With so many entertainment options, it's easy to miss brilliant TV shows, movies and documentaries. Here are the ones to hit play on, or skip.
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The Crossing
Stan*
Steve Zahn is good at making his jaw hang open while his eyes bug half-way out of his head – which serves him particularly well at the start of this uncommonly thoughtful and imaginative sci-fi series.
Zahn plays Jude Ellis, former Oakland cop turned small-town sheriff and sad dad of a faraway son. His awkward attempt at yoga is interrupted by a report of a body washing up on the beach, but by the time he gets down on the sand there isn't just one body, there are dozens. Soon there are hundreds.
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The 47 survivors claim to be time-travelling refugees from a future America in which a genetically-engineered master race is waging a war of extermination against old-fashioned regular folks like you and me.
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It's a heavy concept, to be sure. But there's more.
What if some of those genetically engineered bad guys have snuck in alongside the refugees? What if other baddies arrived here years ago and have worked themselves into the apparatus of government so that they are now perfectly placed to murder the refugees – and, indeed, the rest of us?
What if some of the refugees are carrying an exotic disease that could wipe out all of humanity in our time?
The whole thing is uncomfortably laden with what might be seen in one way as a reflection of contemporary Western anxieties, and in another as a collection of all of that vile old antisemitic conspiracy nonsense that has suddenly gained such widespread currency.
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That series creators Dan Dworkin and Jay Beattie (producer-writer veterans of Criminal Minds, Revenge and Star Trek: Discovery) give most of the apparent goodies names fresh out of the Tanakh might or might not mean something.
Perhaps the Welsh angle is more significant. Fans of The Terminator will recall that the character sent back from the future to save Sarah Connor's son was named Kyle Reese. So why – given all the anglicised Welsh names in the world – is our new, slightly Terminator-y pal from the future (Kingdom's Natalie Martinez) named Reece?
If that question can be answered it's perhaps only by diving into The Crossing, a series so well cast and so skilfully written that it's hard to imagine that the American ABC network cancelled it after this single season.
Perhaps "mainstream" American audiences just aren't into stories involving refugees, even when most of the refugees are white.
Wanda Sykes: Not Normal
Netflix
The marvellous Wanda Sykes is at the peak of her powers in this new stand-up special, excoriating Donald Trump and the entrenched social inequities of modern America – without ever forgetting to make fun of herself or neglecting to keep the audience in stitches.
The humour is thoughtful, but the physical comedy is brilliant too, not least when Sykes is opining that Tiffany Trump probably doesn't need a secret service detail and could get by with a mall cop on a Segway scooter instead.
The Viking Invasions
Kanopy
Kanopy carries loads of The Great Courses' university-level lecture series, covering everything from mathematics to photography and comparative religion.
Viewers whose interest in history has been piqued by Game of Thrones might want to check out American professor Jennifer Paxton's 36-part series on medieval England.
In The Viking Invasions Paxton explains how the Viking incursions into Anglo-Saxon England grew from bloody small-scale raids to large-scale settlements that would change the face of England forever. Free with a library card from a participating library.
Knock Down the House
Netflix
This absorbing documentary follows Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and three other progressive female Democratic outsiders as they fought shoestring campaigns against well-funded establishment incumbents in Democratic primaries ahead of last year's congressional mid-term elections.
The David-and-Goliath nature of the contests is clear from the outset, as is the motivation and commitment of the women, who feel that establishment Democrats have failed working-class voters on such life-and-death issues as healthcare and industrial pollution.
Only Ocasio-Cortez got through, but the insurgency continues.
Guava Island
Amazon Prime Video
Donald Glover and Rihanna bring us a dark, disturbing Caribbean fairytale that sits somewhere between musical feature film and long-form music video.
In a dilapidated island town, happy-go-lucky musician Deni (Glover) is everybody's friend and a bit of a local celebrity. Deni and his girlfriend, Kofi (Rihanna), might be able to live a small but contented life were it not for tyrannical businessman Red Cargo (Nonso Anozie), who rules the island in Orwellian style and forces everyone to work on his docks and in his factories seven days a week.
Long-time Glover collaborator Hiro Murai – who directed the stunning music video for Glover's song This Is America – is behind the camera once more, and he and Glover treat viewers to a tropical reimagining of the This Is America video staged in a dockside warehouse.
It's one of several musical interludes involving songs Glover recorded as his musical alter-ego, Childish Gambino, and all of them make good use of the film's gritty Cuban locations, many featuring local musical talent. It's something quite different – which you'd expect from Glover.
Just Tattoo of Us
Stan
Reality TV hits a brutal nadir as British friends, relatives and lovers trade mortifying joke tattoos that they will all have to carry around for the rest of their lives.
The tone is established by Northern cousins Lauren, 22, and Sophie, 19, who are best mates but have an uneasy undercurrent to their relationship.
Lauren is highly judgemental of Sophie's sex life – "she thinks of her fanny more than anyone else" – and wants to brand her with a tattoo that will scare men away.
*Stan is owned by Nine, the publisher of this website.