2022 has already delivered some incredible shows and this week sees that trend continue with the launch of two brilliant new dramas The Responder and Trigger Point as well as more great telly.
Here are 5 TV shows you can't miss this week...
1. The Caribbean with Andi and Miquita
Sunday 23rd January at 9pm on BBC Two
In this new two-part series, Andi Oliver and daughter Miquita go on the journey of a lifetime to the Caribbean. It’s a chance to see the changing West Indies from the perspective of two generations, with stops in Antigua, Barbuda and Barbados.
In the first episode, Andi and Miquita reconnect with their family in Antigua and explore their heritage at this significant time for black British identity. As well as fulfilling the longstanding ambition of going together to visit their relatives, they meet fellow black Brits who have given up life in London and made the move back to Antigua. Miquita, a fitness fanatic, talks her mum into some underwater exploring in what turns out to be a life-changing experience.
Miquita pursues her spiritual interests by immersing herself in Rasta culture on the island, bonding with a member of the community who has a surprising past. They also explore Antigua’s sister island of Barbuda to find out why, in contrast to the rest of the Caribbean, and not without controversy, it remains wild, sparsely populated and virtually untouched by development and tourism.
The episode also explores the legacy of colonialism and its longstanding impact on Caribbean people through the unique perspective of two generations. Miquita and Andi’s close, fun-filled relationship gives a fresh and uplifting perspective on these beautiful islands.
1/2 Continues weekly
2. Trigger Point
Sunday 23rd January at 9pm on ITV
One of ITV's most highly-anticipated dramas of 2022, Trigger Point, launches this week and stars Vicky McClure and Adrian Lester as experienced bomb disposal operatives Lana Washington and Joel Nutkins, who are both ex-military and extremely close having served together in Afghanistan.
Written by Daniel Brierley, the six-part high-octane thriller, focuses on the officers who risk their lives daily on ‘the long walk’ towards danger. For them, death is always just a heartbeat away.
When a terrorist campaign threatens the capital in the middle of a summer heatwave, the Expos - as they're known - are called out to a Metropolitan Police counterterrorism operation at a London housing estate to investigate a potential bomb factory and a suspected bomb maker, Andy Phelan.
But with no sign of the bomb maker, his wife and young daughter have been restrained and his wife, forced to call in the bomb threat, now fearful for her husband’s safety. The assailants broke in using Phelan’s keys, which are now missing, leading to a race against time to locate Phelan and his vehicle.
Washington and Nutkins successfully defuse an improvised explosive device, but its complexity suggests they’re dealing with sophisticated terrorists. Until the suspect is located and detained, EXPO remain on high alert.
As the police evacuate residents from the estate, EXPO find evidence of an even deadlier terrorist threat and must work against the clock to save as many lives as possible.
Also stars Mark Stanley, Warren Brown, Kerry Godliman, Kris Hitchen, Ewan Mitchell, Manjinder Virk, Cal MacAninch, Ralph Ineson, Nadine Marshall and Pippa Haywood.
1/6 Continue weekly
3. The Responder
Monday 23rd and Tuesday 24th January at 9pm on BBC One
Written by ex-police officer Tony Schumacher, The Responder stars Martin Freeman as Chris Carson, a crisis-stricken, morally compromised, unconventional urgent response officer tackling a series of night shifts on the beat in Liverpool.
Whilst trying to keep his head above water both personally and professionally, Chris is forced to take on a new rookie partner Rachel, played by Adelayo Adedayo. They both soon discover that survival in this high pressure, relentless, night-time world will depend on them either helping or destroying each other.
In the first episode, we meet Chris who is struggling. Every night he drives a police response car in the city of Liverpool, dealing with everything from warring neighbours to druggies, and he’s also suffering from a breakdown brought on by stress at work, and wants to leaves his marriage.
His wife, Kate, played by MyAnna Buring, offers to pay for more counselling, but Chris rejects her help preferring to sort his own problems out, even though he is reaching breaking point. And when an old school friend, Carl Sweeney, played by Ian Hart, asks him to help find a young heroin addict called Casey, played by newcomer Emily Fairn, Chris uses his local knowledge to locate her in a hideout in an alleyway.
But when Casey tells him that she has stolen a bag of cocaine and may be in danger, Chris offers to help, seeing a path to redemption in the young woman - if he can save her, perhaps he can save himself.
1-2/5 Continues weekly. All episodes available at launch
4. Jay Blades: Learning to Read at 51
Wednesday 26th January at 9pm on BBC One
In this one-off documentary, The Repair Shop favourite Jay Blades has decided it’s finally time to learn to read. He has been told he has the reading age of an 11-year-old and throughout his life has found ways of avoiding the written word and the film digs deep into how this has shaped him.
Jay left school with no qualifications and nothing to his name other than a reputation as a great fighter. Can he now, in mid-life, tackle what he failed to learn the first time around?
Over six months of learning, this intimate and revealing film goes behind closed doors to see how Jay organises his upholstery business without the written word, manages on The Repair Shop without scripts and struggles each day with his vowels and consonants as he tries to learn phonics.
We meet Jay’s girlfriend Lisa, his daughter Zola and his ‘adopted’ family who all help him with his reading challenge. Jay also meets school pupils and adults who struggle with reading and writing, as he discovers the human stories behind the nation’s literacy statistics.
Research shows that Jay is not alone in facing this issue, with findings suggesting that a quarter of all children in England leave primary school, like Blades, unable to read to the expected level. More than eight million adults in the UK have poor literacy skills and half of all prisoners either can’t read or struggle to do so.
1/1
5. The Afterparty
Friday 28th January on Apple TV+
Tiffany Haddish stars in Apple TV+'s latest series The Afterparty, a genre-defying series centred on a murder mystery at a high school reunion.
Each episode explores a different character’s account of the fateful evening in question, all through the lens of popular film genres and unique visuals to match the storyteller’s perspective.
Also stars Sam Richardson, Zoë Chao, Ben Schwartz, Ike Barinholtz, Ilana Glazer, Dave Franco, Jamie Demetriou and John Early.
1-3/8 Continues weekly
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