Five Things To Watch In October
Your small-screen highlights for the month ahead
Autumn is famously prime TV season. The nights are darker and colder and the lure of your sofa and a great binge is never more enticing. True to form, October’s TV schedule is brimming with some excellent thrillers, spooky watches and truly compelling literary adaptations to snuggle up and watch.
There’s sharp espionage thriller The Old Man, Disney+’s Jeff Bridges starring feature, which is all car chases, shootouts and puzzling spy conspiracies, or you can go UFO hunting with the latest K Drama, Glitch. The last days of September saw This England – the political docuseries starring Kenneth Brannagh as Boris Johnson- start streaming, and October will finally see the long-awaited screen adaptation of the blockbuster novel Shantaram. Oh, and fancy a spooky Halloween watch? Ryan Murphy’s latest, The Watcher, is just what you need.
Here’s our essential watch list for the month ahead:
1. The Watcher
Perfectly suited to spooky October watching, this original series from Netflix is the latest offering from the Ryan Murphy TV hit machine. This time, the creator of American Horror Story has taken inspiration from real events, in this limited series based on the creepy goings on in a New Jersey home between 2014-2017, in which the owners received a series of threatening letters from ‘The Watcher’ who claimed to be obsessively watching their house. Full of seasonal creeps and chills and the ever-comforting notion that this true story was never *ahem* resolved, it also boasts a seriously impressive cast, featuring Naomi Watts, Bobby Cannavale, Mia Farrow and Jennifer Coolidge. Grab your popcorn and hide behind a cushion. Happy Halloween!
The Watcher starts streaming on Netflix from October 13.
2. The Old Man
Based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Thomas Perry, The Old Man has a cast groaning with top talent, from main star Jeff Bridges to John Lithgow and Amy Brenneman. It follows the tale of Dan Chase (Bridges), an absconded CIA man living off the grid for decades who is dragged back into a life of peril when he is suddenly and mysteriously attacked by an assassin. It has the markings of any great 1980s action movie, but its DNA is cut more from the cloth of the Bourne movies. It’s complicated, messy, brilliantly acted and dark. A great thriller to settle down with on the encroaching winter nights.
The Old Man is streaming on Disney+ now.
3. This England
How soon is too-soon for a biographical series about ousted PM Boris Johnson? How about Boris during the 2020 pandemic? That’s the premise of Michael Winterbottom’s satirical docuseries, which charts the inner world of Number 10 during some of its darkest days. Starring Kenneth Branagh as Boris, Simon Paisley Day as Dominic Cummings and Ophelia Lovibond as Carrie Symonds, it may prove uncomfortable viewing for many, who may not care to relive the days of lockdowns, waves and Thursday night NHS clapping, but it’s still a sharp and well-executed series with some great satirical bite.
This England is streaming now on NowTv
4. Glitch
It all started, of course, with Squid Game. Now the world is hungry for the wonders of Korean TV dramas (known affectionately as K Dramas). Though already a booming business with a huge fan base, K Dramas are growing rapidly in global popularity. Glitch is the latest South Korean creation to drop on Netflix. It’s Stranger Things meets The Undoing; a mysrterious missing person drama that may or may not include aliens. Funny, moving and endlessly compelling. Welcome to your next binge watch.
Glitch starts streaming on Netflix from October 7.
5. Shantaram
If you didn’t see a copy of this door-stopping book in the early noughties, you were clearly doing something wrong. The bestselling phenomenon, a 2003 mega novel by Nicholas David Roberts based loosely on his own life experiences, is now a ten-episode limited series for Apple TV +, starring Charlie Hunnam. He plays the central role of Lin Ford, an Australian escaped convict and ex-heroin addict who flees to India in the 1980s and gets involved in the lives and struggles of those living in an Indian slum and the violence of the black market, as well as travelling to Africa and Afghanistan. The book was praised for both its epic scope and personal perspective and this ambitious screen adaptation, which has been in the works for years, promises to be a much-anticipated television event.
Shantaram starts streaming on Apple TV + from October 14.
Written by Marie-Claire Chappet for Harper’s Bazaar US
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