The best new TV to stream next week – from Who Is Erin Carter? to Murder Trial
WHAT are you in the mood to watch this weekend? Whatever it is, we've probably got a suggestion for you.
Yes, yet more great TV is arriving on our screens in the next seven days, and The Sun's TV Mag has all the information you need on what to watch.
NETFLIX
Who Is Erin Carter? - Available from Thursday
Plenty of action thrillers are described as 'nail biting', but TV Mag's nails were seriously chewed while watching the incredibly tense, kickass action and fight scenes which will have you asking: “Who is Erin Carter? In this eight-part drama, Swedish actress Evin Ahmad plays Erin, a British substitute teacher living in Barcelona with her young daughter Harper and new husband Jordi, a Spanish nurse. So far, so normal? Well, yes, until Erin and Harper are caught up in a violent armed robbery at a supermarket and we see Erin deploy some suspiciously adept combat skills.
With a secret past and identity she clearly wants to keep under wraps, things are about to get very messy indeed. Why does one of the robbers claim to know her? Why is Erin's detective friend Emilio willing to bend the rules to help her? There's also a pleasingly soapy Desperate Housewives feel to the subplot involving Erin's catty neighbour Penelope in the upmarket suburb in which they live.
The show's lead actress Evin is a revelation as the ferocious, mysterious Erin, and with a cast including British and Irish actors Douglas Henshall (Shetland), Denise Gough (Too Close) and Susannah Fielding (This Time With Alan Partridge), this is a bingeable treat.
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You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah - Available from Friday
This quirky teen comedy is a true family affair, starring Adam Sandler, his wife Jackie and their two daughters, Sunny and Sadie. The plot centres on Stacey Friedman (Sunny), who is planning her bat mitzvah alongside her bestie, Lydia Rodriguez Katz (played by Samantha Lorraine). The two girls have high ambitions for this rite of passage and are planning to have pop star Olivia Rodrigo as the entertainer, but school drama soon threatens their bond and hilarity ensues. Adam plays Stacey's father, Jackie is Lydia's mother and Sadie plays Stacey's older sister, while Idina Menzel (Frozen) stars as Stacey's mum. Phew.
Untold: Swamp Kings - Available from Friday
Sports documentaries are having a moment, and the series shows just why they're so compelling. is another jaw-dropping tale, this time focused on the University of Florida’s college football team, the Florida Gators. By 2005, their winning streak had dried up, which is when demanding new head coach Urban Meyer took centre stage. His no-holds-barred approach soon yielded results, with the Gators becoming winners of two BCS National Championships – but at what cost? With the players who became young star athletes all baring their souls, this is a fascinating insight into the dark cost of victory.
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Lighthouse - Available from Friday
Here's something completely different – a Japanese talk show about two friends and the intimate chats they have over a period of six months. Lighthouse stars chart-topping singer-songwriter and actor Gen Hoshino and popular comedian Masayasu Wakabayashi, who are both - you guessed it - big in Japan. The series sees the duo meet up together monthly over a six-month period, where they'll be discussing all their troubles, work and family lives in what we're promised will be some uplifting discussions. This may not be everyone's cup of saké, but if you're willing to give it a try, it could take you by surprise.
The Ultimatum: Marry Or Move On - Available from Wednesday
Husband-and-wife presenting couple Nick and Vanessa Lachey return with a second series of the dating show that has Married At First Sight and Love Island vibes, as five couples who are on the verge of either getting hitched or splitting up swap partners with each other. We know, it can call itself a ‘relationship experiment’ as much as it likes – we’re just here for the scandal and intrigue. The first batch of episodes will arrive on Wednesday, so you can binge that lot before episodes nine and 10 drop at the same time next week.
Ragnarok - Available from Thursday
We love a Scandi flavour to our crime drama – so why not a superhero fantasy thriller? It’s the third and final season of the Norwegian tale about a youngster blessed/cursed with being the reincarnation of the Norse god of thunder, Thor, and it’s definitely going to go out with a flash and a bang. Expect a new man for Saxa, Iman coming to the fore and, as Herman Tømmeraas who plays Fjor hints, his character will become: “Brutal, dark, troubled and sinister.”
Apple TV+
Invasion - Available from Wednesday
Usually when aliens arrive on Earth on telly, they tend to attack just the one city – often whichever has the most recognisable landmarks to blow up. Not so in this sweeping sci-fi drama, back for a second series, which follows people all around the globe as they face up to being invaded. It’s been 121 days since a race of rather nasty, insect-like critters occupied Earth, but amid the chaos, destruction and heartache at losing loved ones, small resistance groups are forming, ready to take the fight back to these menacing aliens. Golshifteh Farahani and Shioli Kutsuna head the cast, but what Invasion lacks in A-list names, it more than makes up for in powerful storytelling and amazing special effects.
Wanted: The Escape Of Carlos Ghosn - Available from Friday
This mind-boggling four-parter comes from the makers of Netflix’s Formula 1: Drive To Survive. Credited with rescuing Nissan from bankruptcy in the early Noughties before also becoming chief executive of French rival Renault in 2005, Brazilian businessman Carlos Ghosn’s seemingly amazing career crashed spectacularly when he was ousted from the Japanese carmaker in 2018 amid allegations of financial misconduct. Facing 10 years in prison on charges that he claims were invented to stop the two firms merging, there was only one thing for Carlos to do – hire a former US special-forces agent to hide him in a box and flee Japan during his trial. Now, living as a fugitive in Lebanon, he tells his side of the story.
Amazon Freevee
The Moment: How Sports Changed The World - Available from Friday
With the rugby World Cup kicking off next month, Freevee is sharing this feature-length documentary as an uplifting taster. The Moment follows host nation South Africa during the 1995 event, a time when – with apartheid behind them and Nelson Mandela leading a transitional government – this deeply divided country began to feel much more united. Still, many thought Mandela was taking a huge risk in hosting the event, especially as the Springboks home side were, at the time, seen as a sign of the racism that was so rife, but instead the side’s eventual (spoiler alert!) victory helped build bridges. So much so, the film takes us up to 2019 when the Springboks (spoiler alert!) won the tournament again, with Siya Kolisi the team’s first-ever black captain.
BBC iPlayer
Murder Trial - Available from Tuesday
The astounding documentary series that follows real-life trials returns with a two-parter focusing on one of Scotland’s biggest unsolved murder cases. Last year, at Inverness High Court, 80-year-old William MacDowell stood trial, accused of killing 36-year-old mother-of-two Renee MacRae and her three-year-old son Andrew, who were last seen on 12 November 1976. Their car was discovered in flames in a layby that evening, but there was no trace of Renee and Andrew, and their disappearance remained a mystery until the case was reviewed in 2019 and Renee’s former lover MacDowell was arrested. Here, cameras gain unprecedented access to both the prosecution and defence teams, as the legal system asks: ‘How can murder be proven if no bodies were ever found?’
ITVX Kids
FriendZSpace - Available from Thursday
There’s nothing like the school summer holidays to bring about a dramatic downturn in the weather, but if you’ve got kids stranded indoors thanks to the rain, don’t worry, as ITVX Kids has your back with another fun-filled cartoon. FriendZSpace (no, our shift key isn’t broken, those capital letters are intended) follows three human kids – best pals Alice, Leo and Kim - who’ve taken it upon themselves to ensure that peace reigns across the galaxy. So they’re travelling between planets, making friends with alien youngsters who, although it may not seem that way at first, aren’t so different to our heroes. Packed with adventure and comedy, this colourful series delivers the important message that it’s well worth embracing our differences.
Disney+
Cinderella - Available from Friday
Don’t get too excited – it’s not a brand-new live-action version of the Disney favourite, but if you have a 4K telly, you now enjoy the original 1950 cartoon with lovingly restored visuals. “What does that mean,” you ask? Well, those clever bods at Walt Disney Studios took the original negative of the film from the Library of Congress in the US, removed the dirt and used modern-day tech to make everything sharper, brighter and higher quality. And there’s only one way to find out how good it looks in comparison… So celebrate World Princess Week (you it was World Princess Week, right?) by giving your Fairy Godmother the night off and staying in to watch Cinderella like you’ve never seen it before.
STAR WARS: AHSOKA - Available from Wednesday
Star Wars fans have had an out-of-this-world few years since Disney+ launched in the UK with its collection of all the movies and the new original series, and now another adventure begins in a galaxy far, far away with this eight-part The Mandalorian spin-off set after the fall of the Empire. A former Jedi Knight and apprentice to Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) embarks on a mission to investigate a possible threat to a vulnerable galaxy. Developed by Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni – who also created The Mandalorian – and starring Natasha Liu Bordizzo (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) Lars Mikkelsen, David Tennant andf the late Ray Stevensoin as Dark Jedi Baylan Skoll, along with the rumoured return of Hayden Christensen as Anakin, the series launches with two episodes and then new episodes drop every week. Here, speaking while the show was in production, Dave Filoni tells us what to expect from Ahsoka…
“I had been developing a live-action Ahsoka project before The Mandalorian began, when I was still working on Rebels. The next instalment of the character had always been on my mind, and I wanted to do it in live action. I liked the design of the Togrutas, so we pitched Ahsoka to George Lucas as a Togruta, and he was in favour of it.
Ahsoka is an adult now, but her past gives us a look into her behaviour and why she is the way she is. It has been a long road in evolving her from Anakin’s young Padawan, and she has grown from there into quite a special character in her own right. We wanted kids to follow her character and see the choices she makes. She’s not perfect; she’s flawed. She had a lot to learn. The more stories we tell, the more we start to take up all this space in her life, so I keep trying to find ways to make her story full and exciting. I have been telling her story for almost 20 years, which is hard to believe.
“[This series] is a continuation of Ahsoka’s story, but you don’t need to have seen The Clone Wars to enjoy it. Hopefully, if I’ve done my job well, this story is clear, and you relate to the characters and their relationships. There’ll be things that will surprise the audience about Sabine [played by Natasha] and Ahsoka’s relationship that they don’t know and that you won’t see anywhere in any story prior to this. It’s weird because Ahsoka’s story and her journey and growth has mirrored my own as a filmmaker. As I was less sure and less confident, the stories that she was involved in reflected that and were executed that way. I had a lot to learn, so as I’ve grown, the stories got more complex, and the friends I’m working with also got more formidable in their skills, so the story gets better as we challenge ourselves and go deeper with the character.
“There are things about the Jedi that feel like the Samurai. For a trained warrior, the sword is the last thing they’d resort to, not the first. The sword doesn’t make you powerful - your will, your self-control and your thoughts are what make you powerful. So these are the ideas that I’ve tried to put into the story. How Ahsoka trains people and what her own internal philosophy is. To express this we needed a real martial artist to work with the actors. We do not have months to train, we have weeks and sometimes just days to get it right. The primary weapon for a Jedi is the lightsaber, so there are a lot of lightsaber fights. They have to be good because our fans know the difference, so there was a lot of pressure on everyone to up their skill set. Everybody has to work in concert to make it good. It can be a challenge to get all this to flow with the force, if you will, but I am very proud of their efforts.”
Prime Video
Greatest Days - Available from Friday
Could it be magic? It’s bound to be if you’re a Take That fan who has followed one of the world’s greatest boy bands during their 30-year career. Making its way from the big screen on to the streaming service, this ‘jukebox musical’ – written by Calendar Girls’ Tim Firth – stars Aisling Bea (This Way Up), Jayde Adams (Ruby Speaking), Alice Lowe (Lockwood & Co) and Amaka Onafor (The Responder) as four friends who reflect on their lives as they reunite to see their favourite group in concert, just like they did when they were teenagers. With Gary Barlow, Mark Owen and Howard Donald as executive producers, this’ll relight your fire for Take That.
Paramount+
Joe Pickett - Available from Sunday
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Yes, it may only have five votes, but a 100 per cent rating on reviews website Rotten Tomatoes is not to be sniffed at! Those five people really liked what they saw, and it’s no surprise, as this neo-Western crime drama is in the vein of the likes of Yellowstone, which has really gathered a fanbase. Based on the bestselling books from CJ Box, Michael Dorman plays Wyoming game warden-cum-crime solver and married father-of-two Joe, and as this second series begins, it’s one year on from the events of the last episode of series one, when the Pickett family were brutally attacked – but the threats still loom large, and peril awaits Joe on the mysterious Bermuda Mountain… It’s engrossing stuff.
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