TV: Storyville: The Internet’s Own Boy
This stirring and, eventually, heartbreaking film is the pick of the most recent run of Storyville documentaries. It tells the story of Aaron Swartz: internet prodigy, online freedom fighter and, ultimately, martyr to a legal system without the means, will or imagination to reckon with the paradigm shifts of the information age. Available until 4 March.
TV: The Casual Vacancy
Its first week ratings triumph (the opening episode trumped Indian Summers by 6.6 million to 2.9) is a testament to the enduring power of JK Rowling. Telling the story of a supposed English idyll riddled with drugs, social tensions and fractured families, it’s a subversive twist on the Keep Calm And Carry On middle England kitsch that has been a feature of the last few years. Whether its cyber-ghost conceit can be sustained remains to be seen but this looks to be worth persevering with.
TV: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Can Tina Fey do charming? The early signs are good. This new comedy sees the 30 Rock creator favouring sweetness over snark to promising effect. Ellie Kemper is thoroughly disarming as the titular fish out of water: an Indiana ingenue freed from an apocalyptic cult and adrift in New York. Fey’s viperish wit and eye for absurd detail is present but here it’s shot through with something much more wide-eyed and open-hearted.
Netflix
TV: Wolf Hall
BBC2’s Hilary Mantel adaptation has filled that post-Christmas, pre-spring hole in the weeknight schedules perfectly. It’s the kind of thing the Beeb still does best: there were no real surprises in Wolf Hall, just very traditional drama done very well.
TV: Eight Reasons Why We Love First Dates
Get ready for the new series of this excruciatingly entertaining show by revisiting some of series one’s best moments. Glaring failures of basic empathy? Hilariously inappropriate conversational gambits? Couples clicking over a shared interest in cleaning products? This short compilation has the lot.
TV: Meet The Ukippers
Less a documentary, more an exercise in giving the grassroots membership of Britain’s most tragicomic political party enough rope to hang themselves, this film claimed the scalp of former councillor Rozanne Duncan and boasted numerous other facepalm-inducing moments. A bit funny and a bit sad.
