If you like medical dramas: This Is Going To Hurt (TVNZ+, January 20)
As the title suggests, there’s sure to be plenty of moments to make you squirm during medical drama This Is Going To Hurt – the Bafta award-winning show certainly pulls no punches about everyday life at a hospital. Acclaimed actor Ben Whishaw is Adam, an overworked junior NHS doctor on an under-funded obstetrics and gynecology ward, and the series navigates the many life-and-death decisions that are hurled at him shift after shift without enough sleep or resources. It’s been described as “one of the best medical dramas to hit the small screen in years”.
If you love The Office: Abbott Elementary Season 4 (Disney+, January 22)
With all the doom and gloom in the world, the award-winning Abbott Elementary is the joyous small-screen pick-me-up we all need. The workplace mockumentary about the hijinks of a group of passionate teachers at a Philadelphia public school is “full of astonishingly rapid-fire jokes, immaculate timing and note-perfect acting”, wrote the Guardian in its five-star review. In season four, there’s slow-burn romance, sharp social commentary, plenty of belly-aching gags and even an It’s Always Sunny crossover to enjoy.
If you enjoy twisted true stories: Mister Organ (DocPlay, January 20)
In 2016, David Farrier first introduced us to the clamp-crazy Michael Daniel Albert Organ AKA Mister Organ, the mysterious owner of Ponsonby’s Bashford Antiques. As with Tickled, what started off as a curious story slowly morphs into something dark and sinister.
A six-year saga is condensed into a gripping feature-length documentary, with Farrier caught up in the insidious whirlwind of a master manipulator. At the “risk of his sanity,” wrote one critic, “Farrier has bottled one of the darkest ways a law-abiding human can be made”. If you watch this film and recognise a Mister Organ in your own life, run for the hills.
Pick of the Flicks: Nightbitch (Disney+, January 24)
Director Marielle Heller has joked that Nightbitch “is a horror movie for men and a comedy for women”. The film, a howl-arious adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s novel of the same name, follows Amy Adams as an artist turned stay-at-home mum who, in the midst of raising her 2-year-old son and an identity crisis, begins to experience odd physical changes. A whip-smart cross between David Cronenberg’s The Fly and Jason Reitman’s Tully, Nightbitch is a “darkly comic exploration of motherhood and the societal expectations that come with it”.
The rest
Netflix
WAGs to Riches (January 22)
The Night Agent S2 (January 23)
The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call (January 24)
The Sand Castle (January 24)
Shafted (January 24)
TVNZ+
Piglets (January 20)
M9 S2 (January 20)
This Is Going To Hurt (January 20)
Fast Five (January 20)
Jackass Number Two (January 20)
Fast and Furious 6 (January 21)
17 Again (January 22)
Satisfaction S1-S2 (January 22)
The Bourne Ultimatum (January 23)
Nightflyers (January 24)
Sing (January 24)
ThreeNow
Love & Translation (January 22)
Neon
Chips (January 20)
Wrath of the Titans (January 23)
Back to Black (January 24)
I, Tonya (January 26)
Prime Video
Harlem S3 (January 23)
Disney+
Abbott Elementary S4 (January 22)
Tracker S2 (January 22)
Whiskey on the Rocks (January 22)
High Potential (January 23)
Shared Custody (January 24)
Apple TV+
Prime Target (January 22)
Nightbitch (January 24)
Roadies (January 26)
Hayu
Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta S12B (January 24)
Prosecuting Evil with Kelly Siegler S2 (January 26)
New York Homicide S3 (January 26)
Acorn TV/AMC+/Shudder
Case Sensitive S1-S2 (Acorn TV, AMC+, January 20)
The Primevals (Shudder, AMC+, January 20)
DocPlay
Mister Organ (January 20)
Blur: to the End (January 23)
