Best new shows streaming this week – quick links
The Field of Blood – 16 February (Acorn TV & AMC+)
Series. Based on the hit book by Denise Mina and set in the gritty Glasgow of the early 1980s, this slick drama follows Paddy (BAFTA Award-winner Jayd Johnson), a low-level newspaper employee whose world is turned upside down when a murder story involves her family.
The ensemble cast includes David Morrissey (The Walking Dead) and Peter Capaldi (Doctor Who). Season 2 is based on the second novel in the Paddy Meehan series, The Dead Hour, where Paddy tries to make a career for herself against the backdrop of the miners’ strike and the changing face of journalism.
56 Days – 18 February (Prime Video)
Series. This new erotic thriller follows Oliver (Avan Jogia) and Ciara (Dove Cameron). After meeting randomly in a supermarket, they fall for each other fast – and dangerously hard. Fifty-six days later, homicide investigators arrive at Oliver’s apartment to find an unidentified body – brutally murdered and intentionally decomposed.
Did he kill her? Did she kill him? Intercutting between an intense single day in the present investigation and the twisted trajectory of the young lovers’ affair in the past, the series is both a unique crime story and a riveting, sexy, psychological thriller.
A Spy Among Friends – 19 February (SBS On Demand)
Series. Based on the New York Times best-selling book written by Ben Macintyre, this six-episode series dramatises the true story of Nicholas Elliott (Damian Lewis) and Kim Philby (Guy Pearce), two British spies and lifelong friends.
Philby was the most notorious British defector and Soviet double agent in history. This is a story of intimate duplicity; of loyalty, trust and treachery. Philby’s deeply personal betrayal, uncovered at the height of the Cold War, resulted in the gutting of British and American Intelligence.
Shetland Season 10 – 19 February (BritBox)
Series. Detective Ruth Calder, played by Ashley Jensen (Arthur Christmas, The Lobster, Ugly Betty) and Alison McIntosh, played by Alison O’Donnell (Do No Harm, Pet Sematary, Holby City), are faced with discovering the body of retired social worker Eadie Tulloch.
As the murder investigation unfolds, hidden relationships, past wrongs and Eadie’s social work with the troubled Jameson family point to a dark underworld. With betrayals, cover-ups and personal stakes running high, the detectives must navigate deception to uncover the truth.
True Crime Story: It Couldn’t Happen Here – 19 February (AMC+)
Series. The new six-episode season examines the challenges and complexities of small-town justice, spotlighting cases that range from unsolved missing persons and wrongful convictions, to death while in police custody. Led by advocate and actress Hilarie Burton-Morgan (One Tree Hill, The Walking Dead), the series travels to Pennsylvania, Texas, Indiana, Oklahoma and Kentucky, in powerful pursuit of accountability and justice for victims.
By speaking directly with the family members of those involved with the cases, as well as community members, local journalists and legal experts, the series continues its work revealing systemic flaws within the criminal justice system and encourages viewers to lend their voices to those who have been silenced.
The Last Thing He Told Me Season 2 – 20 February (Apple TV)
Series. This mystery thriller series from Apple TV follows Hannah Hall (Jennifer Garner), who forms an unexpected relationship with her stepdaughter Bailey (Angourie Rice) as she searches for her missing husband.
In the second season, Owen (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) suddenly shows up after five years on the run, and Hannah and Bailey find themselves in a race to figure out how to reunite their family before the past catches up to them.
