Retta and Christina Hendricks in Netflix's new series Good Girls.
Retta and Christina Hendricks in Netflix's new series Good Girls.
Good Girls (Netflix): It's taken a while to find its way to New Zealand, but Good Girls looks like a comedy crime caper worth your time. In it, Christina Hendricks, Mae Whitman, and Retta star as suburban Detroit mums struggling to make ends meet. So they plot, scheme and gangup together to carry out an old school get-rich-quick scheme: robbing a bank. While some critics have suggested this would have made a decent movie rather than a TV series, many said these Good Girls go to "unexpected places". One of the most positive reviews came from Entertainment Weekly, which said "watching these frazzled mums use their hard-won problem-solving skills to get out of scrapes is a fun caper while it lasts". It debuts on Netflix on Tuesday.
Nurse Jackie (Neon): Edie Falco doesn't play a lot of roles, but she really knows how to pick the good ones. This was the star's first major show since her award-winning stint as Carmela Soprano on The Sopranos, and she certainly got plenty to chew on. In Nurse Jackie, Falco plays the seen-it-all emergency hospital nurse Jackie Peyton, who's secretly hiding a pretty major drug habit. All seven seasons of the show, streaming now on Neon, examine the fallout from her drug use. While this is a comedy, and it certainly can be funny thanks to the show's brilliant supporting cast, be warned: some of this ain't pretty.
Luke Cage (Netflix): Nooo! Not another Marvel superhero show. But wait, come back! This one could be worth your time. Luke Cage is about a Harlem fugitive with superhuman strength and unbreakable skin, and if you missed season one, you missed a great performance by muscle-bound actor Mike Colter. Season two is even better, according to critics, with Salon calling it "an all-around more evenly paced and executed venture from start to finish". Sounds like it's perfect for a mid-winter binge session on the couch, especially if you're stuck at home with the flu.
Billionaire Boy (Lightbox): At this point, David Walliams really doesn't need the money. The Little Britain star has become a best-selling author thanks to an array of popular children's books, one of which is Billionaire Boy. It's so popular the BBC turned it into a TV series that's debuting on Lightbox. It follows the richest boy in the world, who has everything except friends, and Walliams is back doing his Little Britain-style dress-up schtick as Mrs Trafe the school kitchen lady. Her speciality? Deep-fried Blu-Tack. "A glorious romp," declared the Telegraph.
