TV: Into The Badlands
Everyone loves quest dramas. Everyone loves martial arts epics. And everyone loves supernatural fiction. So why wouldn’t someone combine them all in one show? This latest series from US network AMC might sound like the result of an explosion in an algorithm factory – but reviews of the first episode have been encouraging. It stars Daniel Wu (who features in Duncan Jones’s upcoming Warcraft movie) and it’s based loosely on classic Chinese novel Journey To The West, telling the story of a warrior traversing a dangerous land seeking enlightenment. Aren’t they all?
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TV: Storyville: Dreamcatcher - Surviving Chicago’s Streets
The brilliant Storyville strand remains one of the BBC’s true crown jewels. This offering from Kim Longinotto is particularly startling, presenting a brutally intense and intimate insight into the lives of prostitutes on the streets of Chicago. It’s a grim business but redemptive too, thanks to the incredible work of Brenda Myers-Powell, who worked the streets for 25 years herself but now spends her time giving succour to the city’s lost and exploited souls. Remarkable.
Audio: Song Exploder Podcast
Everyone knows that the best ideas are the simplest ones. And so it is with this podcast, which gives songwriters a platform to talk us through the creation of their most notable moments. There are dozens of well-chosen and illuminating episodes with quality the only criteria for inclusion. Accordingly, look out for self-deconstructions from everyone from Ghostface Killah to the Magnetic Fields.
Video: Be Here Nowish
As it develops, the world of online TV is being colonised by bigger players at a daunting rate. But there’s still room for smaller concerns if the ideas are good enough. This webseries, now into a second season, is a perfect example. Starring Natalia Leite and Alexandra Roxo, Be Here Nowish tells the story of two NYC girls ditching their lives of conventional tedium and running off to LA to immerse themselves in yoga, chanting and colonics. Snappy and funny; think Girls with better-aligned chakras.
TV: The Returned
Why this superlative French drama has been banished to More4 on a Friday night is a mystery as head-scratching as the dead coming back to life. Thankfully those unable to drag themselves from the pub can get their slow-burn supernatural fix over on the All4 website, where all of The Returned’s fine second series is lying in wait.
