Cindy Crawford in Pepsi, Where's My Jet? Photo / Netflix
In My Skin (TVNZ+)
Teenagers in TV and movies are always telling fibs. Usually, it’s to make themselves seem cooler and more exciting than they really are, like Jay in The Inbetweeners constantly bragging about how much sex he has at the caravan club. Bethan, the 16-year-old main character of the Welsh series In My Skin, is another consummate TV fibber, only her fibs are designed to make her life sound more boring and ordinary than it really is.
In class, for example, she pulls a note from her mum out of her bag and shows it to her friend. “I woke up to this,” she says as she rolls her eyes. Classic mum stuff. The truth is, she and the rest of her street were woken in the middle of the night by her mum cleaning the car to Blue Monday, the latest in what is clearly a long series of mental health episodes. She wrote the “annoying mum” note herself in the morning, after returning from having her mum sectioned.
Clearly, no one at school can know about this. When even your best friend makes fun of you for bleeding through your inexplicably white PE uniform shorts, you can’t risk anyone finding out your mum’s bipolar, or that your dad’s a grotty drunk who leaves porn lying around the house. You’d never hear the end of it.
Series creator Kayleigh Llewellyn writes this coming-of-age story from experience, and it’s not all as bleak as it sounds. There’s an understated vein of humour just below the surface, the type that can come only from having lived through an experience yourself - like going to visit your mum in a psychiatric hospital and being continually interrupted by a man in a tuxedo who keeps telling you facts about Charlotte Church.
Fleishman Is In Trouble (Disney+)
Based on a 2019 novel you maybe heard of and thought “sounds interesting” and so you made a mental note to get around to reading it one day but now it’s a TV series already and you’re not sure if you should still read the book because it will probably be better or just watch the TV series while it’s still fresh. Jesse Eisenberg plays the title character, a recently divorced New York doctor doing very well for himself on dating apps until his ex-wife (Claire Danes) drops the kids off and disappears. If you like privileged people with personal issues as a genre, you’ll love this.
Pepsi, Where’s My Jet? (Netflix)
Following in the footsteps of McMillions, the documentary series about the guy who rigged McDonald’s Monopoly in the 1990s, comes the story of the guy who sued Pepsi for not delivering on their promised prize of a Harrier jet. The company put the military aircraft in a 1996 ad as what they thought was an obvious joke – you’d have to buy millions of dollars worth of soft drinks to earn enough “Pepsi Points” to redeem them for the prize – but one college student saw this as a challenge. Like McMillions, it’s a rollicking yarn full of surprising turns (hello, Cindy Crawford) and a heavy dose of 90s nostalgia.
1899 (Netflix)
The elevator pitch for this new German series from the creators of hit Netflix sci-fi thriller Dark has been described as “Titanic meets Black Mirror” - which, okay, we’re listening. It’s set on board the ocean liner Kerberos, which is making its way across the Atlantic at the turn of the 20th century when its captain detects a beacon from sister ship Prometheus, which disappeared months earlier. Look, it’s already creepy enough and we’re just laying out the synopsis – if you’ve seen Dark you might have some idea of how weird and hellish and confusing things are about to get, and if not, there’s nothing that can prepare you.
Movie of the Week: Falling for Christmas (Netflix)
It’s mid-November, and you know what that means. Netflix (and all the other streaming services, but Netflix goes the most hard-out) is starting to haul out this year’s crop of corny Christmas movies. One of the first cabs off the rank for 2022 is the generically-but-also-literally titled Falling For Christmas. It’s mostly notable for being the return to the silver screen of former troubled teen star Lindsay Lohan, playing an heiress who loses her memory after she suffers a fall (for Christmas). It’s everything you could possibly want from a Netflix Christmas movie.
From the Vault: One Tree Hill (2003) (Neon)
The US TV series - named after Irish rock band U2′s song One Tree Hill, which is itself named after the New Zealand landmark - is the forgotten teen drama of the 2000s. But although it may have fallen through the cracks between Dawson’s Creek and The OC in the collective memory, at nine seasons and 187 episodes there’s more of it than there is of either of them, so if that’s the main criteria you look for in a TV series, it’s also the best. If you start now and watch three episodes a day, you’ll finish it around the end of January.
Podcast of the Week: Pig Iron
True crime podcasts may have desensitised us to the gruesome details of other people’s deaths, but war podcasts are a different story. There’s a bit in Pig Iron – no spoilers, you’ll know it when you hear it – where you’ll really start to wonder, “why am I listening to this?” Unfortunately, that bit comes in episode four, and by then you’ll likely be too invested in the series’ strange, knotty mystery to turn back.
The latest release from Tortoise Media (Sweet Bobby, Hoaxed) is an investigation into the life and death of young American freelance war journalist Christopher Allen, who was killed in South Sudan in 2017. Many questions remain unanswered – what was he even doing in South Sudan in the first place, for example, and was his death a tragic accident or a deliberate war crime?
Host Basia Cummings begins her investigation in Ukraine, where Allen lived and reported on conflict for years before deciding there was even more chaos to be found in the world’s newest nation. At first, it’s an examination of the certain type of person who chooses to become a freelance war reporter, and how the line between observing and participating in war can get blurry. Then a mysterious 16-page letter arrives, and the plot thickens.
The Kiwi actor has been part of the Star Wars universe for more than 20 years.