What to Watch this Week (8-15 May)

Sense8 – season 2

The reception for this loony sci-fi action series from the Wachowskis (The Matrix, Cloud Atlas) has been mixed, but for our money it’s one of the most inventive and visually arresting show you’ll find on TV. The high concept plot is thus: eight strangers of all genders, sexualities and races who live in different locations all over the world are revealed to have a psychic link.

Their ability gives them a sort of hive mind: they can share thoughts, knowledge and skills (one is a martial arts expert, one can pick locks, one is a hacker, one a chemicals expert, etc) to help them get out of jams. Sometimes they simply use their abilities for recreation, say to party with each other at New Year’s or have an impromptu orgy in a Berlin bathhouse. At its best, Sense8 offers thrilling action and a deeply humanistic celebration of life. Sense8 season 2 is streaming on Netflix now.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia – season 12

The gang is back! And Sweet Dee (Kaitlin Olson), Dennis (Glenn Howerton), Mac (Rob McElhenney), Charlie (Charlie Day), and Frank (Danny DeVito) are as despicable as ever. After its run on FX, season 12 of the crudest, shoutiest and funniest show on TV has arrived on Netflix. While there’s never been a significant drop in Always Sunny’s quality over the years, reports are this season is one of the boldest yet. With episode titles like The Gang Turns Black, Making Dennis Reynolds a Murderer and PTSDee, we’re looking forward to our next binge watch of the show. Season 12 is streaming on Netflix now

Master of None – season 2

If you prefer your comedy with a touch more humanity, you’ll find it in spades in Aziz Ansari’s salty-sweet Master of None. Series one proved itself a charming New York comedy-romance in the style of classic Woody Allen, but peppered throughout were more thought-provoking, interesting episodes that astutely addressed race in America. We’re hoping for more of the latter in season 2. Master of None season 2 is streaming on Netflix from 12 May

Alien: Covenant

Ridley Scott is back with his third stab at an Alien movie. He of course made the lean, mean and near perfect original film in 1979, and followed it up 33 years and five sequels later with the bloated and incoherent prequel Prometheus. Alien: Covenant takes place ten years after the latter film, and if early reviews are to be believed, this sequel to that prequel is a vast improvement. Best news of all, Michael Fassbender – Prometheus’ one saving grace – is back as a later model of the chillingly clinical robot David. Released 12 May by 20th Century Fox

Frantz

While Ridley Scott seems happy to repeat himself, French filmmaker Francois Ozon never sits still. Since his feature debut in 1998, he’s made 16 features, and with each one he starts with a blank page. His latest, Frantz, is his first period film. Based on Ernst Lubitsch's 1932 effort Broken Lullaby, the film is set shortly after the first world war and begins as an eroticaly charged mystery when a young German woman finds a melancholic Frenchman leaving flowers at her fiance Frantz’s grave.

Lubitsch’s film was very much concerned with who this mysterious man was, but Ozon gives us this information mid-way through the film and lets the narrative bifurcate off in a new and interesting direction. The rule of thumb seems to be that Ozon’s dramas (Under the Sand, In the House) are brilliant and his comedies (Ricky, Potiche) tiresome. This moving film adheres to the rule, and is among his best work. Released 12 May by Curzon Artificial Eye.