Watch, listen and be inspired by Calum Henderson's definitive list of what's hot right now and from the vault.
Pick of the Week: Love, Victor (Disney Plus)
Until now, the deeply nerdy concept of "cinematic universes" has been applied really only to comic book franchises, leaving all other genre nerds out in the cold. But it was only ever a matter of time before rom-com nerds got a cinematic universe they can care about too, and here it is – the Love, Simon cinematic universe, aka the Simonverse.
Love, Victor, on Disney Plus's not-just-for-kids section Star, takes place at the same school as 2018 movie Love, Simon, which was an adaptation of the original 2015 Young Adult novel Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda. It's a small cinematic universe, but this is just the start – the book universe has already fractured into three separate series, so there's bound to be more.
The movie – an earnest, warm-hearted and little-bit John Hughes-y teen rom-com – was about a teen coming out of the closet via a grand public display of affection atop a ferris wheel. In the series, set a couple of years later, this has apparently become such well-known national news that Victor already knew about it before his family moved to town, so much so that he feels entitled to slide into Simon's DMs and send him an entire expository monologue the day before starting at his former school.
Within days of starting at Creekwood High, a remarkably complex ecosystem of crushes has formed around Victor. The most popular girl in school fancies him, his jock nemesis on the basketball team fancies her, her best friend fancies him, but Victor's neighbour fancies her. Throw in a chiselled-jaw, tight T-shirt, guitar-playing gay barista and suddenly we have a potential kiss for the ferris wheel – or any of the many other romantic events on the busy pre-Covid school calendar.
The Tender Trap (TVNZ 1, 8:30pm Monday)
If you have a nose for a romance scam, you may be familiar with the story of New Zealand woman Sharon Armstrong, who was arrested in Argentina in 2011 with 5kg of cocaine in her suitcase.
She published a book about it, Organised Deception, in 2018, and now that has been used as the basis for The Tender Trap, a TVNZ 1 Premiere Story (nee Sunday Theatre). Starring Rima Te Wiata as Sharon, the dramatisation gives us some idea how easy it is to get romance scammed, despite how obvious all the signs are in retrospect.
Operation Varsity Blues (Netflix, from Wednesday)
The 2019 college admissions bribery scandal, which ended up with Becky from Full House going to prison, is one of the funniest celebrity scandals of modern times. If you weren't paying attention or can't remember all the details, save it all for Operation Varsity Blues, the new documentary out this week from the team behind the slightly shoddily-made but undeniably entertaining Tiger King and Fyre Festival documentaries.
The web of deceit goes deep and a lot of very wealthy people come out looking very embarrassed – it's going to be one of those docs everybody's talking about for a while.
The One (Netflix)
The 2011 films No Strings Attached and Friends With Benefits both asked the same question: is it possible to sleep with someone on a regular basis without falling in love? In 2021, two TV series have come out with similarly identical premises – Amazon Prime Video's Soulmates and Netflix's The One both ask: what would happen if there was a test you could take that tells you who your soulmate is? Whereas Soulmates took a quite thoughtful approach over its anthology season, the single-narrative The One explores the various permutations with a bit more scandal and drama. You probably don't need to take a test to figure out which, if either, is the one for you.
Movie of the Week: Halston (Neon)
In the 1970s it was all Halston this, Halston that – but if you've never heard of the influential fashion designer today, this documentary might shed some light on why. Directed by Frederic Tcheng, whose previous fashion documentaries include ones about Christian Dior and Diana Vreeland, Halston takes place at the intersection of high fashion and big business, and the perils of trying to combine the two. Come for the chic disco-era fashion, stay for the almost true-crime style portrait of big business failure.
From the Vault: Felicity (1998) (Disney Plus)
Where were you the day Felicity cut her hair? One of the most iconic TV moments of the 1990s, the season two, episode two bombshell would inspire a worldwide spike in pixie cuts in the weeks and months that followed, just as the first season had been responsible for romanticising the concept of going to uni in a different city for an entire generation of high schoolers. An obvious choice to watch next after you finish Dawson's Creek or Sex and the City or any of the other 90s classics everyone's streaming these days.
Podcast of the Week: Duchess
Living in a castle sounds like a dream come true, but think about it from a homeowner's perspective for a moment. Think about all the day-to-day maintenance and upkeep required, what a nightmare it'd be to heat, how much it's going to cost when you need to replace the leaking roof.
These are the kinds of problems the guests on podcast series Duchess know all too well. The host, too – Emma Rutland became the conservator of Belvoir Castle when she married her husband, the 11th Earl of Rutland. This podcast is her opportunity to get out and visit some of Britain's other stately homes, learn some of their fascinating history and chat to the women who like her have married into aristocracy and found themselves in charge of running a castle.
One of the main topics over which the Duchess of Rutland bonds with the other castle owners is ghosts – turns out every castle in the UK has a lot of ghosts, and the ghosts are always hiding the keys. Nice to hear people discover they have things in common, even if you can't personally relate.
