10 TV highlights for May: Poker Face, Liver King, Jason Corbett and Molly Martens
Untold: Liver King is a documentary which tells the story of the UK’s so-called “Liver King”; A Deadly American Marriage tells of the killing of Limerick-born father-of-two Jason Corbett and the subsequent jailing of his American second wife Molly and father-in-law, Thomas Martens.
Star Wars has had a difficult time across the past decade, with some truly dire moments (Rian Johnson’s franchise-maiming, The Last Jedi) offset by the success of The Mandalorian and Andor.
Yet through the highs, lows and in-betweens, the saga has retained a loyal audience, who are sure to enjoy a new animated series about the agents of scum and villainy who occupy the galaxy’s criminal underworld. We join former assassin Asajj Ventress as their life takes a turn for the unexpected and reunite with ghoulish space-cowboy Cade Bane.
Series one of the Natasha Lyonne murder-of-the-week show was a delightful throwback to the glory days of Kojak and The Rockford Files.
For season two, Lyonne returns as Charlie Cale, a reluctant sleuth blessed/cursed with the ability to tell when someone is lying.
Series creator Rian Johnson (yes, the man who almost destroyed Star Wars) has pledged to venture even deeper down the 1970s rabbit hole by tapping into his love of directors Robert Altman, Bob Rafelson, Peter Bogdanovich.
Netflix has done Irish 'true crime' previously with 2021’s Sophie: A Murder in Cork, about Sophie Toscan du Plantier.
Now the streamer is turning its attention to the killing of Limerick born father-of-two Jason Corbett and the subsequent jailing of his American second wife Molly and father-in-law Thomas Martens.
Father and daughter tell the story from their perspective while Corbett’s children paint a very different picture.
Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman have been best pals since forever – united by their shared love of blokey banter and driving bikes at speed.
Nearly 20 years since they zoomed across Central Asia together, the duo are teaming up for another adventure. This time, they’re travelling from Scotland to England but with an interesting detour across the Baltics, Scandinavia and central Europe.
This documentary tells the story of the UK’s so-called “Liver King”, who built an online fitness empire by “devouring raw meat and promoting an all-natural ancestral lifestyle”.
He had the pecs to go with the sales pitch – but his empire unravelled when it emerged there was more to the story than met the eye, all of which is recounted in breathless fashion by this new Netflix doc.
Viewer discretion is recommended – many viewers may wish to skip entirely – as Netflix adds to the landfill of Fred and Rose West documentaries.
The three-part series promises "previously unseen police video and unheard audio recordings” that will shed new light on the horrific murders committed by the Wests in their hell house in Gloucester. Not for me - but your mileage may vary.
Alexander Skarsgård plays the eponymous “Murderbot” – a killer droid who develops a quirky personality and an obsession with soap operas in a tongue-in-cheek adaptation of Martha Wells’s popular Murderbot Diaries novels. It’s another great sci-fi series from Apple, which has quietly become a well-spring of fantastic speculative TV.
Did somebody say Raiders of the Last Ark reboot? That’s sort of what Apple is serving up with this whip-cracking romp about the search for the fountain of youth, directed by Guy Ritchie with starring Domhnall Gleeson and Natalie Portman. Ritchie loves to sprinkle Irish references into his work – for example Pierce Brosnan’s horror-show Irish accent in Mobland – so it feels telling that one of the characters in Fountain of Youth is named “Harold Cross”, a reference to the Dublin neighbourhood that is surely not a coincidence.
The Last of Us 2 video game was a heart-shredding thrill ride and HBO is to be credited for translating the punch and the pathos of the source material to the screen.
The finale promises a long-awaited showdown between Bella Ramsay’s vengeful Ellie and Kaitlyn Dever’s Abby amid the ruins of zombie-ravaged Seattle.
Opinions differ wildly about Bono, who brings his spoken-word autobiographical tour to the screen with this Apple documentary.
