Hunting Wives Season 1

Ever wondered what would happen if Big Little Lies stumbled out of a Texan club? Welcome to Hunting Wives, a guilty-pleasure thriller so dripping in Southern scandal it practically leaves many other Southern shows behind including Landman and Lioness S2. Though the question was rhetorical, we’d say Hunting Wives S1 delivers.

Based on May Cobb’s novel, the show is part murder mystery, part frenemy soap, part gun-toting, wine-fuelled fever dream. Brittany Snow plays Sophie, a woman in an existential freefall who trades in her picture-perfect life for a circle of seductive housewives led by the deliciously dangerous Margo — played by Malin Akerman, who treats every line like it’s laced in bourbon and secrets.

The show’s commitment to camp is admirable. Every slow-motion hair flip and ominous porch drink feels choreographed for maximum scandal. Visually, it’s all luxury SUVs and Southern Gothic lighting, a Pinterest board for domestic dysfunction. But pacing is its Achilles’ heel.

Characters sometimes act more like plot devices than people, and by episode four, even the scandal starts to feel algorithmic.

Still, Hunting Wives is shamelessly entertaining — a glossy, trashy ride you’ll enjoy even as you question your life choices (and browser history). Brittany Snow and Malin Akerman bring magnetic intensity to their roles, delivering performances that are utterly mesmerising to watch. The supporting cast — Dermot Mulroney, Katie Lowes, Chrissy Metz and Jamie Ray Newman — understand their brief: keep it serious, but never straight.

Black Doves Season 1

Imagine a child born from the genes of the characters in Mr & Mrs Smith — the characters, not the actors — with that brooding character from Bodyguard (a British series), and Phoebe Waller-Bridge as their godparent. The result might resemble the characters of Black Doves.

In other words, sexy, stylish, with a confusing blueprint.

Keira Knightley plays Helen Webb, an undercover operative posing as a diplomat’s wife — but with more emotional repression than MI6 would typically allow. By night, she’s a spy with secrets; by day, she’s juggling domesticity, disillusionment, and a potential national crisis. Knightley portrays a woman who is angry but doing her best to not show it — sharp cheekbones, sharper silences — but the show occasionally leans too hard on mood and not enough on actual stakes. It definitely succeeds when it comes to appearances — gloomy hotel lobbies, rainy streets of London, phones flashing with news no one wishes to receive.

Ben Whishaw brings quiet gravitas as Helen’s complicated past entanglement — romantic? Political? Both? — and their scenes together hum with history. He brings emotional depth to a role that feels raw and aching, though the rest of the show doesn’t always live up to it. Meanwhile, Sarah Lancashire is superb as the steely figure behind the curtain, issuing commands and sinister threats with hardly a voice raised.

But in the midst of all that atmosphere, the plot struggles to find its own beat. Still, the greatest moments of the series are reserved for when it unwinds, allowing love and anger to emerge beyond the surface.

Still, for all its tonal indecision, Black Doves holds your attention. Credit is due to Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw: as the story sometimes drags, their chemistry keeps it worthwhile. And though you might not always know where it’s going — you’ll want to follow.

Your Friends & Neighbours Season 1

Ah yes, another show with the quiet menace of domestic bliss gone sour. But this one trades murder for moral rot. Your Friends & Neighbours isn’t flashy — it’s claustrophobic. Intentionally so. There’s something unnervingly placid about this show.

Set in a neighbourhood so pristine it could be an Instagram filter, Your Friends & Neighbours doesn’t deal in dramatic twists — it erodes from the inside out. The betrayals here aren’t theatrical; they’re insidious. A look. A silence. A dinner party no one really wants to host. The tension simmers. The food and drink flow. The betrayals are whispered rather than shouted.

It’s brilliantly cast. Jon Hamm dials down the charm to play a man quietly unravelling behind a professionally curated facade. Amanda Peet is brittle and brilliant as a woman who’s been smiling through it for far too long. And Olivia Munn gives one of her most down-to-earth performances: calm yet conflicted and quietly devastating in what she does.

If you are looking for something with fireworks, this isn’t going to be it. But if you can be still in the quiet, there’s something satisfying in its silent truths. No over-emoting, no obvious arcs — just people with their lives slowly coming apart.

The writing is razor-sharp in its restraint. It doesn’t shove meaning down your throat. Instead, it lingers. Observes. Waits for you to catch up. It’s not here to entertain you — it’s here to unsettle you.

Your Friends & Neighbours is less about what happens, and more about what doesn’t. It’s not built to entertain — it’s built to haunt. And in a crowded TV landscape of spectacle, that restraint feels like a kind of courage. And that, oddly enough, feels brave.

Hacks Season 4

Can a show built on sharpness keep its edge this long? Four seasons in, Hacks proves it can — and then some. Deborah Vance may be ageing, but the jokes are ageless. Jean Smart is, as ever, magnetic. Can you ignore anything featuring Jean Smart? She’s delivered another performance as the razor-tongued, emotionally armoured comedy legend. It’s as acidic as it is aching. She understands just when to move the dial from diva to devastating, and Season 4 provides her with space to disintegrate. This time around, the stakes are higher — not just career-wise but emotionally.

Deborah’s star is rising again, but so is the spectre of loneliness, legacy and the fear of being irrelevant in a world that loves reinvention more than icons. Ava (Hannah Einbinder) continues to be her Gen Z foil-slash-confidante-slash-emotional punching bag, and their dynamic remains the show’s messy, beating heart. They bicker, they bond, they break each other’s walls down — and then build new ones.

The writing is still blisteringly sharp, but also more introspective. The laughs haven’t softened, but the emotions have deepened. Deborah’s attempts at “vulnerability” (read: rebranding) are painfully funny in that uniquely Hacks way.

Not every side plot hits the mark — some episodes veer off into “fun filler” territory — but the core of the show stays solid. When it zooms in on Deborah and Ava, it’s unbeatable. Hannah Einbinder is also delightful and heartbreaking, playing the ideal foil to Jean Smart. The season presents tougher questions regarding ambition, ageing, and keeping up in an era when reinvention is more desirable than being resilient.

And the whole time, Hacks stays itself: smart, chic, and hurt enough to count. Comedy, like Deborah herself, is a survival game. And Hacks? Still very much alive — and killing.