Eric
Streaming now on Netflix
I’m entirely torn about this series. On the one hand, it’s legitimately good: it has an original and intriguing premise, stars Benedict Cumberbatch, is beautifully shot and atmospheric, and has a fantastically watchable mystery.
At its heart, it is all the things that usually keep me interested.
On the other hand, it’s also about a couple whose 10-year-old son goes missing while walking alone to school one morning in 1980s New York.
Cumberbatch plays his dad, a puppeteer, who’s desperate to find out what happened to his son Edgar. Through the course of the series, the story gets steadily more unexpected, as his character goes to extreme lengths to track down his son.
If you’ve already dipped in, you’ll know what I’m talking about: central to the story is a giant blue puppet called Eric. I’d love to riff about all the theories doing the rounds as to what it all means, but I can’t, because I only got through one episode.
I just can’t let my brain drift to a place that allows me to ruminate on what it might feel like for your child to go missing — it’s all just far too harrowing.
It’s a problem I’m having a lot lately with television shows — heck, even the 6pm news — where it’s all just too much to willingly subject myself to.
It’s how I felt about The Tattooist Of Auschwitz, another show I knew was objectively good, but couldn’t bring myself to watch.
There is so much awful stuff playing out in real time right now, I’m surely not the only one feeling this way?
Someone else watch and let me know what happens.
Tires
Streaming now on Netflix
One show I can get behind is the relentlessly puerile Tires, a show created by controversial comedian Shane Gillis and his co-star Steve Gerben, along with John McKeever (who also pops up as a supporting character).
It truly is the Seinfeld of workplace comedies, in that nothing much happens at the tyre shop (yes, I’m using the PROPER spelling here!) in which this is set.
Add some off-colour humour and dial up the cringe and voila — a hit show.
Well, I say “hit” — it’s hovering around 95 per cent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes but only 50 per cent with critics, who can’t get behind its immature humour.
Wish I had that problem.
Star Wars: The Acolyte
Wednesday, streaming on Disney Plus
Buzz has been building about the latest series to land in the Star Wars Universe. It sees Amandla Stenberg playing a young former Padawan named Mae, who comes up against her old Jedi Master while he’s investigating a killer who is stalking and murdering Jedi.
Let The Canary Sing
Wednesday, streaming on Paramount Plus
Girls Just Wanna . . . watch this excellent doco, all about Cyndi Lauper’s incredible career, and her rise from humble beginnings to become a bona fide pop icon. Eighties children: assemble!
The Hospital: In The Deep End
Thursday, 8.40pm, SBS
Costa Georgiadis, Melissa Leong and actor Samuel Johnson are being thrown out of their comfort zones and into the deep end at Sydney’s St Vincent Hospital, where they’ll work for a week to get a better idea of what it’s really like to be a frontline health worker.