Worth Watching: 'Heartstopper', 'Good Omens' and 'Nothing Compares'
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Hello,
Welcome to Worth Watching. Hope you’re having a good Friday.
Even though it feels like Autumn, we’re not actually there yet. We are, however, starting to see the Autumn TV schedules shaping up. Already we know that there’s going to be a celebrity version of Race Across The World. This week it was confirmed that Neighbours is returning Monday to Thursday from the 18th September on Amazon Freevee. Also out in September is the third season of Apple TV’s The Morning Show.
Big Brother is coming back too in October (with what looks to be the ugliest logo of all time); and in November we’ll see the Doctor Who 60th Anniversary (David Tennant! Catherine Tate! Ncuti Gatwa — eventually!) Lots more to be confirmed, of course.
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SHOW OF THE WEEK
Heartstopper (all episodes of season two, now available on Netflix) - Oh SURPRISE SURPRISE that I am recommending Heartstopper. I am nothing but predictable. I’ve written about how I needed this Netflix show — which follows a set of primarily LGBTQ+ friends at a secondary school — when I was younger. It was simply because this show provides such everyday LGBTQ+ representation, in such rounded characters, that watching them on screen would have made me feel more seen and understood. With many of the cast and crew in this show being LGBTQ+ themselves, this show passes the torch onto the next generation, providing the representation they likely all wished they could have had on screen when they were younger.
The second season, which debuted on Thursday, continues to lean into the show’s strengths. More relationships are explored in depth than just Charlie and Nick’s (Joe Locke and Kit Connor) — such as Tao and Elle (William Gao and Yasmin Finney) and two of the school’s teachers. The show verges on the side of twee at times, but on many important issues its heart and intentions are in the right place. Also, enjoy how much taller everyone has grown since the last series — even though some scenes are set literally one day after the end of series one.
In short: Are you happy to be in Paris? Oui!
A SEQUEL BETTER THAN THE ORIGINAL
Good Omens (both seasons available on Amazon Prime Video) - Based on the novel by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, this surreal and offbeat comedy drama has returned for a second season. This is quite frankly a surprise, because the first series got to the end of the novel and didn’t appear to have much more to say.
The fantasy comedy — assuming the reality of a Heaven and a Hell — invites you to follow the friendship between Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) and Crowley (David Tennant.) Their on-screen chemistry is by far the best thing about this show, truly electric. If you loved them together on Staged, you’ll like this too.
A risky thing to suggest, but if you didn’t get into the first season of Good Omens, I would recommend just skipping it and starting out with season two. At times during the first season, the plot became a bit too uneven and bogged down. I think it was because it had to rely closely on the books. With season two, it doesn’t have to. The shackles are off. All you need to know to get into season two is that they both live on earth and that the archangel Gabriel (played by Jon Hamm) has appeared at Aziraphale’s work, with no memory of why he turned up in the first place.
DOCUMENTARY OF THE WEEK
Nothing Compares (now available on Sky Documentaries, Sky Q and NOW) - There has been a mysterious lack of programming and primetime tributes reflecting on the life of Sinéad O'Connor, who died last week at the age of 56. The only place to find a documentary looking at her impact is this engrossing 2022 one-off, released late last week on Sky Documentaries. The film starts in the days following her unforgettable protest on Saturday Night Live, then rewinds to the tell her life story from the beginning. Much like the Netflix Wham! documentary, there are no talking heads commenting on her impact; O’Connor is herself the narrator, which means that you get to hear about the events that shaped her life — first hand.
“There was no therapy when I was growing up” says O’Connor, “so the reason I got into music was for therapy. Which is why it was such a shock for me to become a pop star. It was not what I wanted. I just wanted to scream.”
OFCOM MEDIA TRENDS REPORT
It is geek-mageddon! This week Ofcom released their annual Media Nations report, which looks at the changes in our television and streaming habits over the course of the last year. It is basically geekmageddon, because the whole thing is full of facts and figures.
The main headline is that broadcast television (aka. linear) has seen the steepest annual decline ever, thanks to the rise of streaming services. There are still big TV moments that bring us together, from the finale of Happy Valley to the finale of the Eurovision Song Contest (which had its highest ever viewership for the BBC when it took place in Liverpool earlier this year), but these moments appear to be fewer and further between.
The biggest surprise is that it’s no longer younger viewers who are leaving live television behind, but older viewers too. There has been a fall of 10% year-on-year of those viewing broadcast television over the age of 65, with many of them picking up a subscription to a streaming service like Netflix.
The biggest challenge for public service broadcasters is this: how can they remain relevant if the fall in broadcast television is not directly offset by a rise of viewers to their own catch-up services? Despite hitting all-time highs, catch-up services have still not matched the loss in viewership.
WHERE TO FIND ME THIS WEEK:
On Must Watch we reviewed Heartstopper, Good Omens and BBC One’s Wolf.
I wrote for The Guardian about the decline of broadcast television and why the abandonment of the TV schedules would be a great shame.
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