Bodies (Netflix)
Based on the mind-bending graphic novel by Si Spencer, this eight-part crime-drama offers up a police procedural with a twist.
When a body – the same body – is found on Longharvest Lane in London’s East End in 1890, 1941, 2023 and 2053, one detective from each time period must investigate. As connections are drawn across the decades, they soon discover their inquiries are linked, and an enigmatic political leader – Elias Mannix (Stephen Graham) – becomes increasingly central.
“As the first episode came to an explosive end, I immediately started the next. And the next, and the next, and the next,” wrote The Guardian’s Rebecca Nicholson.
The Fall of the House of Usher (Netflix)
From Mike Flanagan, the creator of The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass, comes this eight-part horror series – inspired by the 1839 short-story of the same name and other works of Edgar Allan Poe.
Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood) is the CEO of a corrupt pharmaceutical company, who must face his shady past when each of his children begin to die in mysterious and brutal fashion.
The cast also includes Carla Gugino, Mary McDonnell, Mark Hamill and Henry Thomas.
“A spooky, grisly, sumptuously gothic treat,” wrote The Guardian’s Leila Latif.
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Lessons in Chemistry and Bodies are among the great new shows available to stream this weekend.
Goosebumps (Disney+)
Based on the best-selling book series by R.L. Stine, this “chilling” 10-part show follows a group of five high schoolers, as they embark on a shadowy and twisted journey investigating the tragic passing three decades earlier of a teen named Harold Biddle.
Along the way, they unearth dark secrets from their own parents’ past.
Featuring Justin Long (Barbarian) and Rachael Harris (Lucifer), it draws on elements from five of the most popular Goosebumps books: Say Cheese and Die!, The Haunted Mask, The Cuckoo Clock of Doom, Go Eat Worms! and Night of the Living Dummy.
“There’s adequate heart and humour and [TV-PG] gore here to serve as an amiable intro to horror for the adolescent set,” wrote The Hollywood Reporter’s Angie Han.
Lessons in Chemistry (Apple TV+)
Brie Larson headlines this pitch-perfect, eight-part adaptation of Bonnie Garmus’ 2022 best-selling novel.
Set in the early 1950s, she plays Elizabeth Zott, a woman whose dream of being a scientist is thwarted by a patriarchal society. When she finds herself fired from her lab, she accepts a job as a TV cooking show host, where she sets about teaching a nation of overlooked housewives – and their now engrossed husbands – a lot more than recipes.
Showrunner Lee Eisenberg (Jury Duty, WeCrashed) has done a terrific job of distilling the source novel’s themes and characters, while also creating an evocative sense of space and place.
But while there are plenty of one-liners and other memorable dialogue, it’s the story’s twists and turns that will keep you hooked. Just when you think you’ve got the narrative pegged, it offers up another shock or surprise.
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Everything Everywhere All at Once actor Ke Huy Quan tackles more multiverse conundrums on Loki.
Loki (Disney+)
The second, six-episode season of this Marvel Cinematic Universe series picks up the action with the eponymous Prince of Asgard and “God of Mischief” (Tom Hiddleston) heartbroken and trapped in a Time Variance Authority that has become potentially dangerous after Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) murdered “He Who Remains” (Jonathan Majors), unravelled the multiverse and disappeared.
Joining the cast are Everything Everywhere All at Once Oscar-winner Ke Huy Quan and Game of Thrones’ Kate Dickie.
“Characters with compelling issues, high existential drama, quirky comedy and world-threatening action are blended better than in any other Disney+ show to date,” wrote TheWrap’s Bob Strauss.
Malpractice (TVNZ+)
Five-part, Leeds-shot and set thriller which follows a doctor caught up in a dangerous conspiracy.
Lucinda Edwards (Niamh Algar) comes under investigation after an opioid overdose patient dies under her watch. Despite support from her medical supervisor, the grieving father demands an inquiry into her actions on that fateful night.
”The medical drama is a well-ridden horse, but this feels like it has something new to say, which is almost certainly because the writer, Grace Ofori-Attah, used to be a doctor,” wrote The Times’ Carol Midgley.
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Eva Best and Suranne Jones team up for Maryland.
Maryland (ThreeNow)
Suranne Jones (Gentleman Jack, Vigil) co-created and stars in this tale of two sisters.
A three-part UK drama, it focuses on the estranged Becca (Jones) and Rosaline (House of the Dragon’s Eve Best), as they are brought back together by the death of their mother Mary on the Isle of Man and the shock revelation that she had been leading a double life.
“Maryland confounds your expectations and is all the better, all the more credible and all the more moving for it,” wrote The Guardian’s Lucy Mangan.
Our Flag Means Death (Neon)
After trading the seemingly charmed life of a gentleman for one of a swashbuckling buccaneer, Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) had struggled to earn the respect of his potentially mutinous crew. That is, until they had a fateful run-in with the infamous Captain Blackbeard (Taika Waititi).
But having found love on the high seas, as this second, eight-part season opens, they now face the challenge of surviving it.
Climbing aboard this time around are Madeleine Sami, Erroll Shand, Minnie Driver and Bronson Pinchot.
“If Quentin Tarantino and John Hughes had been forced to collaborate — perhaps at the point of a cutlass – you might have gotten this, but not as funny,” wrote The Wall Street Journal’s John Anderson.
