The Sounds
(Neon)
Scenic Queenstown get a sinister makeover in Neon's new eight-part thriller The Sounds. Penned by best-selling author Sarah-Kate Lynch and starring Twilight's Rachelle Lefevre and Matt Whelan from Narcos in the leads the evidence suggests this to be a top-notch watch indeed. The show follows Maggie and Tom Cabbot who move to small-town New Zealand for a fresh start. Their arrival disturbs the sleepy town and its many skeletons. A sudden disappearance complicates things as grieving wives, cheating husbands, embezzlers and criminals all collide as the truth of the Cabbot's is slowly revealed. Streaming from tomorrow.
I'm Thinking of Ending Things
(Netflix)
Academy Award-winning writer/director Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) is one of the most idiosyncratic and startling original film-makers working today. Here he finds an entirely new spin on the old "meet the parents" genre when a young woman and her new boyfriend travel up to the family farm to meet Mum and Dad. After a sudden snowstorm leaves them stranded, cabin fever sets in and she falls into a downward spiral of questioning her life's choices. Described as an "exploration of regret, longing and the fragility of the human spirit", you may want to keep a few tissues handy. Streaming from tomorrow.
A.P. Bio
(TVNZ OnDemand)
The second season of this funny, filthy and weird little show about a disgraced Harvard professor returning to his small town to teach biology at the local high school got an A+ in LOL delivery but still found itself cancelled. But like similar cult faves Community and Futurama, the fan outcry was so loud and sustained that its expulsion from the production schedule didn't last long and it found itself reinstated for this third season. With a wonderfully crabby and cynical performance from Glenn Howerton (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) coupled with a resolutely cheery one from Patton Oswalt as the school principal, this is one show that deserves to go straight to the top of the class. The full third season drops tomorrow.
