Recipes For Love And Murder Maria is a food columnist for a small local newspaper in South Africa when her editor, Hattie, informs her that the paper is demanding an advice column. Maria pivots and becomes Tannie (Aunty) Maria dispensing advice each week, and cheekily managing to include a recipe designed to help cure the problem at hand. When Martine, the writer of Maria’s first letter, turns up dead, Maria does some sleuthing, aided by Jessie, the newspapers young and ambitious journalist who longs to sink her teeth into stories more serious than the fluff pieces she’s relegated to. The mystery of Martine’s death plays out over the full ten episodes, but each week there’s a new problem, a new person in need of advice and a new recipe to be made. It’s a beautiful show with a lovely quiet energy. With its abundant use of colour (lots of pink), quirky music, and deadpan humor, it has some serious Wes Anderson vibes. And Maria Kennedy Doyle is just fabulous as the wonderfully warm, Scottish Tannie Maria who lives in the house she inherited from her aunt, has a chicken as a companion, and maybe has a wee bit of a secret of her own.
Last Tango In Halifax Celia and Alan find each other again after 60 years and, spontaneously, decide to marry. In doing so, of course, they bring their families together — for better or for worse. And with a daughter apiece, their significant others and children it makes for a lot of people having to navigate a whole new world of getting along. And that is what this series is about — life’s daily trivial moments causing everyone to be stroppy with each other one minute and giving hugs the next and with a lively cast of characters who are wonderfully complex and contradictory, the fun never stops. Wonderfully acted and superbly written this is a show about family that never feels anything less than magically authentic
The Essex Serpent One of those rare series which manages to capture the essence of the book it is based on. When Cora’s abusive husband dies she is left to throw off the shackles of Victorian London society (along with her corset), let her hair down (both literally and figuratively) and indulge in her passion, which just so happens to be natural history. When she reads about the Essex serpent, a mythical water creature, she takes her young son and maid to the town of Aldwinter, in search of, not just answers, but a more fulfilling life. Here, amidst the flat marshes of coastal Essex with its pale watery sunshine and steely gray mists straight out of a Constable painting, Cora encounters Will the (unusually enlightened) local pastor, who invites her into his family and the local community. When a young missing girl is found dead on the marshes, a story unfolds in which science is pitted against religion and superstition tangles with truth. I loved all of its quiet and poignant beauty, ethereal gloom and haunting music. For a different take check out this review in the guardian.
Shetland Set against the rugged, isolated beauty of the Shetlands, this show has an open, honest beauty that pulls you in before you realize what’s happened. Part of the draw is due to Douglas Henshall who plays the main character, DI Jimmy Perez. He is warm and kind with a steady demeanor, offering up emotional gravitas without being overwrought. His wife has died and he has a teenage daughter, Cassie, who is not his biologically, but whom he has raised since the age of three. Her biological father is Duncan, who has been mostly absent but who is now back on the island. The unconventional relationship that develops between these two men is one of my favourite parts of the show, despite not being front and center. The mysteries themselves are satisfyingly unpredictable and introduce us to the island people and life lived so remotely. Somehow, the show feels languid and at ease with its own tension despite the plethora of death in such a small place.
Ted Lasso An American football coach is hired to coach an English football team of the soccer variety. He knows nothing about the game. But that’s the point. The team’s owner, Rebecca, has hired him deliberately to fail so she can wreak revenge on her ex-husband. But Rebecca has not counted on Ted’s unique blend of determination and optimism, nor on the shortbread he brings her every week in cute little pink boxes. There’s a spectacular ensemble cast including a footballer who’s taciturn and another who’s talkatively self-absorbed as well as their on again-off again girlfriend, a couple of assistant coaches, a therapist and the clubs money guy. Together they form a warm and fuzzy community which wraps the viewers in big old laughs and hugs. Yes, it occasionally flirts with twee, but it’s just so lovely and real that I defy anyone not to get caught up in its uplifting spirit. And you absolutely don’t need any interest in the game to appreciate it.
Cranford There are few shows which I enjoy watching multiple times, but this is one of them. Brimming with female stalwarts of British film – Eileen Atkinson, Judi Dench, Imelda Staunton, Francesca Annis – it is wonderfully funny in the gentlest of ways. The women, mostly spinsters of limited means, live in a country village in Victorian England. There is no real structure or plot, more a collection of life’s daily happenings which touch on love, relationships, illness and death. And gossip. Lots of gossip. And change. That one’s a doozy. There’s a new doctor in town with radical new medical techniques. And a railway is fast approaching which will surely bring with it the breakdown of law and order. But amidst all of the fearful chattering, lies kindness, compassion and an abundance of delightfully dry wit.
