Television
ZeroZeroZero
Roberto Saviano’s 2013 non-fiction book on the international cocaine trade gets the dramatic treatment in this eight-part series, following a shipment of drugs from the Mexican cartel to the Italian mafia, via a brokering family in New Orleans. As soldiers begin to close in on the cartel, a power struggle is initiated with wide-reaching consequences.
Thursday 4 February, 9pm, Sky Atlantic
Interior Design Masters with Alan Carr
The comedian replaces Fearne Cotton as host of the second series of this interior design show featuring up-and-coming designers transforming bland commercial spaces. The winner will receive a “once in a lifetime” contract.
Tuesday 2 February, 8pm, BBC Two
Rob & Romesh vs …
The art world beckons for comedians Rob Beckett and Romesh Ranganathan in the opening episode of this third season of their hobbyists show. The pair learn about different artistic disciplines before creating artworks for their own show, which will later be exhibited to friends and family at the Saatchi gallery in London.
Thursday 4 February, 10pm, Sky One
Parks and Recreation
Treat yo’ self to all seven seasons of this mockumentary sitcom classic as it moves to Netflix. Mid-level bureaucrat and eternal optimist Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) wants to make a difference in her small town of Pawnee, Indiana, but there’s endless red tape to deal with first.
Monday 1 February, Netflix
The Drowning
Jill Halfpenny stars as a mother dealing with the disappearance of her son in this new thriller. After he has been missing for nine years, she convinces herself that teenager Daniel is her lost child. But is he? Jonas Armstrong and Rupert Penry-Jones co-star.
Monday 1 to Thursday 4 February, 9pm, Channel 5
Firefly Lane
Katherine Heigl and Sarah Chalke are lifelong best friends Tully and Kate in this new soft-focus drama series. Based on Kristin Hannah’s bestselling novel, it charts the ups and downs of their relationship via careers, motherhood, men, break-ups and make-ups. Ben Lawson and Beau Garrett co-star.
Wednesday 3 February, Netflix
Mel Giedroyc: Unforgivable
The celeb gameshows continue apace, and this new offering sees comedian Mel Giedroyc and trusty sidekick Lou Sanders listen to their guests’ shameful stories to try to work out who has been the most unforgivable. Up first are Graham Norton, Desiree Burch and Alex Brooker.
Tuesday 2 February, 10pm, Dave
Rhod Gilbert: Stand Up to Infertility
The Welsh comic fronts this doc exploring male infertility, a topic close to home. He meets other people affected, including the poet Benjamin Zephaniah, while becoming the face of a new campaign to banish the taboo around the issue.
Sunday January 31, 9.45pm, BBC Two
Celebs Go Dating: The Mansion
Love Island’s Curtis Pritchard, Geordie Shore’s Chloe Ferry and Gary Lineker’s brother Wayne are part of the lineup for this spin-off of the enduring dating show. Seven celebrities will be living together in a mansion and trying – really desperately – to find love.
Monday 1 February, 9pm, E4
Stacey Dooley: Back on the Psych Ward
Following last year’s hard-hitting doc, Dooley returns to Springfield Hospital as patients and staff battle through the challenges of the pandemic. She meets Sharief and Jordan, both dealing with psychosis exacerbated by lockdown, and Ali, who is trying to manage the rituals that govern her life.
Sunday 31 January, 9pm, BBC Two
Podcasts
Evil Genius With Russell Kane
The comedian reprises his deeply entertaining podcast series reassessing the heroes and villains of history. Part revisionist history lesson, part improv standup routine, previous episodes have included guests such as comics Olga Koch, Ivo Graham and Shappi Khorsandi discussing the relative merits of everyone from Alexander Hamilton to Karl Marx.
Weekly, widely available
The Things That Made Me Queer
Former RuPaul’s Drag Race UK contestant Crystal hosts this confessional series, inviting guests to share experiences that shaped their LGBTQ+ identities. Fellow Drag Racer Detox discusses the Orlando drag community, while performer Peaches Christ remembers director John Waters’s legendary parties.
Weekly, widely available
Reverberate
Guardian special series editor Chris Michael hosts this new series, exploring global stories of how musical moments, icons and anthems have shaped critical junctures in history. The first episode recounts how a Hong Kong pop star became the unlikely face of a growing movement for social change in the region – one that continues to unfurl today.
Weekly, the Guardian
Lunchwatch
Comic Johnny White Really-Really brings the mundanity of the midday meal into sharp focus for this weekly competition, in which listeners send in their food choices for him to judge. It sounds twee, but, interspersed with White’s existential ruminations and eerie peacefulness, ham sandwiches have never been more chilling.
Weekly, widely available
Object of Sound
Poet and cultural critic Hanif Abdurraqib hosts this new pod exploring ideas around music, including male vulnerability and the mysterious alchemy of the perfect cover song. Episode one features an interview with genre-blender Moses Sumney, while other featured artists include Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and violinist Sudan Archives.
Weekly, widely available
Film
The Dig (12A)
(Simon Stone) 112 mins Netflix
Surreptitiously impressive drama about the 1939 discovery of a major Anglo-Saxon burial at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk. Carey Mulligan is affecting as widow Edith Pretty, who hires archaeologist Basil Brown (Ralph Fiennes) to investigate an earthwork. As its treasures are revealed, questions about how we remember and are remembered also rise to the surface.
Netflix
Beginning (No cert)
(Déa Kulumbegashvili) 130 mins
The influence of exec producer Carlos Reygadas is all over this austere and disturbing Georgian drama. Ia Sukhitashvili plays a Jehovah’s Witness in a small town who faces religious persecution and violence, with her internalised trauma played out in unsettling, static tableaux.
Mubi
Assassins (12)
(Ryan White) 105 mins
The scarcely believable story behind the 2017 murder of North Korean despot Kim Jong-un’s brother, Kim Jong-nam, is revealed in this gripping documentary. Spycraft and political machinations overlap as two ordinary young women – one from Vietnam, the other Indonesian – go on trial for the crime.
On digital
Synchronic (15)
(Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead) 102 mins
A weirder, more satisfying film is lurking unseen in this downbeat sci-fi drama. Anthony Mackie plays a morose New Orleans paramedic who starts seeing victims of a drug, Synchronic, that appears to transport users back in time, possibly permanently.
On digital
Twist (12)
(Martin Owen) 88 mins
Dickens’s orphan gets a reboot in a slight crime caper, though the film’s free-running element makes fine use of its London locations. Raff Law (son of, and spit of, Jude) plays Oliver, a street artist drawn into the orbit of Michael Caine’s Fagin.
Sky Cinema
The Garden
Last year, artist and film-maker Derek Jarman’s cottage and its famous shingle garden in Dungeness were saved for the nation after a campaign, and they play a major role in his 1990 film. Shot partly on Super 8, it’s a very personal drama/essay by Jarman, who had been diagnosed with HIV, and mixes sexual politics and religious imagery in supple, vibrant fashion.
Wednesday 3 February, 1.45am, Film4