What box sets to binge-watch this Christmas
Settle in with the BBC's box set releases – available to stream now – and the best Netflix picks
Taboo, BBC iPlayer
Tom Hardy starred in this dirty, mystical drama nearly a year ago on the BBC.
It is 1814 and a permanently mud-covered James Delaney (Hardy) has arrived in London, a changed and haunted man, presumed dead in Africa many years before. His return finds his father, Horace Delaney, dead and a country at war with France and the United States.
Set to inherit what is left of his father's shipping empire, James's arrival not only threatens to disrupt the plans of his half-sister Zilpha and her husband Thorne, but also the political ambitions of the mighty East India Company, chaired by Sir Stuart Strange.
If you like your period dramas drunken, angry and violent, this is the show for you.
Line of Duty, BBC iPlayer
Police investigating police: this is the premise of the hugely popular, edge-of-your-seat thrill ride that is Line of Duty.
Mystery, mayhem and an inevitable murder or two; keep yourself awake this Christmas.
Read more ...Fleabag, BBC iPlayer
Walking the fine line between sexual liberation and self-degradation, Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s debut solo show is a blistering interrogation of what it means to be a woman in the 21st century.
Funny, disturbing and brutally honest: you need to watch this show.
Read more ...The Crown, Netflix
The Crown season one was a massive hit for the streaming network Netflix, which spent £100 million chronicling the lives of the Royal Family in the years following the Second World War, and inadvertently set a new (diamond encrusted) gold standard in period dramatisation.
Read more ...Peaky Blinders, BBC iPlayer
We've just enjoyed the fourth series of Birmingham gang drama Peaky Blinders. If you haven't been watching it, well, you should.
Set in 1919 Thomas Shelby (played masterfully by Cillian Murphy) controls the Peaky Blinders, one of the city's most feared criminal organisations. He has high ambitions for himself, and his family, however, and soon finds himself navigating trickier waters in both love and business.
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Godless, Netflix
Few things have ever been so well named as Netflix's latest TV show: Godless.
Here, in 1880s New Mexico, in a dying mining town in the Deep South, hairy criminals rush about. But beyond the men and their guns, and there's a more interesting, feminist storyline brewing...
Read more ...GLOW, Netflix
Behold GLOW – the gorgeous ladies of wrestling – who are body-slamming their way on to Netflix in this brutally original series. This is the funny, refreshing and gloriously pro-women show is perfect for a giggle over Christmas.
Read more ...Blue Planet II, BBC iPlayer
David Attenborough is back on the BBC! Bring out the popcorn, fire up the HD screen and prepare to be amazed by crazy creatures great and small
Read more ...Sherlock, BBC iPlayer
No new Sherlock this year on the BBC (sob sob). But, never mind, series three of Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock world-famous comes out as a box set on BBC. Will Sherlock crack the mystery? You know he will...
Read more ...The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Amazon Prime
You might not yet have Amazon Prime, but trust us when we say this TV show is worth getting the streaming service for.
The new comedy marks a return for Amy Sherman-Palladino, the creator of the heartwarming, small town show Gilmore Girls – and there are plenty of similarities to be spotted by fans. Like it's forerunner, The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel is laugh a minute, female centric, delivered at a hundred miles an hour, and shines brightly with positivity, girl power and wit.
Read more ...Anne with an E, Netflix
Spirited Anne (spelled with an E) is the 13-year-old heroine of Canadian writer Lucy Maud Montgomery's famous 1908 book, which brought long words, big dreams and plenty of hi-jinks into childhood reading. This Netflix adaptation of the story of one orphan breathing life into a sleepy Canadian community made for a charming, heart-warming eight hour series. It was not only sweet, and great for all the family, but daring enough to talk about the gritty realities for a young woman coming of age (we mean periods) without a fuss. Brilliant.
Read more ...Wolf Hall, BBC iPlayer
Could there be a better Thomas Cromwell? Mark Rylance leads the outstanding BBC Wolf Hall adaptation – surely the best TV series 2015 had to offer and now back on iPlayer
Read more ...War and Peace, Netflix
To whittle Leo Tolstoy's sprawling novel War and Peace into TV-size parts is quite some undertaking. The last time the BBC attempted attempted it, audiences were treated to a twenty-episode series. This year, however, the corporation are attempting something a little snappier: the titanic Russian classic will be boiled down to a mere six episodes.
Lily James, heroine du jour, will play Natasha, continuing her run as Beautiful Leading Lady - we've had her as Downton Abbey belle and Cinderella, and next she'll be Juliet in Kenneth Branagh's theatre production. The gorgeous James Norton, most recently seen as a young Duncan Grant in Bloomsbury Set drama Life in Squares, plays Andrei.
Happy Valley, BBC iPlayer
James Norton stars in this seriously grim (be warned!) cop thriller about Sergeant Cawood, whose world stops when the man who drove her daughter to suicide is released from prison
Alias Grace, Netflix
Netflix's Alias Grace offers a horrifying look at the real circumstances of a woman called Grace Marks. In the 1840s Marks was an Irish immigrant who arrived in Canada with no money and a recently deceased mother to boot.
It was a hard year for Alias Grace to come out, as it was always going to be compared to the other Margaret Atwood adaptation of the year, Handmaid's Tale, but – in many ways – Alais Grace offered a scarier look at the treatment of women.
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