – and gives the background to all that heartache country songs are famous for.
Early series centred on the rivalry between rising star Juliette Barnes and veteran Rayna Jaymes (Hayden Panettiere and Connie Britton), and there’s a strong network behind these two women – family, friends, lovers and management – who bring with them as much melodramatic tension as they do support.
The real draw was Britton’s Rayna, and the show struggled after her departure in series five. It was threatened with cancellation several times, and the sixth run proved to be its last – but it went out with the most satisfyingly sentimental of swansongs. Panettiere, who died in 2026 aged just 36, complained in her memoir This Is Me that the show’s writers mined her real life struggles for storylines on the show, meaning that she would have to endure such traumas twice. (Six series)
My Brilliant Career
Terrifically entertaining drama about a young woman making choices in 1900s Australia
Year: 2026
Certificate: 12
Sybylla (Philippa Northeast) is an independent-minded young woman growing up in rural Australia at the turn of the 20th century, and she wants to be one thing: a writer. Marriage and domesticity? The very idea leaves a bad taste in her mouth, although her austere grandmother (Anna Chancellor) disagrees, and does her best to make Sybylla marriageable.
Those duelling desires are at the core of My Brilliant Career, a six-part drama based on the great Australian novel by Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin. One of the show’s great delights is Northeast’s performance as Sybylla, which is powered by youthful desire and tempered by youthful idiocy – she runs headlong at things but she’s quite likely to fall over in the process. Northeast has real comic bones in the role – reminiscent of Emma Stone – and is so watchable throughout. It’s the very opposite of a bland literary adaptation designed to please everyone.
There’s something of Jane Austen about it all and the supporting cast is full of quiet excellence, from Genevieve O’Reilly (Andor) as the less stiff Aunt Helen to Christopher Chung as a possible love interest, Harry. If Chung looks familiar, he was the idiotic Roddy on Slow Horses – he must be grateful to be playing a slightly more desirable character here. (Six episodes)
Lanterns
Kyle Chandler, Aaron Pierre and Kelly Macdonald star in a noirish murder mystery from DC
Year: 2026
Certificate: 15
The HBO series might be set in the DC superhero universe, but it looks and feels more like a noirish crime thriller. Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights) stars as Hal Jordan, the holder of the legendary Green Lantern ring – making him essentially an intergalactic cop – with Aaron Pierre (Rebel Ridge) as his resentful trainee, John Stewart. Earth is only allowed to have one Lantern at a time, so John is playing a waiting game while Hal behaves in an increasingly erratic fashion as the two of them start to investigate a murder.
One roadblock in that investigation is local sheriff Kerry (Kelly Macdonald), who doesn’t approve of the Lanterns’ way of doing business. With a storyline that ties into the schism in the US, militia mindsets and the fear of aliens of all kinds, this should be a show that, like Peacemaker, bypasses superhero genre appeal and taps into a wider audience.
Chandler is always a welcome presence on screen but he has a particularly appealing charm here, with his character riding the line between arrogance and actually knowing what he’s talking about, and delivering some neat one-liners in the process. Meanwhile, Pierre’s lantern-in-waiting is interesting precisely because of what he hides from others, and because of where he’s headed – but more of that later on. (Eight episodes)
Reacher (Series 4)
Series four finds Lee Child’s ex-military police officer pulled into a high-level conspiracy
Year: 2026
Certificate: 15
The roaming vigilante of Lee Child’s books returns for a fourth series. Reacher (Alan Ritchson) is in Philadelphia at the start of series four, hankering after cheesesteak and having a bad encounter on the subway. The encounter ends so badly, actually, that it leaves the man-mountain determined to fix what he couldn’t in the moment. ‘I’m good at not letting people get away with things,’ reflects the ex-military police officer as he digs into what quickly reveals itself to be a high-level conspiracy involving the CIA.
Initially, local detectives think they have some power over Reacher. More fool them because, when this man gets the bit between his teeth, there’s no stopping him – if he had an eye for gadgets you’d call him a one-man A-Team. During the chaotic events of the ensuing investigation he is the calm centre of the storm, with those pulled into his orbit including disaffected police, a quirky freelance journalist and a woman with a secret.
The show around him is remarkable for its moments of quiet. There are stretches without soundtrack and even bits without dialogue. It’s a strong silent type of show, confident in itself – just like its hero. The action, when it comes, is tough and satisfying but never grisly by modern standards, and Reacher even throws in some deadpan lines to leaven the tone. (Eight episodes)
Furious
Cat-and-mouse thriller about a female serial killer from the writer of Dying For Sex
Year: 2026
Certificate: 18
A female serial killer is taking out men one by one in this dark and edgy thriller, and new FBI Agent Alice Black (Emmy Rossum) seems to be the only one who can catch her. That’s the premise of Furious, the title of which hints toward the righteous anger that drives the killer, and the shifting perspectives on justice it features along its eight-part length. Both lead actresses are terrific – Rossum rose to fame on the US version of Shameless and gives Alice a simmering depth, while Lola Petticrew (Trespasses, Say Nothing) is on awards-worthy form in the showier role as the killer she’s tracking.
Writer Elizabeth Meriwether has a history of writing strong shows about very different women, from chirpy sitcom New Girl with Zooey Deschanel as a manic pixie figure, to the corporate fraud Elizabeth Holmes in The Dropout, to Dying For Sex, with Michelle Williams as a woman rediscovering life in the face of a cancer diagnosis. Furious feels like another intriguing entry in that ever-deepening on-screen CV.
Eight episodes may feel like a lot for a cat-and-mouse story but this is also a show that’s really tangling with an issue – what women should do with righteous anger, what society expects of them, and the consequences of the difference between the two things. For anyone who’s seen one too many TV dramas that open with the body of a dead blonde, Furious should certainly strike a chord. (Eight episodes)
Novak Djokovic: The Wolf In Winter
Feature-length profile of the tennis great, from the director of The Last Dance
Year: 2026
Certificate: 12
The tennis great Novak Djokovic says he just ‘cannot enjoy’ his many accomplishments in the sport. This is a career that includes more than 100 title victories, 428 weeks spent as world number one and an Olympic gold medal.
It’s a typical perspective to hear from the Serbian legend who, as he looks back on his incredible career in this feature-length documentary, still feels there is so much for him to do and prove. But to whom? ‘The number one doubter is here,’ he says, pointing at himself. Djokovic isn’t oblivious to the cost of it all, though, and ponders the impact on his family of the total dedication that being ‘in service to the tennis court’ requires.
The film hears extensively from Djokovic and is focused on him competing at the Australian Open in 2025 – a contest when injury forced him to retire – as well as from his wife Jelena and tennis greats such as Jim Courier, Andre Agassi, Rafael Nadal, Pete Sampras and Boris Becker. It comes from Jason Hehir, who directed the excellent basketball docuseries The Last Dance, and provides a rounded portrait of a complicated figure at the top of his game, from his origins through to the present day. (92 minutes)
Savage Mountain
Norwegian mountaineer Kristin Harila’s record-breaking attempt to climb 14 mountains
Year: 2026
Certificate: 15
There are 14 mountains that stand 8,000m tall in Nepal, Pakistan and Tibet. The record for climbing them all used to be seven years, until the Nepalese climber Nirmal ‘Nims’ Purja smashed it in 2019 – doing it in six months and six days.
The Norwegian mountaineer Kristin Harila thought she could do it faster and, in 2022, she nearly did – until a Covid-related bureaucratic roadblock prevented her from ascending the last two. Ms Harila had sold everything she had, including her apartment, to finance the expedition and had to move back to her family farm in Norway after it fell apart. It was a low point.
Some people would have left it at that but not Ms Harila, and this documentary is the story of her attempt to smash the record in 2023. She’s an inspirational figure – tough but vulnerable, telling her story with heart and insight, and it’s impossible not to root for her, even (actually, especially) through the controversy that hit her attempt later on. If you don’t have a head for heights, you may want to avert your eyes during the climbing footage. (100 minutes)
Spy Next Door: The Anna Chapman Story
The story of the ‘femme fatale’ Russian spy
Year: 2026
Certificate: 12
Anna Chapman – or should that be Anna Vasilyevna Kushchenko – a Russian spy arrested in 2010, is the poster girl for modern spycraft, a ‘femme fatale’ who looked like she could seduce her way into anything, from nightclubs to influential confidences. You might know her face, but how well do you know her story?
This gripping two-parter paints a picture of Chapman through the men who knew her and dated her, and the agents who hunted her, but also describes the global political climate of the 2000s, in Europe and America, in which she operated.
In the first part, we hear how Chapman arrived in the UK as a student in 2001. During her stay, she met Alex Chapman at an underground rave in London, leading to a whirlwind romance and a subsequent marriage in Moscow that secured her British citizenship and a passport. She then found a job in the city and was soon hobnobbing with the super wealthy before moving to New York City on a mission to infiltrate the corridors of power. But little did she know that the FBI was on her tail… (Two episodes)
Shelter (2026 film)
Jason Statham stars as a special forces veteran just trying to live a quiet life – until, one day…
Year: 2026
Certificate: 15
When a rugged, taciturn man played by Jason Statham lives alone with a dog in a disused lighthouse on a remote Scottish island, you can bet your last tray of Pedigree Chum that he’ll turn out to be a special forces veteran, living off-grid because there are rotters in suits who want him dead.
There were glaring clues in Statham’s last two films, A Working Man (2025) and The Beekeeper (2024), in which he played a special forces veteran trying to keep a low profile as, respectively, a construction-site foreman and, yes, a beekeeper. This time, in Shelter, his character Michael Mason has gone a step further in pursuit of the quiet life – legging it to the Hebrides.
There, he unwittingly drags a young girl into the line of fire as, when Mason’s whereabouts become known to rogue elements in MI6, they duly issue a liquidation order against him. Thankfully, Jessie (Hamnet’s Bodhi Rae Breathnach) is a stout child and takes the killing spree that ensues in her stride.
If you like Statham, then this entry into his oeuvre will not disappoint – aside from the soundtrack, which seems determined to remind us that we’re watching an exciting action thriller. Statham’s presence is quite enough for that, thank you. Look out for Harriet Walter and Bill Nighy in the supporting cast. (107 minutes)
Professor T
Ben Miller is perfectly cast as an awkward sleuth in ITV’s take on a Belgian detective drama
Year: 2021-
Certificate: 15
In ITV’s Cambridge-set adaptation of the Belgian detective drama of the same name, Ben Miller has a starring role that fits him like a cosy pair of slippers – a socially awkward academic who is irascible, impatient and a lover of order. His Jasper Tempest has a knack for solving crimes, and when not being tormented by his overbearing mother (the fabulous Frances de la Tour), he’s putting his particular set of skills to good use.
In the second series we learn more about the title character as his eccentricities are unpacked by a therapist (Juliet Stevenson), much to the horror of his mother, and the professor’s personal life gets messier as he rekindles his relationship with Detective Chief Inspector Christina Brand (Juliet Aubrey).
Series three opens in a manner more befitting The Shawshank Redemption, as the oddball criminologist starts doing time in a prison that looks straight out of the classic Stephen King movie. But no, we are back in Cambridge, and while his friends on the outside worry he won’t cope, the professor surrenders to the ‘belly of the beast’ and treats his incarceration as a field trip – he even finds the time to solve a murder case.
Joining the regular cast for the latest fourth series is Zoe Wanamaker as the prof’s eccentric aunt Zelda, who takes more of an interest in her nephew’s work than his mother ever did, but before she can, Tempest has to start consulting with the police again – having backed away after a tragedy in series three. Can his therapist (Juliet Stevenson) persuade him that the time is right? (Four series)
Joe And David’s Magical Sitcom Tour
Sitcom-related travelogue with Joe Wilkinson and David Earl
Year: 2026
Certificate: pg
For this very jolly and easy-to-watch comedy-themed travelogue, Joe Wilkinson and David Earl – who wrote sitcom The Cockfields together – take each other on a tour through the worlds of their favourite sitcoms.
The three shows are Porridge, Fawlty Towers and The Office, and the pair start with Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais’s great prison comedy, a sitcom watched by a young Joe Wilkinson. It remained his favourite show as an adult, so much so that, apparently, he turned down the opportunity to audition for the lead when the reboot came along in 2016. There’s a short glimpse into what that performance might have been like when he and David give the script a little read-through here, but Wilkinson still seems a bit reluctant to give it a proper go, which is a shame.
If you like hearing fresh insights on shows you thought you couldn’t possibly hear more about, then this show will be a delight. And the way in which Joe and David seem so determined to surprise each other during their respective tours gives it a delightful edge. Don’t miss the bit in the car with the pretend Ronnie Barker. (Three episodes)
Ann Droid
Diane Morgan and Sue Johnston team up for a quirky sitcom
Year: 2026
Certificate: 12
Mandy and Philomena Cunk comedian Diane Morgan stars as a humanoid care robot, assigned to help recently widowed Sue (Sue Johnston) live independently in this six-part sitcom. Written by Morgan and Sarah Kendall (who created the Bafta-nominated Frayed), it offers a playful look at whether robotic droids might one day offer something resembling genuine companionship.
Sue is given Linda – a secondhand ‘AnnDroid Z58/100 Basic Eldercare Robot’ – by her son Michael (Motherland’s Paul Ready), who is moving out of the house he’s been sharing with his mother to try to fix his failing marriage. Linda is a socially inept early model, delivering a steady stream of misunderstandings and disorder, while an unexpected bond between human and bot steadily forms.
The opening episode takes a while to find its rhythm. Some early repeated jokes wear thin, and the mother-son dynamic initially feels more strained than amusing. Stick with it though, because once Linda arrives the comedy sharpens considerably as the dry humour and awkward exchanges that have defined Morgan’s past work come to the fore, particularly through Linda’s painfully literal observations.
Beneath the laughs, themes of grief, loneliness and embracing life at an older age give the series emotional grounding. Despite its slower start, Morgan’s robotic delivery paired with the sharply observed writing makes Ann Droid an odd, charming and ultimately rewarding treat. (Six episodes)
