Best 5 new shows: quick view
Best 5 new shows to stream this week
1) Love You to Death (A muerte) – 5 Feb (Apple TV+)
Spanish-language series. OK, this one has ‘crying in front of the TV’ written all over it – be warned all ye who enter here!
It tells the story of the cautious Raúl (Joan Amargós), who reconnects with free-spirited and newly pregnant Marta (Verónica Echegui) following his heart cancer diagnosis.
They resume a friendship that began in childhood, and in a relationship brought together by fate, begin to test their beliefs about love.
Can the commitment-phobic Marta fall in love? And can Raúl meet the love of his life? And can someone tell us where the tissues are?
2) Apple Cider Vinegar – 6 Feb (Netflix)
Series. Set at the birth of Instagram, Apple Cider Vinegar follows two young women who set out to cure their life-threatening illnesses through health and wellness, influencing their global online communities along the way.
This new limited series shot in Melbourne sees Kaitlyn Dever star as the infamous Australian wellness influencer Belle Gibson. As per Netflix’s website Tudum:
‘Inspired by a true story that was based on a lie, Apple Cider Vinegar stars Kaitlyn Dever as Belle Gibson, an Australian wellness influencer who claims to have cured her terminal brain cancer through health and wellness. Sounds unlikely?
‘That’s because it is. As it turns out, Belle has never actually been diagnosed with – or cured of – the malignant brain tumor that she shares with the world through social media, the mobile app she develops, and its companion cookbook.’
Starring Kaitlyn Dever, Alycia Debnam-Carey and Aisha Dee.
3) Clean Slate – 6 Feb (Prime Video)
Series. This looks good! A new comedy series from legendary producer Norman Lear.
The show follows Harry Slate (George Wallace), an old-school and outspoken Alabama car wash owner, who has a lot of soul searching to do when the estranged child he thought was a son returns home from New York to Mobile as a proud trans woman, Desiree (Laverne Cox).
4) Sisi – Season 4 – 6 Feb (SBS On Demand)
Series. The final season (alas!) of the drama based on the 19th-century life of Empress Sisi (Elisabeth) of Austria. After the death of her father, Sisi (Dominique Devenport) challenges Bavaria’s best jockey to a spectacular horse race at Munich’s Oktoberfest in order to save the family home, Possenhofen Castle. Seasons 1–3 are available now on SBS On Demand.
5) NCIS: Sydney – Season 2 – 7 Feb (Paramount+)
Series. Having only just found their feet, the second season sees NCIS: Sydney square off against a much more powerful adversary. The investigation into Rankin reveals a looming destructive chaos that threatens the stability of the region. The cases are bigger, locations more exotic, the stakes much higher. In other words: exciting (if that’s your thing!)
With everything on the line, will NCIS: Sydney triumph against all odds – or be torn apart at their very core?
From ScreenHub’s review of NCIS: Sydney Season 1
‘Of course, the real star here is Sydney. This is a lot more location focused than other NCIS series (even NCIS: Hawaii), with the harbour getting a lot of love from both the camera and the bad guys who can’t stop hanging around there.Slightly more surprisingly, this feels more at home in Australia than you might expect.
‘Partly that’s a deliberate storytelling choice. That initial inter-agency pissing contest is designed to tilt the audience’s sympathies in the Australians’ favour, though by the end they’re all one big happy naval crime investigating family.’
