With summer holidays beginning, the TVBEurope editorial and sales team, as well as contributors, share some of their favourite TV series and films to watch.
Sit back, relax and enjoy some summertime streaming! Share your suggestions with us.
WARNING. Some clips are NSFW.
Graham Lovelace, TVBEurope contributor: The Handmaid’s Tale
If you like your dystopia to be dark and danger-filled look no further than this six-season epic available to stream on Amazon Prime. Based on Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel, it brilliantly portrays the daily sufferings of those living in a patriarchal totalitarian theocracy, and presents a warning for societies today. Highly recommend!
Raffaella Calabrese, TVBEurope account director: Ezra
I have recently watched Ezra, which I recommend as it is a beautiful road movie, full of parental love that goes beyond everything, and features an amazing young actor.
John Casey, senior business director at Future AV Tech Group: Ice Road Truckers
If you want to cool off this summer, here’s a show that will take the temperature down. And, there’s a strong woman in a lead role!
Matthew Corrigan: senior content writer, TVBEurope: The Gentlemen
The Gentlemen carries on a fine British tradition of finding humour in the dark reaches of the underworld, this time with an added twist of nobility. Hitting the mark once again, Guy Ritchie opens the door on a universe he first introduced in his 2019 film of the same name. All is not what it seems at the stately Halstead Manor, ancestral home of the Horniman family, as the recently (and unexpectedly) ennobled duke (Theo James) discovers when he is shown beneath the estate’s stretched-thin veneer of respectability. James is joined by a brilliant cast including Kaya Scodelario as the upwardly-mobile acting head of an organised crime family, along with Joely Richardson, Ray Winstone and Vinne Jones as the good-natured groundskeeper bearing an incredible secret of his own. Everyone and everything looks great as the duke really does try to extricate his family from the ever-tightening grip of criminality. Stately homes are terribly expensive things to run though, and the enterprise is making an awful lot of money…
Joe Palombo, publisher, TVBEurope: The Chosen
The Chosen tells the story of Jesus in a unique way. The characters are compelling, and the story brings all of us back to the bible. Jews, Christians, and Islam as all these stories intersect each religion.
Jenny Priestley, content director, TVBEurope: Abbott Elementary
Abbott Elementary is the latest addition to the mockumentary-style US network comedy. Created by and starring Quinta Brunson, it follows a group of teachers as they to educate their charges while dealing with a Principal who’s more interested in growing her social media followers, and a janitor who’s just this side of slightly crazy. By far the standout is Sheryl Lee Ralph as kindergarten teacher Barbara Howard. Barbara’s tendency to mix up white and Black celebrities is one of the show’s best jokes.
@globaltv We could listen to Barbara’s pop culture takes all day #AbbottElementary #QuintaBrunson #SherylLeeRalph #TylerJamesWilliams #ChrisPerfetti #Celebrity #PopCulture #TVShow #Comedy #TVClips
David Davies, TVBEurope contributor: The Gold
The second series of Neil Forsyth’s compelling dramatisation of the events surrounding the 1983 Brink’s Mat robbery – one of the largest in British history – focuses on what may have happened to the other half of the £26m haul (equivalent to about £88m today). There’s more supposition here than in series one, but as ever with Forsyth, the dialogue crackles with dark humour, it’s beautifully shot, and there are superb performances from a 24 Carat cast including Hugh Bonneville, Charlotte Spencer and Jack Lowden.
Neil Maycock, TVBEurope contributor: Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
If you want to see something different, then I recommend this surreal science fiction series based on books by Douglas Adams. Great casting helps this adaptation capture the unique humour of Adams, and over two series, the story unfolds with an incredible range of strange, mind-bending concepts. It’s impossible to communicate fully what the programme is about, but if you like science fiction and fantasy with humour and an alternative perspective, then you are sure to find this bingeable.
Kevin Emmott, TVBEurope contributor: I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson (ITYSL)
I once watched an episode of this American sketch comedy with my Mum and she did not crack a smile once. I suspect people either love or hate this, but it is so stupid and daft and joyous I can’t work out why anyone wouldn’t love it. Doubling down on social faux-pas, misreading the room, and using dialogue that is wrong in all the right ways, I love the way ITYSL is written; it stretches grammar to breaking point and purposely wrongfoots you with phrases that are just not quite right. It’s absolutely absurd, it can be touching and sweet, and unless you are my Mum, it’s very funny. It is one of the few shows that I can rewatch and still fall about laughing like a goose.
Hayley Brailey-Woolfson, global account director, TVBEurope: Seinfeld
I’ve started to re-watch a couple of episodes of Seinfeld at the end of the day. Not only is it a great source of LOLs before bed, but it also makes me look forward to jumper season.
Helen Dugdale, TVBEurope contributor: Modern Family
The six-week school holiday can be amazing, but also feel like an eternity, especially if the weather stinks. But that’s when you reach for the remote, fire up the big screen, and pull out a classic boxset from your back pocket.
For me, it’s Modern Family. Eleven delightful seasons, and 250 wonderfully ridiculous episodes to lose yourself in. There’s nothing quite like getting swept up in the lives of the Dunphys, the Tuckers, and the Delgado-Pritchett’s to make you realise your own family isn’t as unhinged as you once thought. Comedy gold with or without the sun.
