Pick of the week
Ozark
It is the first episode of this tense rural money-laundering thriller’s final season, and the opening scene epitomises the series: calm, almost banal domesticity giving way to explosive action. It is often said that extricating yourself safely from organised criminal activity is far harder than getting involved in the first place – and so it proves, when Marty and Wendy Byrde (Jason Bateman and Laura Linney) have a gently terrifying conversation with Felix Solis’s cartel boss Navarro. Elsewhere, Ruth Langmore (Julia Garner) is making a move – and might a vacuum be developing for her family to fill? The knowledge that the end is near only adds to the excitement.
Netflix, from Friday 21 January
As We See It
A cheerfully robust series on living with autism from Friday Night Lights creator Jason Katims. Three housemates, all on the spectrum, look to find their places in the world but face obstacles beyond the usual travails of twentysomething life. This requires a light and careful comedic touch, but it’s worth bearing in mind that Katims has a son with Asperger’s. Don’t expect much sentimentality – when Rick Glassman’s Jack is told by his helper: “I think you are such a beautiful person,” his response (“That makes me want to throw up”) suggests someone neither wanting nor expecting special treatment.
Amazon Prime Video, from Friday 21 January
Zen School of Motoring
A lovely curio developed, as such things increasingly are, from a YouTube show. Enigmatic comic and rapper Ogmios drives through the streets of north London, calmly, sardonically but always kindly remarking upon what he sees and recording it on a dash cam. If you didn’t think that driving in the Smoke could be meditative, you’re in for a surprise – Ogmios is unfailingly polite and even philosophical: giving way to other motorists, slowing down for pigeons in the road, and worrying about cyclists. A cult gem in the making.
BBC Three, from Sunday 16 January
Stacey Dooley: Stalkers
Remarkably – and horrifyingly – according to this new two-part documentary, one in five women will be stalked in their lifetime. Stacey Dooley embeds herself with a specialist police unit in Cheshire and a victim support organisation in Hampshire as she explores the reality of something that clearly isn’t limited to people in the public eye. Along the way, she discovers how easily stalking can escalate into harassment and, eventually, serious violence, and spends time with both victims and perpetrators as she seeks to understand stalking’s roots.
BBC Three, from Wednesday 19 January
Trauma
Hot on the heels of BBC One’s The Tourist and Channel 4’s Close to Me, another drama about amnesia. In this French thriller, it has afflicted policeman Adam Belmont (Guillaume Labbé) who, in the middle of an investigation into a child killer, takes a bullet to the head. Not ideal in terms of the case but, additionally, Belmont has forgotten his own son and the colleague with whom he was having an affair. Worse still, there’s a terrified woman tied up in his basement and he has no idea how she got there. Melodramatic and occasionally baffling stuff.
All 4, from Friday 21 January
Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman
An extraordinary, bewildering true-crime documentary series about con artist Robert Hendy-Freegard, a former car salesman from Derbyshire who masqueraded as an undercover MI5 agent and insinuated himself into the lives of numerous women. They were then defrauded, manipulated and, at times, physically threatened into abandoning their previous lives. It does a good job of communicating the horrendous damage Hendy-Freegard has left in his wake as the families of some of his victims bravely step forward to tell their stories.
Netflix, from Tuesday 18 January
Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock
Apple TV+ has been the subject of an ongoing stealth Fraggle takeover for a while now. In 2020, the platform screened a series of shorts called Fraggle Rock: Rock On! and it has subsequently acquired old seasons of the Jim Henson puppet extravaganza. But now, the frizzy-haired, boggle-eyed scamps are back in earnest, sticking largely to the joyfully chaotic, all-singing, all-dancing vibe of the original show. But will 20s kids find the show as entrancing as their 80s counterparts once did? Nostalgic parents will be keen to find out with this 13-episode run.
Apple TV+, from Friday 21 January