Orange Is the New Black
Seven seasons on from the groundbreaking debut of Jenji Kohan’s women’s prison drama, the gates of Litchfield Penitentiary are being shut. OITNB might not be quite the bracing proposition it was in its early years, but it remains admirably diverse and deeply watchable. Kohan has said the show will “end on a high” as Piper adapts to life on the outside.
From Friday 26 July, Netflix
Spectacular Failures
As those familiar with the name Gerald Ratner know, there are few things more absorbing than a big business disaster. This effort from American Public Media explores a few in absorbing detail: from Kodak’s doomed move into digital film to the fatal watering down of Schlitz beer.
Podcast
Keeping Faith
An unlikely streaming hit when it launched in 2017, the Welsh thriller returns for a second run. Again its central mystery looms large, with Eve Myles’s crusading lawyer trying to deduce the truth behind her husband’s strange disappearance, all while taking on a new murder case.
Tuesday 23 July, 9pm, BBC One
The Boys
After turning Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s Preacher graphic novels into pulpy televised fun, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg look to repeat the trick with another of Ennis’s outre efforts. The Boys follows a clandestine CIA group tasked with reining in a corrupt group of superheroes through any force necessary. Gleefully gratuitous, slyly funny.
From Friday 26 July, Amazon Prime Video
The Great Hack
Anyone who has followed Observer reporter Carole Cadwalladr’s work on Cambridge Analytica will be aware of the magnitude of the scandal stirred by the data-mining firm: 87m Facebook accounts harvested without authorisation and used to create voter insight for the Brexit and Trump campaigns. This documentary, which features testimony from Cadwalladr as well as other experts, recalls the story in deep detail.
From Wednesday 24 July, Netflix
Muzlamic
The awkward, white male experience at the centre of many British sketch shows is turned on its head by BBC Three’s latest. A show to make you snort-laugh on the sofa, it sees writer-performers Ali Shahalom and Aatif Nawaz create characters that deftly explore the British Muslim experience.
From Monday 22 July, BBC Three
The Tez O’Clock Show
Blackburn-born British-Asian comic Tez Ilyas has already shown an ability to tackle heavy, state-of-the-nation subject matter in a cheeky, energised style, so this topical comedy gig should be a good fit for him. Guz Khan and Sindhu Vee are among the comics joining him for subversive sketches and in-studio mischief.
Thursday 25 July, 11pm, Channel 4
I Am Nicola
Vicky McClure swaps the interview rooms of Line of Duty for kitchen-sink drama, starring in the first part of this improvised, female-fronted anthology series. She plays a hairdresser stuck in a dour, toxic relationship. Nuanced and tender, it is followed in subsequent weeks by films starring Gemma Chan and Samantha Morton.
Tuesday 23 July, 10pm, Channel 4
A Kind of Loving
John Schlesinger’s debut is a fine northern drama adapted from Stan Barstow’s bestseller. Alan Bates is draughtsman Vic Brown, whose dreams of the bright lights are scuppered when his girlfriend Ingrid (June Ritchie) becomes pregnant. Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall supply the earthy dialogue in a complex new wave tale of 1960s love, sex and misogyny.
Saturday 20 July, 11.35pm, Talking Pictures TV
Inside the Bruderhof
In a quiet corner of Sussex lives a Christian community eschewing technology and even cash in favour of a back-to-basics idea of society. This BBC documentary is granted uncommonly extensive access to the group and follows three of its members, one of whom is beginning to doubt whether the self-sufficient existence is really for her.
Thursday 25 July, 10.35pm, BBC One
