Watch, listen and be inspired by Calum Henderson's definitive list of what's hot right now and from the vault.
Yellowjackets (Neon, from Tuesday)
In the cult classic 1995 coming-of-age drama Now & Then, four childhood friends come together to remember a pivotal summer they all shared 25 years earlier. New series Yellowjackets is in some ways a modern version of that film – albeit with a lot more cannibalism than the original.
The women in this one aren't exactly friends now either, but there are four of them, and it has been a quarter of a century since the defining event of their childhoods. That's when the private plane they were travelling on to a soccer tournament crashed in the Canadian wilderness, leaving the survivors to starve and scavenge in full Lord of the Flies mode for 19 months before they were found.
"That's the end of the story," Melanie Lynskey's character Shauna stonewalls a visiting reporter who probably wants to make a podcast about it. She's spent the past 25 years trying to put the past behind her and keep what happened during those 19 months a secret, as have the rest of the survivors. But with one of them (Tawny Cypress' Tiassa) now running for state senator, that doesn't seem too likely to remain the case.
Back in 1996 (yes, unfortunately, 1996 is now 25 years ago) these two are members of the Yellowjackets, a state championship-winning high school soccer team whose combined talents on the pitch make up for a not entirely harmonious squad dynamic off it. But accidentally-on-purpose breaking the leg of an unpopular team-mate is nothing compared to what's to come.
That's mostly kept to mysterious flashbacks in the first episode, which tease some unsettling cult-like and supernatural goings-on deep in the snow-covered woods. And with the memories of that time still stuck in the minds of at least two other women (Christina Ricci and Juliette Lewis), it's probably not all left in the past, either.
Belgravia (TVNZ OnDemand, from Monday)
Julian Fellowes, the English Lord responsible for bringing us Downton Abbey, is back with another lavish period drama – this one based on his own novel from 2016. Named after the posh London suburb in which it's set, Belgravia is a tale of two families – the Trenchards and the Brockenhursts – who both settle there in the mid-19th century, and whose family histories, unbeknown to most of them, actually extend back a bit further, to the events of the Duchess of Richmond's ball 26 years earlier. If it's a proper regal drama you're after, look no further.
Wolfe (SoHo, 9:30pm Wednesday)
If you've ever wondered what would happen if the creator of Shameless made a procedural forensic crime series, wonder no more. Paul Abbott's Wolfe is a dark comedy-drama about enigmatic forensic science expert Wolfe Kinteh (Babou Ceesay), who puts his brilliant mind to helping solve a different gruesome crime each episode. One of Britain's finest, he's one of those classic half-total genius, half-walking liability characters you often find in crime shows – albeit one with a bit more texture and complexity than many of his peers in this genre.
Tiger King 2 (Netflix, from Wednesday)
You didn't really think they would be able to leave it alone after the success of the first series, did you? The saga of rogue big cat gamekeeper Joe Exotic (now in prison), his arch-nemesis Carole Baskin (now closing in on taking ownership of his cursed wildlife park) and everybody else in their strange orbit continues on Netflix this week. Giving the people what they want(ed 15 months ago), series two goes back to the well on the mysterious disappearance of Baskin's ex-husband and documents the newfound fame and fortune of the minor characters from the first season.
Movie of the Week: Love Hard (Netflix)
It's early November and you know what that means: the first of this year's Christmas romcoms are now available on Netflix. Love Hard (watch out for Love Hard 2: Love Harder and Love hard With A Vengeance in years to come) sets the bar relatively high considering, with its easy-to-watch modern tale of an LA-based dating columnist (Nina Dobrev) who travels to New York to meet the dream man she's been talking to on an app, only to learn she's been Christmas catfished. Silicon Valley's Jimmy O Yang stars as the catfish.
From the Vault: Cowboy Bebop (1998) (Netflix)
The long-awaited live-action version of Cowboy Bebop, filmed in New Zealand and featuring a number of familiar faces, arrives on Netflix later this week. If you're wondering what exactly it's all about, a watch of the original anime series from 1998 should offer some idea what to expect. Set in the year 2071, it follows a crew of bounty hunters aboard the spaceship Bebop as they search the galaxy for criminals. Drawing inspiration from the sci-fi and film noir canons in particular, it's long been considered one of the all-time classic anime series.
Podcast of the Week: Hooked
Whatever you think of when you imagine a bank robber, it's probably not Tony Hathaway. One of the United States' most prolific bank robbers, the former Boeing aircraft design engineer pulled off 29 successful heists within a 48km radius of his Seattle home before finally being caught while executing number 30 in 2014.
Hooked isn't a podcast series about his bank-robbing exploits though – not entirely anyway. The main story that emerges over the opening few episodes is of how a well-off father of two working his dream job ended up robbing banks in the first place. What this really is, is a podcast about the US opioid crisis.
Over several years worth of interviews, journalist Josh Dean (Chameleon: Hollywood Con Queen) pieces together Hathaway's backstory, of how he was prescribed OxyContin by his doctor for pain relief, then became addicted to it before moving on to heroin because it was effectively the same thing but cheaper. Minus the bank-robbing part it's an all-too-common story, and Hooked does a brilliant job of laying out how easily it can happen, and in the process reminding us how precarious life really is.
