Imagine
Over these past 11 weeks of lockdown, I have become intimately familiar with the cracked white walls of my flat, stained by remnants of Blu Tack and decked with hastily pasted posters and photo frames. Like any committed TV watcher, the centre of my living space is my television – the welcome object of my focus away from plates piling up in the sink. Once I had rinsed through The Last Dance, Normal People, Tiger King and the rest, though, I found myself gravitating to an escapism of a different, more aesthetic kind.
Alan Yentob’s Imagine series seems like a daunting undertaking at first glance: hour-long, ponderous documentaries on the biggest personalities in the arts, from Jeff Koons to Marlon Brando and Doris Lessing. It even stretches to the concept of the internet. There are three episodes from its 17-year archive currently on BBC iPlayer – on Lenny Henry, Anish Kapoor and Howard Hodgkin – and they have become unexpected highlights of my current viewing.
Yentob is a reassuringly calm presence, forever hunched and trailing behind his interviewees, asking suitably vague questions about the meaning and allure of works, while glimpses of Kapoor’s luridly bright sculptures, Henry’s booming laugh, and Hodgkin’s swirling colourscapes have provided much-needed reminders of all the vibrant creativity that exists around us. Hopefully, it is something we will be able to enjoy for real again once we emerge back into some semblance of normality. If nothing else, the programmes have at least inspired me to decorate my flat a little better. Ammar Kalia
Devs
Whenever I hear tech bros talk on TV shows, the phrase “hacking the mainframe” starts running ticker-tape-style through my brain, drowning out all the actual dialogue. Which is why Devs (BBC iPlayer/FX) – the Silicon Valley-set thriller from Alex Garland (The Beach, Ex Machina) – wasn’t exactly something I was prepared to clear my schedule for. What I was willing to do was vaguely overhear bits of it as my partner watched in the proper manner – a style of viewing that meant it took an inordinately long time for me to realise that Devs is less about big computers and more about the big questions.
What begins as a whodunnit set amid the shadowy goings-on at Amaya, a technology firm led by a Charles Manson lookalike called Forest (Parks and Rec’s Nick Offerman), swiftly morphs into a) a rough guide to quantum physics, and b) a discussion of determinism so involving it will recolour your entire worldview. Devs does for free will what Inception did for lucid dreaming and The Truman Show did for your life being a morally dubious reality-TV experiment.
It may have taken me a while to get on board, but I won’t forget this stylish, heartrending and compelling show in a hurry. Rachel Aroesti
Classic soaps
With lockdown shutting down soap filming and the nation’s favourite serials reduced to a few showings a week, I have found a solution: watching old soap episodes on BritBox. Thanks to the service’s archive system, I’m reliving a plane destroying Emmerdale, seeing Den hand Angie divorce papers on Christmas Day, and crying: “Free the Weatherfield One!”
If you had asked me six months ago if I would be spending a global pandemic rewatching old episodes of Coronation Street – I’d say yes, that sounds exactly like something I would do, where can I see them?
BritBox has been criticised for essentially being no more than a repeats service, but this is why the soap archive works so well. Unlike every other programme that gets frequently reshown, soaps are one-offs, producing some of the biggest moments on British TV, never be shown again. Richard Hillman driving the Platts into the canal isn’t the sort of thing made to only be watched once.
My only complaint is that the EastEnders archive is worryingly sparse. Where is the Max and Stacey videotape reveal, or Sharongate’? Don’t hold out on me now, BBC. Frances Ryan
Strong
Many people have unlocked unknown physical potential by working out during lockdown. My dabbling in calisthenics, however, has brought mixed results: the price of firmer buttocks has been the tragically debilitating onset of stiff knees. Time, then, to participate in vigorous exercise the best way I know, by watching other people do it in leotards on Netflix. I enjoy Ultimate Beastmaster, in which international gym bunnies represent their countries on a big obstacle course, and I’m pumped to watch The Titan Games, which dropped on Netflix last week, is fronted by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and features ordinary American heroes – ripped nurses, buff teachers, jacked single dads – facing off in Gladiators-style contests.
My favourite vicarious isolation workout, however, is Strong, a febrile hybrid of Ninja Warrior and The Biggest Loser. American women who are unhappy with their size are paired with superfit male personal trainers: elimination looms for the duo who come last in the punishing challenges. Before long, the participants are crying, bitching and hysterically competitive – and that’s just the men! (This is not a joke. There’s a nominations system to encourage backstabbing, and the guys really get into it.)
Strong is tawdry, bewildering and, in its explicit association between body confidence and traversing monkey bars under the tutelage of a man called Todd or Ky, guilty of setting unrealistic wellness goals. But it’s addictive, and is now a key part of my regime. Jack Seale
Glow Up
There were signs, I suppose. An (entirely healthy) obsession with Drag Race. An (entirely unhealthy) obsession with Skin Wars and its bizarre world of competitive body painting. But eight weeks ago I would have been more inclined to believe that driving 30 miles with your child in the back of your car was a government-approved eye test than I would that I’d have binged an entire series of Glow Up: Britain’s Next Make-Up Star (iPlayer) in a few days. And yet, here we are. Lockdown does strange things to a person.
BBC Three’s take on the Bake Off formula swaps cakes for elaborate makeup, and presents a varied cast of young British talent. What they can do with clay and some eyeliner is astonishing, and some of the transformations are jaw dropping – as far out of what you might see on the high street as my choux buns are from Paul Hollywood’s finest croque-en-bouche.
It is lovely to see our oft-demonised “youth” perform at such a high level, and while the judges have some annoying foibles (Dear God, Val Garland, please stop trying to make “Ding, dong” happen) they are enthused by strong performances, and quick to encourage these young people to grow their talent. Stacey Dooley excels as host, one part friendly older sister, one part everybody’s favourite teacher.
Refreshingly, the prize isn’t £10k and a pat on the back. Instead, the winner gets a contract to learn and assist some of the world’s best makeup artists so that they, too, can build a future in the industry. Toby Moses
Friday Night Lights
I’ve never belonged to a sports team. At school, I was always the last to get picked in PE. “She appears to be afraid of the ball,” was one school report’s verdict on my netball performance. So it’s safe to say that a drama about the triumphs, trials and tribulations of a Texas high school football team didn’t immediately appeal.
But I had heard so many good things about Friday Night Lights (Amazon) that I decided to give it a go. And my oh my, it’s the best choice I’ve made all lockdown. It’s a brilliant combination of emotional rollercoaster and profound social commentary on the racism, deprivation and religious conservatism that are endemic in the US south. I have never cared about TV characters like I’ve cared about the folk of Dillon, Texas – and that’s only partly because I’ve been hanging out with them more than with my mates. As a motto to live by, you can’t do better than: “What would Coach T do?” To have a marriage like his and Tami’s has to be the ultimate relationship goal.
I’m so obsessed that I couldn’t help but feel sad thinking how gutted the Panthers team would have been had the season been called off because of coronavirus, and I find the thought of it being over so horrifying that I’m saving the last eight episodes, maybe for ever. When I feel the lockdown blues approaching, I look in the mirror and give myself a little pep talk: “Clear eyes, full hearts, CAN’T LOSE!” Sonia Sodha
Race Across the World
Remember waking up far too early, heading out into the still-dark morning, getting into an Uber or on to a train, and starting your holiday? Remember changing time zones? Remember scrambling across continents by any means necessary, battling floods in China and working on a ranch in Argentina, only the cost of an airfare in your pocket? Oh, you don’t remember that last bit?
If you have watched BBC Two’s Race Across the World (iPlayer), it might sound familiar, however. Following pairs of friends and families from across Britain, all of whom have undergone or are undergoing some kind of life change or challenge, the show does the logical thing and sends them thousands of miles away from their homes and support systems to race against one another.
It is not the type of show I would usually watch, mostly because I’ve never been backpacking, and the last time I ran was in 2001 at a school sports day. However, its cross-continental journeys felt like just the thing for lockdown. And, as well as being thrilling in an extended school geography lesson sort of way, it’s rather heartwarming, too. The star of the second series was Jo, who should just be everyone’s mum from now on, while the first featured two friends I was desperate to go for a beer with (Natalie and Shameema, let me know when you’re free?).
So, get your backpack ready, head out of the door at silly o’clock ... and then come straight back in, plonk yourself on the sofa and have a watch.
Hannah J Davies
