True Detective
The most talked-about show of the year - well, at least until Game Of Thrones swaggered back into view - this Louisiana-set murder mystery also proved deeply unsettling, offering up a grim vision of a community in slow-motion decay. If that wasn't enough, True Detective also featured the A-list talents of Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey, as well as arguably the most ambitious single scene in TV history - an uninterrupted long take through a hellish housing project. The series is available to buy over on Blinkbox, while Sky viewers can catch the last trio of episodes via Sky Go.
Sky Go, Blinkbox
Rule Britannia! Music, Mischief And Morals In The 18th Century
Part of an 18th-century season across BBC TV and radio, this three-parter sees Suzy Klein examine the music of the 1700s, a period that, belying the stereotype of pompadours and polite waltzes, turned out to be brash, boozy and occasionally very bawdy indeed. A lively history, available on the iPlayer until 30 Apr.
BBC iPlayer
Black Sails
Planks are walked and timbers are well and truly shivered in Starz and Michael Bay's big-budget action drama, in which Toby Stephens's Captain Flint and Luke Arnold's Long John Silver join an anachronistically well-manicured cast to plunder the high seas. After a slow start, this first series wisely tightened its focus on to the complex, evolving relationships between the gaggle of scurvy dogs and the political minutiae of piratey pillaging, ending strongly enough to earn its second season. Catch the first run on LoveFilm. Avast, ye landlubbers! And so on.
Hunting Season
The latest in a refreshing wave of "post-gay" comedy-dramas, this Manhattan-based webseries follows in the footsteps of HBO's Looking in the way it sweetly bypasses the faux-surprise coming out of its main character. Instead, the show launches straight into life of nonchalant social blogger Alex, grappling not with his sexuality, but with the universal dilemmas of gym etiquette and the laws of public-transport eye contact. The first series is available in full on Vimeo.
In The Flesh
While the zombie genre shuffles relentlessly on, some have been twisting its form into new shapes. Like The Returned, this meditative BBC3 drama has found sadness behind the sunken eyes of the undead, focusing on their reintegration back into a highly reluctant society. Ahead of its second series, catch the first run over the weekend on the iPlayer.
