The Morning Show
Yet another streaming contender enters the fray as passably successful tech company Apple launches a TV arm. As you would expect, it has got some big names onboard for its opening effort, a satire about a popular but troubled TV show. Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Steve Carell and Gugu Mbatha-Raw star.
From Friday, Apple TV+
Seven Worlds, One Planet
David Attenborough returns with another of his spirit-restoring natural history epics. This series tracks life on every continent, focusing on the challenges faced by the flora and fauna found there. We begin in a surprisingly bountiful Antarctica.
Sunday, 6.15pm, BBC One
Indian Film Season
Channel 4’s annual Indian film season returns with another nicely curated selection of treats. Highlights include Trapped, Manmarziyaan and Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi. Most notable is the UK premiere of Shashanka Ghosh’s buddy comedy Veere Di Wedding, which became one of the highest-grossing Indian films to feature a female lead.
From Monday, Channel 4
Bad Batch
A second series from the makers of Dr Death, a podcast about medical malpractice. This new pod explores stem-cell therapy, which is often posited as a miracle cure but harbours its own share of horror stories. Californian company Liveyon goes under the microscope here.
Podcast
Silicon Valley
More disarming but prescient nerd banter as this excellent tech drama begins its final season. Silicon Valley has done a superb job of balancing the critical nature of the issues it explores with the inevitable comedy arising from many of the individuals involved. This last run will be no exception: Pied Piper has become a big player but expect scandals around data-harvesting to hit it hard.
Monday, 10.10pm, Sky Atlantic
For Sama
A heart-wrenching take on the war in Syria from film-maker Waad al-Kateab, whose husband volunteers in a hospital in Aleppo, and her attempts to raise a child amid the city’s carnage. A heroic and unmissable act of documentation, shot through with fear, horror and love.
Saturday, 9pm, Channel 4
The World According to Putin
Vladimir Putin’s Russia often seems to be a peculiar mixture of horror and comedy, and this documentary looking at Russian state TV captures that uneasy tone perfectly. Expect the odd topless hunting expedition but also the occasional glimpse of the iron fist lurking inside the velvet glove.
Wednesday, 10pm, Channel 4
The Great British Bake Off: The Final
This season of the bun bonanza comes to a close. With the top prize at stake and relatives waiting expectantly outside the tent, Paul and Prue are rather cruelly charging the finalists with making souffles. Whose will rise and whose will fall?
Tuesday, 8pm, Channel 4
Leviathan
The biblical trials of Job are transposed to modern Russia in Andrey Zvyagintsev’s powerhouse drama of endemic corruption. Aleksei Serebryakov is the embattled Kolya, struggling vainly to prevent eviction from the family home by unscrupulous authorities. It is both a small-scale story of vodka-soaked despair and a tragedy on a universal scale.
Saturday, 12.10am, BBC Two
Queer Eye: We’re in Japan!
The Fab Five apparently made the decision to take their empathic ebullience to Japan following a lengthy exchange of group texts with Japanese model and actor Kiko Mizuhara. So expect a guest appearance from her and also a visit from comedian Naomi Watanabe. Otherwise, it’s life-coaching business as usual as four Tokyo natives get makeovers.
From Friday, Netflix
