The beige sofas and brutally lacquered hairstyles of The Newsreader (ABC/BBC/Roku) bely a colourful, multi-layered drama set in a 1980s Australian TV newsroom. Helen Norville (Anna Torv) and Dale Jennings (Sam Reid) are the two emotionally intertwined news anchors who are just about holding it together on screen, as things take a distinctly messier turn off it.
Somebody Somewhere (HBO/Sky) is a beautiful comedy-drama set in smalltown middle America.
Its star Bridget Everett plays a 40-something woman who has returned to her hometown of Manhattan, Kansas (from the other Manhattan), to care for her dying sister. But the show refuses to follow predictable redemption arcs in favour of something much more honest and affectionate.
Graham Snowdon, editor
The third and final series of Top Boy (Netflix) came to a poignantly nihilistic end as the rivalry between childhood best friends Dushane (Ashley Walters) and Sully (Kane Robinson) spiralled further from the vortex of Hackney's Summerhouse estate. Brilliantly acted, written and conceived to create empathy amid violence.
If Colin from Accounts (BBC) was one of the fruits of the UK's post-Brexit trade deal with Australia, then it was a welcome benefit. Reallife partners Harriet Dyer as Ashley and Patrick Brammall as Gordon write and star as the odd couple brought together by a collision with Colin, the titular dog whose disability cements and complicates a perfect sitcom set-up.
Denne historien er fra December 22, 2023-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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Denne historien er fra December 22, 2023-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Finn family murals
The optimism that runs through Finnish artist Tove Jansson's Moomin stories also appears in her public works, now on show in a Helsinki exhibition
I hoped Finland would be a progressive dream.I've had to think again Mike Watson
Oulu is five hours north from Helsinki by train and a good deal colder and darker each winter than the Finnish capital. From November to March its 220,000 residents are lucky to see daylight for a couple of hours a day and temperatures can reach the minus 30s. However, this is not the reason I sense a darkening of the Finnish dream that brought me here six years ago.
A surplus of billionaires is destabilising our democracies Zoe Williams
The concept of \"elite overproduction\" was developed by social scientist Peter Turchin around the turn of this century to describe something specific: too many rich people for not enough rich-person jobs.
'What will people think? I don't care any more'
At 90, Alan Bennett has written a sex-fuelled novella set in a home for the elderly. He talks about mourning Maggie Smith, turning down a knighthood and what he makes of the new UK prime minister
I see you
What happens when people with acute psychosis meet the voices in their heads? A new clinical trial reveals some surprising results
Rumbled How Ali ran rings around apartheid, 50 years ago
Fifty years ago, in a corner of white South Africa, Muhammad Ali already seemed a miracle-maker.
Trudeau faces 'iceberg revolt'as calls grow for PM to quit
Justin Trudeau, who promised “sunny ways” as he won an election on a wave of public fatigue with an incumbent Conservative government, is now facing his darkest and most uncertain political moment as he attempts to defy the odds to win a rare fourth term.
Lost Maya city revealed through laser mapping
After swapping machetes and binoculars for computer screens and laser mapping, a team of researchers have discovered a lost Maya city containing temple pyramids, enclosed plazas and a reservoir which had been hidden for centuries by the Mexican jungle.
'A civil war' Gangs step up assault on capital
Armed fighters advance into neighbourhoods at the heart of Port-au-Prince as authorities try to restore order
Reality bites in the Himalayan 'kingdom of happiness'
High emigration and youth unemployment levels belie the mountain nation's global reputation for cheeriness
