Watched everything? Here are seven hidden gems you might have missed

The Age

2 days ago

So many options but nothing that floats your boat? Can't find anything new and exciting to dive into?
Despite the monthly drops of titles from the band of streamers, wading through the hype and the home pages can be oddly frustrating and frequently unrewarding. So here are some suggestions, recent drama series that you might've missed that could fit the bill and warm the winter nights. Or at least keep you happily absorbed through the chills.
Toxic Town (Netflix)
Jack Thorne wrote Adolescence, one of the year's standout drama series. Here he tackles a different social issue in a four-part drama based on an actual case in the UK. In 2009, a group of mothers from the Northamptonshire town of Corby took legal action against a local steelworks, claiming its harmful waste had caused limb deformities in their babies.
In the mould of Mr Bates vs The Post Office, this quietly powerful drama chronicles an historic legal action in which working-class litigants, initially unprepared for the entrenched opposition they're facing, refuse to give up the fight.
Directed in low-key style by Minkie Spiro, its top-drawer cast is headed by Jodie Whittaker (Dr Who, One Night) as feisty Susan McIntyre, who meets the more reserved Tracey Taylor (Aimee Lou Wood, The White Lotus, Sex Education) in a hospital labour ward. Key supporting roles are capably filled by Brendan Coyle, Robert Carlyle and Rory Kinnear.
Caught (Netflix)
Over the past decade, novelist Harlan Coben has become a TV darling involved in a host of crime thrillers, some adapted from his books and others original screenplays. His fast-moving, deftly plotted mysteries (including Fool Me Once, Stay Close, Safe, Just un regard and The Five) make for ideal TV fodder, although the quality of the productions varies.
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Most have smart set-ups, so it's easy to get hooked, but some quickly fade into the forgettable category. This one (original title Atrapados), based on his novel, is set in the Argentinian lakeside town of Bariloche and focuses on hard-charging investigative journalist Ema Garay (Soledad Villamil).
She hosts a true-crime show online and has built an admiring following, in part because she live-streams her capture of culprits. Now she's hot on the trail of a rapist who grooms teenagers using a popular video game to establish relationships.
But things get messy when she publicly outs a suspect and it emerges that she might be mistaken. Caught raises questions about citizen journalists and the rules that they play by, as well as the impact that their work can have.
The Stolen Girl (Disney+)
Given the title, it's not a spoiler to reveal that a child disappears early in this five-part drama, shattering her distraught parents, Elisa (Denise Gough, Andor) and Fred (Jim Sturgess). Elisa impulsively agrees to an invitation from another school mum (Holliday Grainger) for her nine-year-old, Lucia (Beatrice Campbell), to have her first sleepover. But when she returns to collect her daughter, the house is empty.
It's a nightmare scenario played at a melodramatic pitch as Elisa becomes increasingly frantic and frustrated by what she sees as a lack of progress in the police investigation. As questions pile up in the twisty thriller developed by writer Catherine Moulton from Alex Dahl's novel, it emerges that the past is an important player and little is as it initially seems.
La Palma (Netflix)
This compact, four-part Norwegian series, built around the 2021 volcanic eruption in the Canary Islands, initially views the calamitous event from a tightly focused pair of perspectives. Fredrik and Jennifer (Anders Baasmo and Ingrid Bolso Berdal) are struggling with marital tensions when they arrive for their summer holiday with their sensitive teenage daughter (Alma Günther) and autistic son (Bernard Storm Lager).
Meanwhile, a keen trainee (Thea Sofie Loch Naess), who has joined the local geological research team, identifies disturbing shifts in the areas being monitored, spurring a debate between the scientists about the implications of the discovery and the need to alert authorities. The tale subsequently opens out to include local officials concerned about sounding alarm bells at the height of the tourist season and the foreign affairs department in Oslo responsible for assisting its citizens.
The build-up is handled with skill, and when nature unleashes its devastating power, the impact is suitably shocking and spectacular. Think Jaws with a volcano rather than a shark.
Zero Day (Netflix)
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Robert De Niro's first starring role in a TV series casts him as a respected former US president summoned from retirement after the country suffers a devastating cyberattack. The incumbent president (Angela Bassett) appoints him to lead a commission investigating the cause of the attack, identify its perpetrators and protect the nation from another one.
His unit is given unprecedented powers to arrest, detain and question suspects. De Niro resembles an ageing lion, a once-esteemed king of the jungle now plagued by cognitive problems that he's endeavouring to conceal. Series creators Eric Newman, Noah Oppenheim and Michael Schmidt use the country-under-siege set-up as a springboard to explore how panic and pragmatism can drive a political agenda, and how that fear can be exploited, which seems an especially timely topic. The supporting cast is loaded with talent, including Jesse Plemons, Lizzy Kaplan, Connie Britton, Dan Stevens, Joan Allen and Gaby Hoffman.
Paradise (Disney+)
Writer-producer Dan Fogelman and actor Sterling K. Brown worked together on the beautifully crafted family drama This is Us. Here, they venture into different territory with an eight-part series that introduces Brown as Xavier Collins, a dedicated secret-service agent assigned to protect the US president (James Marsden). He's also the devoted dad of two children, the fate of their mother emerging in flashback as the drama unfolds.
A murder on Xavier's watch casts suspicion on the highest levels of government but, beyond that, this is a series where the less you know about the plot, the better. One teaser should be enough: a zinger of a twist ends the first episode. Marsden is well-cast as a Kennedy-esque POTUS, as is Julianne Nicholson as an icily controlling powerbroker.
Prime Target (Apple TV+)
This eight-part thriller intriguingly ponders whether scientists and mathematicians can be held responsible for the ways in which their discoveries are deployed. Gifted Cambridge mathematician Edward Brooks (Leo Woodall) is obsessed with his study of prime numbers and it emerges that his work has the potential to cause chaos: he could unearth a code that can crack any digital system.
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It's a significant threat to a range of entities that come gunning for him. Taylah Sanders (a magnetic Quintessa Swindell), an American government agent, comes to his aid and their partnership creates an odd-couple-on-the-run scenario, with Ed as a tunnel-vision academic and Taylah a gutsy tech wiz who can run like an athlete, shoot like a pro and hotwire a car. They're a dynamic, if perpetually vulnerable, duo.
What TV shows have you watched recently that you think deserve extra recognition? Please let us know in the comments below.