If you love a fantasy drama: Time Bandits (Apple TV+, July 24)
Tadhg Murphy, Roger Jean Nsengiyumva, Lisa Kudrow, Kal-El Tuck, Kiera Thompson and Rune Temte in Time Bandits season 1, streaming on Apple TV+. Photo / Matt Grace
The highly anticipated TV remake of the 1981 fantasy film is here, and it arrives with some big names: Taika Waititi! Jemaine Clement! Lisa Kudrow! Rachel House! Filmed in New Zealand, Time Bandits follows an 11-year-old boy named Kevin who discovers his wardrobe is actually a portal through time. He joins a ragtag group of thieves and criminals as they zip through time and space, stealing treasures from different historical periods. The 10-episode series is written and directed by Waititi and features lots of recognisable New Zealand locations, including Wellington pretending to be 1920s New York.
If you love a dark comedy: The Decameron (Netflix, July 25)
Set in ye olde 1348 and based on a 14th-century book written by a bloke called Giovanni Boccaccio, Netflix’s new series will bring the laughs, despite nearly everyone dying from the plague. The dark comedy features an all-star cast including Tony Hale (Veep), Zosia Mamet (Girls) and Saoirse-Monica Jackson (Derry Girls), who play a motley set of aristocrats and servants who visit an Italian country house to wait out the plague with plenty of wine and sex. It’s like Love Island in the 14th century, because as we all know when new bombshells enter the villa, everything starts to go wrong. Looks absolutely bonkers, in a very good way.
If you love a behind-the-scenes documentary: Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam (Netflix, July 24)
Netflix is proving itself as the place to go for engrossing documentary series, and Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam is its latest winner. The series looks at the troubled history of Ron Perlman, the influential music manager who launched the careers of some of the biggest boy bands of the 90s, including NSYNC and Backstreet Boys. He was also a major scam artist, conning a lot of people out of a lot of money and exploiting the talent he was supposedly looking after. Expect plenty of shocking secrets, as well as lots of iconic 90s tunes.
If you love a British thriller: Keeping Faith (TVNZ+, July 23)
If you’ve finished The Jetty (new to Neon) and are looking for your next British drama fix, try Keeping Faith, a Welsh thriller that came out in 2018 but still holds strong today. Faith (Eve Myles) is a small-town lawyer on maternity leave when her husband leaves for work one morning, and never comes home. He vanishes into thin air, setting Faith and her trusty yellow raincoat on a perplexing search that reveals many secrets about the man she thought she knew. Wales has never looked better, and all three seasons are available on TVNZ+.
