TV This Week: James May in Japan, Chris Packham, Our Friends in the North
And The Masked Singer screams January but um.... watch it.
Hello,
Welcome to the first Worth Watching email of 2020. Here’s a few shows that I’ve enjoyed recently that I reckon are worth your time.
Chris Packham: 7.7 Billion People And Counting (BBC Two, Tuesday, 9pm) - This is part of the BBC’s Horizons strand, a series of documentaries that have completely terrified me since childhood. This doc is still worth your time, though. Chris Packham looks at how the world’s ever increasing population, which has exploded from 1 billion in the 1800s to a projected 10 billion by 2050, will impact the world’s environment and create demands on infrastructure like nothing before. Rather interestingly, the core issue is not large families in developing nations, but rather the consumption demands from more developed nations. If everyone else in the world consumed like the UK did, we would need two more earths. If everyone consumed like America? Four earths.
James May: Our Man in Japan (Amazon, right now) - As the Tokyo Olympics take place later this year, expect there to be many documentaries featuring household names trying to uncover the “real” Japan, travelogues that will then accidentally fall into breezily pointing out crude stereotypes. This documentary series is quite the revelation because it doesn’t fall into that easy trap. A lot of this is down to its host James May, who cares a lot in trying to show us a more authentic Japan, even going out of the way to talk in Japanese when he can instead of relying on guides. The series is refreshing too as it also manages to go into a lot more detail than a lot of other travelogues would ever bother, creating something more rich and immersive. Trust me, I am surprised at how good this show is as much as you.
Shows coming soon… Race Across The World (BBC Two) - I’ve just received an invite for series two. The first series, featuring teams of two racing between London and Singapore, was one of my favourite reality shows of last year. Also AppleTV+ has just announced its first British show. It is called Trying and will be out May 1st.
ALSO… Our Friends in the North has just been added to BritBox. The timeless British drama has been hard to find on streaming until now and is absolutely worth your time.
And um… watch The Masked Singer (ITV, Saturdays) - I can’t believe that I am recommending this show, as you know, as watching it feels like hell. Yet, there is something weirdly compelling about this show where you guess who could be singing in a giant octopus. By the way, I reckon it is John Barrowman in that unicorn and I will fight anyone who disagrees. I wrote about it for The Guardian.
Oh and on BBC 5 Live’s Must Watch this week we interviewed Teddy Sheringham. I asked him about what it was like to sing from inside a tree.
===
As always, if there’s a show that has taken your fancy and you think other people should know about it, simply respond to this email and I might feature it in a future newsletter.
I’m off to watch Little America on Apple TV+, which I have heard good things about. Have a good week.
All my love,
Scotty x