Counter Culture

10.30am – Carmen Jones (1954), BBC Two

Otto Preminger’s celebrated adaptation of Bizet’s Carmen relocates the story to an African-American community during the Second World War, with Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte heading an impressive cast.

Dandridge delivers a magnetic performance as the independent-minded Carmen, whose refusal to be controlled drives the tragedy. The film is important both for its musical achievements and for its place in Hollywood history, at a time when leading roles for Black performers remained severely restricted. Dandridge became the first Black woman nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

7.50pm – Pink Floyd: The Endless River, Sky Arts

A visual interpretation of Pink Floyd’s largely instrumental 2014 album, assembled from recordings associated with the band’s later years and featuring the musical contributions of the late Richard Wright.

It is a contemplative work, more concerned with atmosphere and texture than conventional songwriting. Those who appreciate the band’s experimental side should find plenty to enjoy.

8.35pm onwards – Amy Winehouse Night, BBC Two

Amy Winehouse remains one of the defining British artists of her generation.

BBC Two’s tribute begins with Amy Winehouse at the BBC at 8.35pm, bringing together memorable performances and interviews from across her career.

At 9.35pm, Amy Winehouse: Back to Black at 20 celebrates her most famous album, with Jo Whiley introducing a special performance at the Roundhouse in Camden.

Amy Winehouse: In Her Own Words follows at 10.35pm, allowing the singer’s own interviews and performances to tell much of her story.

At 11pm, there is the chance to revisit Amy Winehouse at Glastonbury 2007, capturing her at a remarkable point in her career.

Finally, at midnight, Amy Winehouse: A Life in Ten Pictures considers her life through a selection of photographs.

Taken together, these programmes promise a celebration of an immense talent whose work continues to attract new listeners.

Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

9pm – David Gilmour: Live at the Circus Maximus, Sky Arts

David Gilmour performs in the magnificent surroundings of Rome’s Circus Maximus. The concert draws upon his solo work as well as the musical legacy of Pink Floyd.

Gilmour’s guitar playing has always possessed a distinctive lyrical quality. He can communicate more through a carefully chosen phrase than many musicians achieve through displays of technical virtuosity.

9.30pm – The Seventh Seal (1957), BBC Four

Max von Sydow confronts Death in Ingmar Bergman’s landmark 1957 masterpiece The Seventh Seal.

Ingmar Bergman’s philosophical masterpiece stars Max von Sydow as a knight confronting the mysteries of existence while the Black Death ravages medieval Sweden.

Its famous chess game with Death has become one of cinema’s defining images, but the film’s greatness lies in its combination of intellectual ambition and compassion for ordinary human beings.

10.55pm – Last Night in Soho (2021), Film4

Edgar Wright’s psychological horror follows a young fashion student whose fascination with 1960s London becomes increasingly disturbing.

With striking cinematography, an excellent soundtrack and a memorable performance from Anya Taylor-Joy, the film initially seduces us with the glamour of the past before exposing the exploitation and violence beneath its surface.

11.25pm – Sisu (2022), Channel 4

Set in the final days of the Second World War, this Finnish action thriller follows a gold prospector whose encounter with retreating Nazi soldiers becomes an exercise in spectacular revenge. It is deliberately excessive, frequently gruesome and possessed of a particularly dark sense of humour.

11.55pm – Have You Got It Yet? The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd, Sky Arts

A fascinating documentary about Syd Barrett, whose imagination helped establish Pink Floyd before his withdrawal from the band. Through interviews and archive material, the film examines his creativity, psychological difficulties and enduring influence. It is a reminder of how complicated the relationship between artistic brilliance and personal vulnerability can be.

1am – The Beasts (2022), BBC Two

Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s unsettling rural thriller follows a French couple living in a Spanish village whose relations with their neighbours deteriorate into hostility. What begins as a dispute over land and competing visions of rural life becomes a powerful examination of resentment, masculinity and violence.

4.45am – Petite Maman (2021), Channel 4

Céline Sciamma’s beautifully understated fantasy follows a young girl who encounters another child while visiting her recently deceased grandmother’s house. Running for barely 72 minutes, it explores childhood, memory and grief with extraordinary sensitivity. A small film with an enormous emotional impact.

Sunday 25 October

10.35am – Heavens Above! (1963), Talking Pictures TV

Peter Sellers plays a well-meaning clergyman whose attempts to practise Christianity rather than merely preach it cause considerable embarrassment to the respectable inhabitants of his parish.

This is a wonderfully sharp satire of class privilege, institutional religion and the hypocrisy of those who applaud charity in principle while objecting when it threatens their own interests.

12.50pm – Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride (2005), ITV2

A beautifully realised stop-motion fantasy about a nervous young bridegroom who accidentally finds himself engaged to a dead woman. Beneath the gothic comedy lies a surprisingly touching story about love, obligation and sacrifice.

4pm – Grease (1978), ITV1

John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John star as Danny Zuko and Sandy Olsson in the enduring musical classic Grease (1978).

Few film musicals have enjoyed the enduring popularity of Grease. Nearly fifty years after its release, the story of Danny Zuko and Sandy Olsson continues to attract new audiences, while songs such as Summer Nights, Greased Lightnin’ and You’re the One That I Want remain instantly recognisable.

John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John head a charismatic cast in this hugely successful celebration of 1950s American youth culture. Beneath the leather jackets, slicked-back hair and infectious soundtrack, however, lies a film that reveals a great deal about the values and assumptions of the era in which it was made. Its treatment of romance, peer pressure, conformity and gender expectations has prompted considerable debate in recent years, with modern audiences often viewing certain aspects rather differently from those who first embraced it in 1978.

Yet Grease survives because its appeal extends far beyond nostalgia. The energy of the performances, the humour, the choreography and an exceptional collection of songs combine to create a musical that is difficult to resist. Whether you’re revisiting it for the fiftieth time or discovering it for the first, it remains one of the defining screen musicals of the twentieth century.

6.55pm – Edward Scissorhands (1990), ITV2

Tim Burton’s modern fairy tale stars Johnny Depp as an artificial young man whose creator died before completing his hands. Taken into a brightly coloured suburban community, Edward initially fascinates his neighbours before becoming the victim of their fear and intolerance.

One of Burton’s finest films, it is a moving story about loneliness, difference and the cruelty that can lie behind a respectable exterior.

9pm – Shakespeare: Rise of a Genius, BBC Four

A documentary exploring how William Shakespeare developed from a young man of comparatively modest origins into the playwright whose work would transform English theatre.

Shakespeare’s achievement was not simply the beauty of his language. He possessed an extraordinary understanding of human ambition, jealousy, love, power and self-deception.

10pm – Derek Jacobi Remembers… Much Ado About Nothing, BBC Four

Derek Jacobi recalls the National Theatre’s 1967 production of Shakespeare’s comedy, directed by Franco Zeffirelli.

10.10pm – The Boston Strangler (1968), Talking Pictures TV

Tony Curtis delivers a disturbing performance in Richard Fleischer’s crime drama based upon the murders that terrorised Boston during the 1960s. The film’s experimental use of split-screen photography gives it a striking visual style, while its treatment of the investigation raises uncomfortable questions about violence and the nature of criminal responsibility.

10.15pm – Much Ado About Nothing (1967), BBC Four

A rare opportunity to see Zeffirelli’s National Theatre production, starring Maggie Smith, Derek Jacobi and Ronald Pickup.

At the centre of the comedy are Beatrice and Benedick, whose verbal battles conceal an attraction neither is particularly willing to acknowledge. Their exchanges remain among Shakespeare’s funniest and most perceptive explorations of romance and human pride.

10.45pm – Misery (1990), BBC Two

Kathy Bates won an Oscar for her terrifying portrayal of Annie Wilkes, a devoted fan who rescues an injured novelist and then refuses to let him leave. Based on Stephen King’s novel, Rob Reiner’s film is an extraordinarily effective psychological thriller about obsession, control and the unhealthy relationship between celebrity and fandom.

Monday 26 October

3.15pm – The Wicked Lady (1945), Talking Pictures TV

Margaret Lockwood stars in this enormously popular Gainsborough melodrama about an aristocratic woman who secretly becomes a highway robber.

Its mixture of romance, crime and gleeful disregard for respectable behaviour made it one of the great British box-office successes of the 1940s. Lockwood’s performance gives the story much of its energy and appeal.

8.15pm – The Public Enemy (1931), Talking Pictures TV

James Cagney’s breakthrough performance as Tom Powers helped define the American gangster film.

Made during the early years of sound cinema, William A. Wellman’s uncompromising drama portrays the rise of a violent young criminal during Prohibition. Beneath the excitement and bravado is a bleak examination of a society in which poverty, ambition and criminal opportunity collide.

9pm – Escaping Idi Amin, BBC Two (Part 1 of 2)

In 1972, Uganda’s dictator Idi Amin ordered around 80,000 members of the country’s Asian community to leave within 90 days.

Many of those affected held British passports, and the expulsion created an immediate crisis for families who had built their lives and businesses in Uganda.

This two-part documentary examines the experience of those forced to flee, the political decisions surrounding their departure and the difficult process of establishing new lives elsewhere.

It is a profoundly important story, touching upon colonialism, citizenship, racism and the meaning of belonging. It also reminds us how quickly apparently secure lives can be destroyed when political power is exercised without regard for human rights.

9pm – Elysium (2013), Legend

Neill Blomkamp’s science-fiction thriller imagines a future in which the wealthy live aboard a luxurious space station while everyone else struggles to survive on an overcrowded and impoverished Earth.

Matt Damon plays a worker whose desperate need for medical treatment brings him into conflict with this brutally unequal system.

The film’s political message is hardly subtle, but its concerns about healthcare, migration and the concentration of wealth make it particularly interesting.

10pm – Chris Terrill Remembers… Soho Stories, BBC Four

Documentary-maker Chris Terrill introduces his 1996 series about London’s Soho, recalling an area whose distinctive mixture of communities, businesses and personalities was already facing considerable change.

10.15pm – Soho Stories: Passport to Soho, BBC Four

The first of three programmes revisits the people and places that gave Soho its reputation for diversity, eccentricity and colourful nightlife.

10.55pm – Soho Stories: Icing on the Cake, BBC Four

Terrill’s observational documentary continues, capturing the everyday lives of people whose businesses and social worlds formed part of Soho’s distinctive character.

11.10pm – Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022), BBC One

A group of wealthy young friends gather at an isolated mansion for a party that goes spectacularly wrong.

This sharp horror-comedy is as interested in the narcissism, performative morality and emotional dishonesty of its characters as it is in the increasingly bloody events. Beneath the familiar murder-mystery framework lies a particularly pointed satire of contemporary social behaviour.

11.35pm – Soho Stories: Hot Couture, BBC Four

The final selection from the series turns to Soho’s fashion world and the personalities surrounding it. Taken together, these documentaries offer a valuable record of a changing London, before the full impact of rising rents and commercial redevelopment altered so much of its character.

Tuesday 27 October

2.50am – Ready or Not (2019), Channel 4

A newly married woman discovers that joining her husband’s wealthy family involves something rather more dangerous than the usual awkward conversations with the in-laws.

Samara Weaving is excellent in this darkly comic horror thriller, which combines gruesome entertainment with a thoroughly enjoyable attack on inherited wealth, privilege and entitlement. Beneath the bloodshed lies a simple question: just how far will the rich go to preserve their position?

10pm – Storyville: Black Is Beautiful — The Kwame Brathwaite Story, BBC Four

The work of photographer Kwame Brathwaite helped transform the way Black beauty and identity were represented in American culture.

During the 1960s, Brathwaite became associated with the Black Is Beautiful movement, challenging the prevailing standards promoted by the fashion and advertising industries.

Through his photographs, he celebrated natural hairstyles, African-inspired fashion and the confidence of a community asserting its own cultural identity.

This documentary explores the man behind those images and the wider movement of which he was part.

Photography is sometimes treated as an art concerned primarily with recording the world. Brathwaite demonstrated that it could also become an instrument for changing it. His pictures helped challenge deeply rooted assumptions and offered a positive alternative to the limited and frequently stereotypical representations of Black Americans in mainstream media.

It is a reminder that cultural movements can play an important role in the struggle for social change.

10.40pm – Stacey Dooley: Death in the Barracks, BBC One

Stacey Dooley investigates the death of 19-year-old soldier Jaysley Beck, who was found dead in her army barracks in 2021.

With access to her family, friends and former colleagues, the documentary examines her experiences and the circumstances surrounding her death.

The programme raises disturbing questions about sexual harassment, abuse of authority and the treatment of women serving in the armed forces.

At its heart is a family’s determination to establish the truth and ensure that other young women do not have to endure similar experiences.

An important documentary about institutional responsibility and the duty of organisations to protect those who place their trust in them.

11.40pm – Clickbait Clinic with Stacey Dooley: Can Dog Deworming Tablets Cure Cancer?, BBC One

The final episode in the series examines online claims about veterinary medicines being used as cancer treatments.

Stacey meets a woman with advanced cancer who hopes that an alternative treatment promoted online might offer something conventional medicine cannot.

The programme illustrates the extraordinary speed with which unverified medical claims can circulate, and how easily hope can be exploited when people are facing serious illness.

There is an important distinction between investigating promising treatments and promoting substances without reliable clinical evidence. In circumstances where someone’s health may depend upon that distinction, misleading information can have devastating consequences.

Wednesday 28 October

7.30pm – The Future with Hannah Fry, BBC Two

Mathematician Hannah Fry returns to examine the technological advances that may transform our lives.

The opening episode of the new series concentrates on superintelligence, investigating the possibilities and dangers of artificial intelligence systems that might eventually exceed human capabilities.

Beyond the technological questions lie some fundamental political and economic ones. Who will control these systems? Who will benefit from the wealth they generate? And what happens to workers whose jobs become increasingly vulnerable to automation?

The answers will depend as much upon the decisions we make as a society as upon the technology itself.

Earlier episodes and catch-up available via BBC iPlayer.

9pm – Murder in Belfast: Sisters Seeking Justice, BBC Two

This investigative documentary follows two sisters seeking answers following the murder of their brother, Robert, in Belfast.

Their efforts are complicated by fear and intimidation, with potential witnesses reluctant to speak openly.

The programme examines the consequences of violent crime for families left behind, and the difficulties of obtaining justice when communities are unwilling or afraid to cooperate with investigators.

It is a reminder that the effects of murder extend far beyond the immediate victim, and that the search for justice can become a struggle lasting years.

9pm – All of Us Strangers (2023), Film4

Andrew Scott gives a deeply affecting performance as a lonely screenwriter whose relationship with a neighbour, played by Paul Mescal, coincides with an extraordinary encounter with his past.

Visiting his childhood home, he discovers his parents apparently living exactly as they did before their deaths many years earlier.

Andrew Haigh’s film moves between the ordinary and the supernatural with remarkable confidence. It is a meditation on loneliness, grief, sexuality, family relationships and all those conversations we wish we could have with people who are no longer here.

Beautifully acted and quietly devastating, this is one of the week’s finest films.

11.10pm – The Innocents (1961), Film4

Deborah Kerr stars in Jack Clayton’s extraordinary adaptation of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw.

A governess becomes convinced that the two children in her care are being influenced by malevolent supernatural forces. Yet the film leaves open a disturbing possibility: are the ghosts real, or are we witnessing the disintegration of the governess’s own mind?

Shot in magnificent black and white, The Innocents is a masterclass in psychological horror. Rather than relying upon shocks, it creates an atmosphere of mounting dread through suggestion, ambiguity and the extraordinary use of sound and silence.

It remains one of the most sophisticated ghost stories ever filmed.

Thursday 29 October

2.35pm – An Inspector Calls (1954), Talking Pictures TV

Alastair Sim as the mysterious Inspector Poole in An Inspector Calls (1954), Guy Hamilton’s adaptation of J. B. Priestley’s powerful drama about class, social responsibility and the consequences of our actions.

Alastair Sim is superb as Inspector Goole in this adaptation of J. B. Priestley’s celebrated play.

When a mysterious police inspector arrives at the home of a prosperous Edwardian family, the comfortable certainties of their lives begin to unravel.

His investigation into the death of a young working-class woman exposes the ways in which apparently respectable people can contribute to another person’s suffering while refusing to accept any responsibility.

Priestley’s message about class, privilege and social obligation remains as powerful as ever. The film asks us to recognise that our actions have consequences for others and that society cannot function decently if everyone looks only after themselves.

One of the strongest recommendations of the week.

7.15pm – The Martin Lewis Money Show Live: Budget Special, ITV1

Martin Lewis examines the latest Budget announcements and their implications for ordinary households.

With the continuing pressure on household finances, changes to taxation, benefits, savings and public spending are matters of immediate practical importance.

Lewis has built his reputation on explaining complicated financial questions in language that people can understand. His programme should provide a useful examination of what the Chancellor’s decisions mean beyond the political speeches and newspaper headlines.

Catch up via ITVX.

8pm – Classic Movies: Dead of Night, Sky Arts

As Halloween approaches, Sky Arts turns its attention to one of British cinema’s most celebrated supernatural films.

The 1945 Ealing production Dead of Night brought together a collection of unsettling stories within a framing narrative, creating an anthology that has influenced generations of horror filmmakers.

Its famous ventriloquist’s dummy sequence remains particularly disturbing. The film is a reminder that effective horror often depends less upon explicit violence than upon uncertainty and the fear of losing control.

9pm – Strange Journey: The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Sky Arts

9pm – Strange Journey: The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Sky Arts

Tim Curry as the outrageous Dr Frank-N-Furter alongside Barry Bostwick in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Jim Sharman’s gloriously eccentric cult musical that became a midnight cinema phenomenon.

Few films have enjoyed a stranger or more remarkable journey than The Rocky Horror Picture Show. What began as Richard O’Brien’s gloriously eccentric stage musical arrived in cinemas in 1975 to a largely indifferent response. Yet what looked like a commercial disappointment gradually found an audience unlike any other in film history. Through midnight screenings, audience participation, elaborate costumes and a refusal to conform to convention, Rocky Horror transformed itself from cult curiosity into a genuine cultural phenomenon.

This documentary explores how a film that initially struggled at the box office became a celebration of individuality, self-expression and sexual freedom for successive generations. Long before discussions of identity and representation became commonplace, Rocky Horror offered audiences a space where rules could be broken, expectations challenged and difference embraced rather than feared. For many viewers, it was not simply a film but an experience, a community and, in some cases, a liberation.

At the centre of its appeal was the late, lamented Tim Curry, whose extraordinary performance as Dr Frank-N-Furter remains one of the most charismatic and unforgettable in cinema history. By turns seductive, outrageous, funny and faintly menacing, Curry created a character who defied easy categorisation and became an icon in his own right. Decades later, his performance retains the power to surprise audiences encountering the film for the first time.

Half a century on, the songs remain irresistible, the costumes instantly recognisable and the audience rituals as enthusiastic as ever. More than most cult films, The Rocky Horror Picture Show became a statement about the freedom to be different and the joy of refusing to fit neatly into other people’s expectations. This documentary promises a fascinating look at how one unlikely musical achieved immortality while inspiring generations of fans to do the Time Warp again.

11.05pm – The First Omen (2024), Film4

Arkasha Stevenson’s prequel to the 1976 horror classic follows a young American woman sent to work at a Roman orphanage, where she uncovers a conspiracy with terrifying implications.

Although connected to a familiar franchise, the film has ambitions beyond simply recycling established horrors. Its examination of religious authority, institutional secrecy and the control of women’s bodies gives it an uncomfortable contemporary relevance.

A suitably disturbing choice for Halloween week.

Friday 30 October

9pm – Master Gardener (2022), Great TV

Joel Edgerton and Sigourney Weaver in Master Gardener (2022), Paul Schrader’s psychological drama exploring guilt, redemption and the possibility of escaping a violent past.

Paul Schrader has spent much of his career returning to a particular kind of character: isolated men attempting to live with the consequences of their past actions. From Taxi Driver to First Reformed and The Card Counter, he has repeatedly explored guilt, discipline, self-punishment and the difficult search for redemption. Master Gardener belongs firmly within that tradition.

Joel Edgerton gives a quietly compelling performance as Narvel Roth, a meticulous horticulturist employed on the estate of a wealthy widow, played by Sigourney Weaver. Narvel’s life is governed by routine, discipline and an almost obsessive attention to detail. The gardens under his care are carefully cultivated, ordered and controlled, reflecting the image he wishes to project of himself. Yet Schrader gradually reveals that beneath this calm exterior lies a deeply troubling history that cannot simply be pruned away or buried.

The arrival of the widow’s troubled great-niece forces Narvel to confront uncomfortable truths about himself and the life he has constructed. As old loyalties and painful memories begin to resurface, the film becomes less a conventional drama than an examination of whether genuine change is possible. Can someone escape the mistakes of their past, or must redemption begin with an honest reckoning with the harm they have caused?

Like much of Schrader’s best work, Master Gardener unfolds at a deliberate pace and trusts the audience to engage with its themes rather than spelling everything out. It is thoughtful, intelligent and occasionally uncomfortable viewing, asking difficult questions about forgiveness, responsibility and personal transformation. Beneath its restrained surface lies a film that lingers in the mind long after the closing credits, rewarding viewers willing to look beyond its quiet exterior.

10pm – Carrie (1976), BBC Two

Brian De Palma’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel remains one of the great American horror films.

Sissy Spacek plays Carrie White, a painfully shy teenager subjected to bullying at school and religious fanaticism at home. When she discovers that she possesses telekinetic powers, the consequences are catastrophic.

Carrie works because its horror grows from recognisable human cruelty. The humiliation of an isolated young woman, the pressure to conform and the destructive effects of repression give the story its emotional force.

Spacek is outstanding, while Piper Laurie delivers an unforgettable performance as Carrie’s terrifying mother.

The famous prom sequence remains an extraordinary achievement in cinematic suspense.

12.25am – Sleep (2023), Channel 4

This inventive South Korean horror film concerns a newly married couple whose domestic happiness is threatened when the husband begins behaving in increasingly frightening ways while asleep.

Director Jason Yu uses the familiar surroundings of a small apartment to create a deeply unsettling atmosphere.

The film plays with the uncertain boundary between supernatural explanations and medical reality, while exploring the pressures that fear and uncertainty can place upon a relationship.

A compact and cleverly constructed psychological horror that should appeal to viewers looking for something a little different from the usual Halloween offerings.

Streaming

There is plenty of new material on the streaming services this week, with crime dramas, horror, documentaries and music providing much of the interest.

Netflix

Dead-End Job — All eight episodes available Friday 30 October

This South Korean mystery-horror series follows Hyeok-jun, a young man struggling with serious debt who is tempted by an advertisement offering extraordinarily generous wages for apparently straightforward work.

His new employers, the mysterious Spider Staffing Agency, offer pay far above the minimum wage, but the jobs turn out to be far more dangerous than he could possibly have imagined.

There is something appealingly sinister about the premise. The idea of workers accepting increasingly unreasonable demands because they desperately need money is hardly confined to the world of horror fiction.

Beneath its supernatural premise lies an interesting commentary on economic desperation and exploitation.

The One About Matthew Perry — Available Tuesday 27 October

This documentary revisits the life and career of the actor best known for playing Chandler Bing in Friends.

Perry possessed an exceptional gift for comic timing, helping to make Chandler one of television’s most popular characters.

Yet behind the public success was a long struggle with addiction and personal difficulties, which Perry discussed with considerable openness during his lifetime.

His death in 2023 brought renewed attention to those struggles. The documentary provides an opportunity to reflect upon his achievements as an actor while considering the extraordinary pressures that can accompany fame.

Channel 4 Streaming

Walter Presents: The Infiltrator — All six episodes available Friday 30 October

Walter Presents continues its impressive commitment to international drama with a French crime thriller starring Audrey Fleurot.

The story centres on a police chemist drawn into the dangerous world of organised drug trafficking in Marseille.

Operating undercover brings her into contact with people whose lives and loyalties are far removed from her normal experience, and she must navigate an increasingly difficult world of criminal relationships and competing interests.

Fleurot has a distinctive screen presence, and the combination of undercover intrigue and the Marseille setting looks promising.

Another welcome addition to Channel 4’s growing collection of European crime dramas.

Paramount+

Boston Blue — Season 2, Episodes 1–3, available Saturday 24 October

Donnie Wahlberg as Detective Danny Reagan and Sonequa Martin-Green as Detective Lena Silver in Boston Blue, the police drama that continues the story of Blue Bloods in a new city.

This Blue Bloods spin-off continues the story of Danny Reagan, played by Donnie Wahlberg, as he establishes a new chapter in his police career in Boston.

Moving away from the familiar surroundings of New York provides an opportunity to explore different policing traditions, family relationships and the tensions between personal loyalty and professional responsibility.

For viewers who enjoyed the original series, the attraction lies in its combination of crime investigation and the personal lives of those working within the police.

Treasure Island — Episode 3 available Monday 26 October

The latest instalment of the new adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic adventure continues its story of buried treasure, dangerous alliances and betrayal.

Treasure Island has survived countless adaptations because its central elements remain irresistible: a mysterious map, a perilous voyage and the unforgettable figure of Long John Silver.

The best adaptations also preserve the novel’s moral uncertainty, particularly the complicated relationship between youthful idealism and the seductive attractions of adventure and greed.

Dexter: Resurrection — Season 2 begins Friday 30 October, episodes weekly

Michael C. Hall returns as Dexter Morgan, one of television’s most morally complicated antiheroes.

The continuing attraction of Dexter lies in its ability to make audiences identify with a character whose actions ought to be impossible to defend.

By giving its central character a particular code of behaviour, the series continually challenges the viewer’s assumptions about guilt, punishment and justice.

The new season introduces further dangers and brings Dexter’s attempts to control his violent impulses into conflict with the consequences of his past.

Apple TV

Nocturne — First two episodes available Friday 30 October

This ten-part psychological crime thriller stars Liev Schreiber, Stephen Graham and Zazie Beetz.

Schreiber plays Jonah Lynn, a former soldier turned homicide detective who abandons the violent streets of Philadelphia in search of a quieter life in Pennsylvania.

His hopes are destroyed when a ruthless serial killer threatens both his family and the community in which he has settled.

Based on novels by the Scandinavian crime-writing partnership Lars Kepler, the series promises a combination of psychological complexity and the darker conventions of Nordic noir.

Stephen Graham’s involvement is another reason to take an interest. He is an actor capable of making even the most disturbing characters seem recognisably human.

MUBI

Pulp: What Do You Do for an Encore — Available now

A documentary following Jarvis Cocker and Pulp as they return to the stage, reflecting upon the band’s history and their extraordinary relationship with British popular culture.

Pulp were always rather different from many of their Britpop contemporaries.

Their songs explored class, sex, aspiration, embarrassment and the everyday disappointments of British life with a sharpness that was both affectionate and merciless.

Cocker’s lyrics had a remarkable ability to turn the apparently mundane into something revealing about the wider society in which we live.

This film offers an opportunity to reconsider a band whose finest work was as much about social observation as popular music.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma — MUBI release – Available now

Jane Schoenbrun’s new horror comedy stars Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson.

The story follows an ambitious young filmmaker entrusted with reviving a fading horror franchise. Her encounter with the original film’s reclusive star leads into an increasingly strange world in which cinema, obsession and reality begin to merge.

Schoenbrun has already demonstrated a particular interest in the relationship between popular culture and personal identity.

Here, the conventions of the slasher film become the starting point for an examination of nostalgia, desire and our complicated relationship with the entertainment that shaped us.

It sounds enjoyably bizarre and particularly appropriate for Halloween.

Radio

Sunday 25 October

10am – Desert Island Discs: Harlan Coben, BBC Radio 4

I have always loved Desert Island Discs. There is something about the combination of personal recollections and carefully chosen music that makes it possible to discover unexpected sides of even the most familiar public figures.

This week’s castaway is American thriller writer Harlan Coben, whose novels have sold millions of copies and provided the basis for numerous television adaptations.

Coben is a master of plots in which apparently ordinary lives conceal extraordinary secrets. I will be interested to hear which records he chooses and what they reveal about the influences, experiences and memories behind his writing.

Monday 26 October

11.45am and 12.30am, Monday–Friday – Three Hundred Years of Gulliver’s Travels, BBC Radio 4

Ian Hislop explores the continuing importance of Jonathan Swift’s masterpiece, published in 1726.

Most readers will be familiar with Gulliver’s encounters with the tiny inhabitants of Lilliput and the giants of Brobdingnag. Yet these adventures represent only part of a far more ambitious work.

Swift was attacking political corruption, religious intolerance, intellectual pretension and the extraordinary capacity of human beings to justify their own foolishness.

Hislop asks how such a savage satire came to be regarded primarily as a children’s adventure story.

It is an intriguing question. In simplifying Gulliver’s Travels, generations of publishers and adapters have often stripped away precisely those qualities that made it such an important work.

Three hundred years later, Swift’s observations about power and human vanity remain uncomfortably familiar.

1.30pm and 11.30pm – A History of the United States in 100 Objects, BBC World Service

Broadcaster Roman Mars begins a fascinating exploration of American history through a collection of objects.

The opening programme examines the Centennial Safe, a time capsule sealed during the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia and intended to preserve a record of the United States for future generations.

What a society chooses to preserve can tell us a great deal about how it sees itself and how it wishes to be remembered.

Objects can also reveal histories that conventional political accounts sometimes overlook: the experiences of ordinary people, changes in technology, patterns of consumption and the contradictions between national ideals and everyday realities.

A promising approach to a vast and frequently contested subject.

7pm – Jo Whiley: Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black, BBC Radio 2

The anniversary celebrations continue as Jo Whiley revisits the making and legacy of one of the defining British albums of the twenty-first century.

Back to Black combined the traditions of soul and jazz with strikingly intimate songwriting. Its emotional directness, sophisticated production and Winehouse’s extraordinary vocal abilities made it an immediate classic.

Two decades later, songs such as Rehab, Love Is a Losing Game and Back to Black retain their power.

An excellent companion to Saturday evening’s BBC Two tribute.

Wednesday 28 October

3.30pm and 9.30pm – A Modest Proposal, BBC Radio 4 Extra

Jonathan Swift’s notorious satire remains one of the most devastating attacks upon political indifference ever written.

Published in 1729, it adopts the voice of an apparently rational commentator who proposes a grotesque solution to poverty in Ireland.

The horror of the suggestion is precisely the point. Swift was exposing the cruelty of a ruling class capable of discussing the suffering of ordinary people in detached economic terms while refusing to recognise their humanity.

It is satire at its most savage, using exaggeration and irony to confront attitudes that more conventional arguments had failed to change.

Almost three centuries later, its central message about the dangers of treating human beings as economic abstractions remains disturbingly relevant.

Friday 30 October

9pm – Free Thinking: Brown, BBC Radio 4

What does the word brown mean to different people?

This edition of Free Thinking explores the different associations and meanings attached to a word that can describe a colour, an identity, a cultural experience or a position within complicated histories of race and belonging.

The discussion promises to examine how language reflects social attitudes and how apparently straightforward categories can conceal enormous differences in experience.

It is precisely the kind of subject that makes Free Thinking valuable: an invitation to question familiar assumptions and consider how words acquire meanings that extend far beyond their dictionary definitions.

Final Thoughts