Usually broadcast over the course of a week in an afternoon time-slot, Moving On has helped daytime television reach new respectability. Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, and always relatable and human, no matter how much each episode and their events may differ they all tap into the emotions and actions that occur in all walks of life. With a brilliant touch of horror, the series was as if Skins had been crossed with Supernatural.
With the threat of an apocalypse on the way, the six episode series was a gripping watch. And although it was violent enough to give it an edge, The Fades never pushed into gory horror movie territory. The title alone is nightmare-inducing — more heartbreaking is that this factual drama is based on real-life testimony. Wheelchair user Anna and partially sighted Tom are a devoted mother and father to baby Danielle, but social worker Belinda calls their parenting skills into doubt due to their disabilities.
With mounting pressure from social services, their parents and each other, Anna and Tom must ask some honest questions of each other as they fight for custody of their newborn. Tough questions with no easy answers are asked throughout the drama that may well call prejudices and beliefs into doubt, not just about the disabled community, but society as a whole.
Star-crossed lovers? The Luminaries takes place in s New Zealand in the middle of a gold rush as Anna Wetherell Eve Hewson and Emery Staines Himesh Patel fall for each other when they arrive on the other side of the world after travelling from London. But although their meet-cute was undeniably, well, cute, Anna meets a number of other men in her new home of Dunedin — each of them representing the various Zodiac signs.
It makes for interesting chemistry between all these eclectic characters, to say the least. It was sadly cancelled in — but three excellent seasons are now available to watch through the BBC. What if organised crime adopted a franchise model?
The British-born son of a Russian mafia boss, Alex Goodman, has spent his life staying out of the family business, but a murder soon draws him into the world of international organised crime to save those he loves. While the premise may sound a tad predictable, McMafia combines the global reach of a spy flick with the grit of a crime thriller and a sprinkling of corporate drama for a truly unique and epic final product.
The series is led by James Norton in what is rumoured by many to be a James Bond audition — and an effective one at that. And the six-part series from the BBC did not disappoint. The Trial of Christine Keeler explored the scandal that the model and showgirl had become wrapped up in when she was The timely drama was adapted by Amanda Coe who wrote the script as well as being an executive producer for the series.
What if dramatic monologues, so powerful in the theatre, were the focus of their own TV series? The first two series were made up of six episodes, and broadcast a decade apart in and — with their success leading to a radio broadcast, a West End play and two Best Actress BAFTAs for Thora Hird.
Covid restrictions made Talking Heads an ideal choice for a remake in , with ten of the original episodes remade with a brand new cast as well as two brand new monologues written by Bennett. It follows an army veteran as he picks up a career as a private detective in London, with Tom Burke playing the eponymous investigator.
Strike uses the skills that he picked up when working for the Special Investigation Branch to solve cases for the police. Laurie is a great choice as charismatic government minister Peter Laurence, who shows no guilt or remorse as his private life begins to fall apart.
Under increasing criticisms from his enemies and facing a strained relationship a home, Peter still attempts a bid for No. Class politics, pregnancy and the power of reputation collide in this Sydney-set psychological thriller imported from Down Under. The Secrets She Keeps follows forlorn shelf-stacker Agatha who idolises the seemingly perfect life of influencer Meghan, who just so happens to be at the same stage of pregnancy as Agatha.
However babies are not all the two are carrying — and after a chance meeting at the supermarket, the explosive secrets weighing down on both expectant mothers will culminate in an unforgivable act. Worlds away from Lady Edith Crawley, Carmichael plays grippingly against type as the delicate but disturbing supermarket employee determined to have the life she wants — even if belongs to someone else. This heartbreaking drama follows two young students Connell Waldron Paul Mescal and Marianne Sheridan Daisy Edgar Jones who begin an intense affair at school before their own insecurities get the better of them, causing a rift in their unique relationship.
Based on the novel by critically acclaimed author Sally Rooney, the series follows their lives as they grapple with their own emotions while still trying to desperately cling on to one another. Can you really make a list of BBC dramas without this national icon? A British institution at this point, the revival of the long-running sci-fi series seemingly did the impossible by not only successfully reinventing the classic show for the 21st Century, but possibly making the show even more popular than it was before.
Doctor and third showrunner since Doctor Who returned in , and while the show has undergone some changes in terms of episode count, Christmas specials and, of course, cast, the show retains its unique mix of high-concept sci-fi, humour, action and surprisingly human drama. Jodie Whittaker is the current incarnation of the Time Lord — for one more series at least — with Mandip Gill Hollyoaks as plucky police officer companion Yaz.
What would really happen if your syndicate won the lottery? An anthology series, each instalment shows a different group winning big, at first focusing on employees in a Leeds supermarket and eventually syndicates at a Bradford hospital, a Scarborough stately home and a Yorkshire dog kennel. While the premise has the potential to become a rather dark affair, in true Kay Mellor fashion the series consistently remains warm and fuzzy, with family usually remaining at the heart of the drama and any criminal activity usually an excuse for light-hearted jaunts.
However, amidst the flashy and breezy main plot, The Syndicate possibly excels best with the smaller, more personal subplots, which manage to emotionally and realistically explore issues such as zero hour contracts, gambling addiction and truly stretching your money to survive on the breadline.
The anthology nature of The Syndicate means a big new guest star every season, with Timothy Spall, Alison Steadman, Lenny Henry and Neil Morrissey all featuring as struggling syndicate members who hit the big one. From Clark's perspective, the route to a solution is not the issue — having the right tools really does mean you know the answers, just as much as already knowing the answer. A memory study by Daniel Wegner of Harvard University provides a neat example of this effect.
Couples were asked to come into the lab to take a memorisation test. Half the couples were kept together, and half were reassigned to pair up with someone they didn't know. Both groups then studied a list of words in silence, and were then tested individually.
The pairs that were made up of a couple in a relationship could remember more items, both overall and as individuals. What happened, according to Wegner, was that the couples in a relationship had a good understanding of their partners. Because of this they would tacitly divide up the work between them, so that, say, one partner would remember words to do with technology, assuming the other would remember the words to do with sports.
In this way, each partner could concentrate on their strengths, and so individually they outperformed people in couples where no mental division of labour was possible.
Having minds that work this way is one of the great strengths of the human species. That was until the neo-Nazis moved in, buying up plots all over the place and trying to turn the sleepy town into a haven for white nationalists. Welcome to Leith follows what happens when an insular town is torn apart by one hateful man determined to carve out an ideological enclave in a deeply impoverished corner of America.
Although Resident Advisor may be better known for its music reviews, it often produces stunning documentaries that explore emerging issues in music. This documentary, focusing on the music scene in London, examines the pressures of sanitisation, gentrification and rising prices within the creative industries.
This documentary follows the journey her parents underwent after a Channel 4 broadcast accused them of fraud, and what steps they took to try and prove that they were telling the truth. One of the best scenes comes towards the end, when an art collector sizes up what Marie Olmsted paintings are worthy of being bought.
Available to rent on Amazon Video. Citizenfour documents the NSA spying scandal of , concerning Edward Snowden's leak of classified documents around the US's secret surveillance agency, in real time. Citizenfour turned out to be Snowden.
The documentary covers the initial meetings between Poitras, Snowden and The Guardian journalists Glenn Greenwald and Ewan McAskill, as well as the aftermath of the media coverage, and what happened next to all the people involved. Citizenfour is a stark look at one of the most controversial news stories of recent years, as well as the consequences for anyone caught in the net.
Watch it on YouTube and Google Play. Twenty years since Louis Theroux awkwardly appeared on our screens with the sublime Weird Weekends , the documentarian is back with a three-part series exploring the changing ways we raise children, how we love and how we die. In the first episode, Theroux explores polyamorous relationships and the tensions and opportunities they create. Next, he meets people who have chosen to take their own lives either through lethal, but legally prescribed, overdoses, or with the help of a group that provides information on how to commit suicide.
Finally, he explores the world of open adoption and the huge emotional strain it puts on birth mothers, adoptive parents and the children involved. Watch it now on BBC iPlayer. A short documentary made for The Guardian , Roxy Rezvany's feature on a North Korean refugee and his struggle to settle into London makes for compelling viewing. Watch on YouTube or above. In the early s, Bobby Shafan went to college, only to find people greeting him by another name.
He quickly found out he had a twin who he had been separated at birth from, and together they found a third brother. While their unexpected reunion gained publicity, the real story behind why they were separated in the first place started to come to light. Three Identical Strangers is unsettling because of how quickly it becomes something very different from the light-hearted romp that it could have been, and perhaps because of how it ends.
Watch on All 4. At a time when Russia is constantly in the news, intrepid documentarian Simon Reeve takes a trip across the vast country in an attempt to tell the story of its remarkable and varied people.
Starting in the remote Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East, across three episodes Reeve travels through incredible wilderness, meeting Cossacks and Tuvan throat singers and even a man some believe to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.
All the while the film crew are pursued by Russian authorities who attempt to control what they show of parts of the country rarely seen by outsiders. In a beautiful combination of conceptual art and activism, Chinese director Ai Weiwei sets out on the ambitious mission of depicting the plight of the more than 65 million people who have been forced to escape their home around the world because of famine, climate change and war. At times heartbreaking and at others inspiring, it is a 21st century must-watch.
Find it on Amazon Prime. Director Ken Burns documents the collective racial hysteria that infected every corner of society, including journalists, police and lawmakers, and led to the conviction of five young black men — a decision that flew in the face of a large body of evidence pointing in the opposite direction entirely. A searing indictment of racial injustice and a broken justice system, Burns' documentary won a raft of awards upon its release including a Peabody in Manchester City's premier league season was record breaking: the club set a new points total , the most wins 32 , and most goals This controversial documentary — called "disrespectful" by Manchester United's Jose Mourinho — goes inside the club's season.
Players are followed off the pitch, inside the dressing room and there's footage of Pep Guardiola's animated team talks across the season's eight episodes. Watch it on Amazon Prime Video. The effects of this drug are so potent that is has been described as rendering a person incapable of exercising free will. With broadcast TV in decline, most younger viewers want a simple and high quality way to watch their favourite shows.
It turned out that this was down to a bug of sorts in the code used which resulted in the player buffering less video. On slow connections, a good-sized buffer means you mitigate some of the dropouts by having more video stored in reserve.
A configuration tweak allowed the BBC to fix the problem. That means that everyone could now be given access to a p50 feed, without upsetting the people using lower quality versions.
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