This week's best telly includes a number of highly anticipated shows including the return of Starstruck to BBC Three, Ben Whishaw in This Is Going To Hurt, another new drama starring Sheridan Smith and more.
Here are 7 TV shows you can't miss this week...
1. Chloe
Sunday 6th and Monday 7th February at 9pm on BBC One
BBC One's latest drama Chloe is a psychological thriller about a woman's obsession with her estranged friend.
Becky, still living with her mum and working as a temp, compares herself to the picture-perfect lives on Instagram, compulsively returning to one account: Chloe’s. Becky obsessively watches her seemingly flawless life through social media. But when Chloe dies suddenly, Becky’s need to find out how and why leads her to assume a new identity and engineer a ‘chance’ meeting with Chloe’s best friend, Livia, and infiltrate Chloe's group of close-knit friends.
Through her alter-ego Sasha, Becky becomes a powerful, transgressive heroine; a popular, well-connected ‘someone’ with a life, and loves, that are far more exciting and addictive than the ‘no-one’ she is as Becky. However, the pretence soon obscures and conflates reality, and Becky risks losing herself completely in the game she is playing.
1-2/6 Continues weekly. All episodes available at launch
2. The Curse
Sunday 6th February at 10pm on Channel 4
When I first heard that the teams behind two of my favourite comedies of the last decade, People Just Do Nothing and Murder In Successville, had teamed up for a brand new comedy on Channel 4 about a heist in the 80s, I was immediately sold. And it does not disappoint!
Written by Tom Davis and director James De Frond along with Steve Stamp, Allan 'Seapa' Mustafa and Hugo Chegwin, The Curse is set in the East End of London in the early 1980s and follows a gang of hopeless small-time crooks who through their own stupidity and poor judgement find themselves embroiled in one of the biggest gold heists in history.
Albert Fantoni and his wife Natasha run a greasy spoon cafe and are down on their luck, looking for their own way out and their lives change when one evening Albert and his old mates Phil Pocket, a wannabe gangster, and washed up ex-boxer Mick Neville meet up with Natasha’s brother Sidney at their local pub.
Sidney explains that he has a new job at a warehouse which handles cash shipments in transit. Security is almost non-existent and he could easily let the boys in and they could help themselves to as much as £50,000.
But what they find there is something quite different – boxes and boxes of gold bullion worth over £30 million. They take it and make their escape. But what they don’t know is that this gold will curse them for the rest of their lives.
Read my interview with Emer Kenny who plays Natasha, here.
1/6 Continues weekly. All episodes available at launch
3. No Return
Monday 7th February at 9pm on ITV
With Four Lives on BBC One at the start of the year, The Teacher on Channel 5 week and Starstruck on ITV next week, Sheridan Smith is all over our TV in 2022 and this week she stars in new ITV drama No Return by Danny Brocklehurst, which follows an unassuming family who are caught up in a living nightmare whilst on holiday in Turkey.
For Kathy, Martin and their two teenagers, Noah and Jess, the annual holiday is something that the Powell family look forward to all year round. They’re joined by Kathy’s more affluent sister, Megan, her workaholic husband, Steve, and their son, Fred.
It’s an opportunity for them all to switch off, relax and spend quality time together as a family, and an all-inclusive holiday in Turkey is just what the doctor ordered. But when Martin watches Noah head off to a beach party, little does he know it’s the last moment they’ll share before all their lives are turned completely upside down and they're left desperately fighting for their son’s freedom against extremely challenging circumstances.
The next time Kathy and Martin see their son, he’s being dragged away in handcuffs accused of sexually assaulting a boy, which he denies doing. 16-year-old Noah is supposed to be sitting exams and spending the summer having fun before college, but instead, he faces years in a Turkish prison, thousands of miles from home.
An arrest, an expensive and alien legal system, looming media coverage and resistance from fellow holidaymakers to come to their aid leaves the distraught parents fighting for Noah’s freedom.
1/6 Continues weekly
4. Starstruck
Monday 7th February at 10pm on BBC Three
Starstruck, BBC Three's biggest new comedy of 2021 with almost 5 million streams, is back for a second series this week as Rose Matafeo returns as Jessie, a millennial living in East London juggling two dead-end jobs and navigating the complications of becoming romantically involved with famous film star Tom.
As series two begins, Jessie and Tom spend the day in London, but her decision to stay sends her spiralling as she deals with the real-world consequences of her grand gesture. With no job, no home and now no bags, has she made a huge mistake?
Read my interview with Emma Sidi, who plays best friend Kate, here.
1/6 Continues weekly. All episodes available at launch
5. This Is Going To Hurt
Tuesday 8th February at 9pm on BBC One
Based on Adam Kay’s memoir of the same name, which has sold over 2.5 million copies to date, This Is Going To Hurt stars Ben Whishaw as Adam, a doctor who we find wending his way through the ranks of hospital hierarchy.
Junior enough to suffer the crippling hours, but senior enough to face a constant barrage of terrifying responsibilities, Adam is clinging to his personal life as he is increasingly overwhelmed by stresses at work. The 97-hour weeks, the life and death decisions, and all the while knowing the hospital parking meter is earning more than him.
Whishaw is joined by newcomer Ambika Mod as Shruti, a young junior doctor just starting in obstetrics and gynaecology. Naturally bright, diligent and caring, she has everything it takes to be a great doctor, but the job still finds ways to throw her into chaos and doubt.
1/7 Continues weekly. All episodes available at launch
6. Cheaters
Tuesday 8th February at 9.50pm, 10.35pm and 10.50pm on BBC One
Cheaters is a new BBC One comedy-drama made up of eighteen 10-minute episodes, starring Joshua McGuire, Susan Wokoma, Callie Cooke and Jack Fox, about morality, monogamy and everything in between.
It tells the story of a chance meeting between two strangers in their late twenties, Fola and Josh, whose cancelled flight leads to an unlikely night of drunken airport-hotel sex. The next morning as they rush to make the rescheduled flight, both admit they are with other people. Fola is married to Zack and Josh is in a long-term relationship with Esther.
After arguing at the airport and ignoring each other on the plane, they finally agree their night of passion was a mistake and go their separate ways.
But as Josh gets off at the bus stop next to his flat, he’s horrified to see Fola pulling up in a taxi across the road and heading into the house she has just bought. Josh and Fola are going to be neighbours. And to make life more complicated, Esther and Zack are keen to be friends.
1-3/18 Continues weekly. All episodes available at launch
7. Inventing Anna
Friday 11th January on Netflix
Netflix's latest original drama, Inventing Anna, inspired by the New York Magazine article How Anna Delvey Tricked New York’s Party People by Jessica Pressler, tells the story of convicted con artist Anna Sorokin, played by Julia Garner, who convinced New York's elite she was a German heiress called Anna Delvey.
In the series, a journalist with a lot to prove. investigates the case of Anna Delvey, the Instagram-legendary German heiress who stole the hearts of New York’s social scene as well as their money.
But is Anna New York’s biggest con woman or is she simply the new portrait of the American dream? Anna and the reporter form a dark, funny love-hate bond as Anna awaits trial and our reporter fights the clock to answer the biggest question in NYC, who is Anna Delvey?
1-9/9 All episodes available at launch