Screen Queen TV reviews: Scarpetta, Vladimir, Home And Away, Harry Styles: Live From Manchester

Vladimir

Streaming now on Netflix

My university days are long behind me — it’s been almost 30 years since I graduated from my arts degree, and my memories of that time are sketchy at best. I seem to recall there was an essay titled Why Romeo Is Wet, where I talked about the metaphysical significance of water in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo & Juliet (what?). Also a detailed critique of the dystopian future portrayed in the director’s cut of Blade Runner (if you want to know my thoughts about that, just look around you: we’re living it).

On the whole, those years are remembered most for the amount of TV I watched — I never missed an episode of The Bold And The Beautiful, and most days one of my parents could be heard yelling from another room, “You’ll never get a job watching endless amounts of TV”, and wow, did I show them . . .

It seems campus life is having something of a moment on TV at present, with not one but two shows with academic life at their core doing the rounds: Rooster, from the creator of Ted Lasso and Shrinking, and the excellent Vladimir, with Rachel Weisz at the centre of the story.

In the latter, Weisz plays a maturing (though weirdly ageless?) lecturer who develops an obsession with her much younger colleague (played by Leo Woodall) after her life starts to unravel spectacularly.

There is much breaking of the fourth wall and it’s a delicious, juicy-as-heck exploration of a woman in midlife freefall. It’s sure to generate plenty of chatter, and not just for the raunchy scenes that play out. There’s something totally, cringingly relatable about her spiralling, and it’s not hard to imagine there will be plenty of women of a certain age who will identify.

These campus-based dramas have me wistfully remembering my days as an undergraduate. And to those of you saying arts degrees are an irrelevant joke — are they? I mean, look at what I’m currently getting paid to do.

Who’s laughing now?

Harry Styles: One Night In Manchester

Monday, 3am, Netflix

Harry Styles fan? Of course you are — you have a pulse and eyes, don’t you?

Good news: Netflix is airing Styles’ first live performance of his fourth studio album, Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally (I’m sorry, but that title is chef’s kiss). If you set your alarm early enough, you can be the first to hear it.

The streamer is airing the show he’ll perform on Friday March 6 from Manchester, the first time one of his concerts will be aired on any streaming platform. It’s expected to set the tone for his forthcoming Together, Together world tour.

This is a legitimately big deal, people, both for Harry and for Netflix — and you can bet squillions will be tuning in.

Be still, our beating hearts.

Outlander S8

Streaming now on Binge

The final chapter of Outlander hits screens this week, and we’ll finally get to find out how Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and Jamie’s (Sam Heughan) enduring love story finishes up. Eight seasons on, here’s hoping it’s a happy ending for all.

Home And Away

Monday, 7pm, Seven

This week’s WA-filmed episodes feature the return of our two fave characters since Tom and Pippa. Yep, Brax (Stephen Peacocke) and Ricky (Bonnie Sveen) are back, and on hand to help Tane (Ethan Browne) re-create himself as a fugitive in remote Western Australia. Something tells us it’s not going to go according to plan for any of them. Aussie TV at its best.

Scarpetta

Wednesday, streaming on Prime Video

If you’ve ever read a Patricia Cornwall crime novel starring Dr Kay Scarpetta, you won’t want to miss this TV adaptation, featuring our very own Nicole Kidman as the little medical examiner who could.