Succession
Jesse Armstrong’s deliciously dark corporate drama returns for a second run, armed to the teeth with withering putdowns and propulsive plotting as the sociopathic Roy brood continue their mendacious manoeuvrings in the shadow of their Murdoch-esque bad dad. Game of Thrones in Gucci loafers, it’s one of TV’s funniest shows to boot.
Monday 12 August, 9pm, Sky Atlantic
Room 20
Investigative reporter Joanne Faryon quits her job to uncover the story of “Sixty-Six Garage”, an unconscious patient left unidentified in a hospital bed for 15 years. Faryon’s clear-eyed approach is intertwined with her own experiences in what proves a deeply personal podcast.
Podcast
Atlanta: Robbin’ Season
One of the strongest seasons of TV in recent memory, this second outing of Donald Glover’s game-changing comedy concludes with a triple bill that features a devastating flashback episode and a sweat-inducingly tense finale.
Saturday 10 August, 10.30pm, BBC Two
Deep Water
Adapted from Paula Day’s bestselling Windermere novels, this new ITV effort has the potential to be the Lake District’s answer to Big Little Lies. It follows the three well-to-do women harbouring dark secrets despite their seemingly perfect lives. Elegantly shot and just the right side of soapy, it stars Anna Friel, Rosalind Eleazar and Sinead Keenan.
Wednesday 14 August, 9pm, ITV
Mindhunter
Thanks to Netflix’s continued rejection of season-a-year conventions, this second outing for David Fincher’s smokily moody chronicling of the invention of criminal profiling arrives almost two years after the first. This season, Holden and Tench – aided by psychology professor Carr, hunt the perpetrator of the real-life Atlanta child murders. Fascinating, disturbing and nigh-on essential.
From Friday 16 August, Netflix
Diagnosis
The NYT’s toe-dip into the world of TV continues with this sensitively handled docu-series. It sees columnist Dr Lisa Sanders profile patients with obscure illnesses, from a child who becomes briefly paralysed hundreds of times a day to a man who flatlines every time he has deja vu.
From Friday 16 August, Netflix
Kathy Burke’s All Woman
It is hard to imagine a better host for a series on modern womanhood than Burke – bracing, blunt and full of hard-earned wisdom. She begins by looking at attitudes towards female beauty, speaking to people as varied as Megan from Love Island and some Anglican nuns.
Tuesday 13 August, 10pm, Channel 4
NOS4A2
Zachary Quinto swaps Spock for schlock in this loopy horror thriller. He plays a villainous vampire-like creature who imprisons the souls of his victims in a hellscape where every day is Christmas. Ashleigh Cummings is the supernatural superhero trying to stop him, in what is surely the week’s most peculiar drama.
Tuesday 13 August, 9pm, AMC from BT
Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation
With a 50th-anniversary bash cancelled before it even began, this weighty doc from PBS will be the closest many get to the iconic US festival. It turns the cameras away from the performers and instead focuses on the teeming mass that drifted towards a New York dairy farm in 1969 for the event that defined the counterculture.
Friday 16 August, 10pm, BBC Four
Clouds of Sils Maria
In Oliver Assayas’s multilayered drama, Juliette Binoche stars as a renowned actor (ie herself) returning to the play that made her name – but now she is playing the older woman in an intense lesbian affair. Life and art merge provocatively when she settles in an Alpine retreat with her young American PA (Kristen Stewart) to prepare for the role.
Saturday 10 August, 11.55pm, BBC Two
