Buckle up for a wild ride on Showmax in March

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THE big one we’ve all been waiting for is season four of Succession, which lands on March 27. HBO, bless their hearts, will be doling out weekly episodes, which in this day and age can drive a person crazy. At least it gives me time to watch recaps of the previous season on YouTube, because HBO never provides a “previously on”.

In the new season of the series which has won 13 Emmys including Outstanding Drama Series in 2020 and 2022, the sale of Waystar Royco to tech visionary Lukas Matsson (Emmy winner Alexander Skarsgård from Big Little Lies) is looming ever closer. It’s a prospect that provokes existential angst and familial division among the Roys as they anticipate their diminished cultural and political influence once the deal is completed.

Matthew Macfadyen and Jeremy Strong return to their Emmy-winning roles as Tom Wambsgans and Kendall Roy respectively this season, alongside Brian Cox as Logan Roy, Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin as Roy siblings Shiv and Roman, Nicholas Braun as Greg Hirsch, and J Smith-Cameron as Gerri Kellman – all Emmy-nominated performances. New faces this season include Screen Actors Guild nominees Annabeth Gish (Midnight Mass) and Adam Godley (The Great), Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson (Vikings: Valhalla) and Berlin EFP Shooting Star winner Eili Harboe (Thelma).

Currently cued up for later this evening after load shedding is The English, a six-episode limited series which is good enough to re-watch. The Telegraph’s Best Series of 2022, The English stars BAFTA nominee Emily Blunt (A Quiet Place) as Cornelia Locke, an Englishwoman hell-bent on revenge. Her journey north intertwines with that of Eli Whipp (American Indian Film Festival Award winner Chaske Spencer from The Twilight Saga), a retired Pawnee cavalry scout out to claim the land he is owed for his service in the US army.

The miniseries has an 82% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with Empire calling it, “A massively ambitious and original take on the Western genre, confirming the extraordinary writing and directing skills of TV auteur Hugo Blick while showcasing one of Emily Blunt’s greatest performances yet.” Blunt was nominated for a 2023 Screen Actors Guild Award for the role.

Also look out for Oscar nominees Stephen Rea (Counterpart) and Ciarán Hinds (Belfast, Mance Rayder in Game of Thrones), Emmy nominee Rafe Spall (Life of Pi, The War of the Worlds), and SAFTA-nominated South African actor and comedian Cokey Falkow (The City and the City, Inside Man), who appears in episode one.

It ripped my heart out and had me in tears at the end. Please watch it and share my pain.

If you need something more lighthearted, season two of The Flight Attendant will be available from March 13. Our heroine Cassie has gone sober in an effort to clean up her hot mess of a life, while moonlighting as a CIA asset. Both scenarios seem rather unlikely so it’s best not to question anything too closely.

Unfortunately Cassie doesn’t take orders very well and when an overseas assignment leads to her inadvertently witnessing a murder, the weird just gets weirder – and more dangerous – as she becomes entangled in a new intrigue, while battling with past versions of herself.

People’s Choice Award winner Kaley Cuoco (Penny in The Big Bang Theory) was up for Best Actress In a Comedy Series at both the 2023 Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards, having also been nominated for an Emmy for both seasons. Season two has an 85% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with Financial Times saying, “Cuoco’s Cassie remains a magnetic heroine forever on the precipice of calamity.” Look out for Oscar nominee and Emmy winner Sharon Stone (Ratched, Basic Instinct) delivering an explosive guest performance as Cassie’s mom, Lisa Bowden.

The sixth and final season of The Good Fight will be available from March 17. Joining the cast are the wonderful Andre Braugher, and John Slattery (Mad Men) as a doctor who gives Diane some rather out of the ordinary treatment, and even has her questioning her marriage. The whole season is set against the backdrop of violent riots going on in the streets below the Reddick & Associates offices, which seems a bit surreal. But that’s The Good Fight for you; it’s hardly conventional.

At the 2023 Critics Choice Awards, The Good Fight was up for Best Drama, Actress (Emmy winner Christine Baranski as Diane), Supporting Actress (Emmy winner Audra McDonald as Liz Reddick) and Supporting Actor (Emmy winner Andre Braugher, aka Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Captain Raymond Holt). It’s also up for a Writers Guild of America Award for Episodic Drama in March 2023.

Season six has a 94% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with Entertainment Weekly saying, “Good Fight is officially the weirdest normal show ever,” and praising its ability to “dramatise genuine chaos better than almost any TV show of our chaotic era.”

Look out for former Isidingo star Fikile Mthwalo in episode seven.

Season one of the excellent British drama series The Capture is already available, and season two joins it on March 17. I suggest you watched the first one, first. WIth a 100% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, season two once again questions if we can really believe what we see, and frankly it’s terrifying.

Britain is under siege: hacked news feeds, manipulated media, and interference in politics. Entrenched in the UK’s own “Correction” unit (a process where, for example, CCTV footage is manipulated by the Secret Services to secure terror convictions when the real evidence that would nail suspects is inadmissable in court), DCI Rachel Carey (Critics Choice Award nominee Holliday Grainger) finds herself in the middle of a new conspiracy – with a new target. But how can she solve this case when she can’t even trust her closest colleagues?

Emmy and BAFTA nominee Paapa Essiedu (I May Destroy You, Gangs of London) joins the cast as Isaac Turner, a young MP with ambitions for the very top. Escalating from the CCTV thriller of season one, the six-part season features “invisible” assassins, the rise of deepfake technology, the ever-growing tension between government and Big Tech, and corruption at the heart of the British media. Highly recommended.

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