What the Must Watch reviewers think: Brave New World, Spitting Image, Agatha and the Midnight Murders

Every week, the Must Watch podcasters review the biggest TV and streaming shows.

This week, Hayley Campbell and Scott Bryan share their thoughts on Sky One's Brave New World, Agatha and the Midnight Murders on Channel 5 and Spitting Image on Britbox. 

Have you been watching any of these shows? What did you think? Leave your comments below...

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Brave New World 

Based on Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel from 1932 and starring Jessica Brown Findlay and Harry Lloyd, Brave New World imagines a utopia were perfection hinges upon control of monogamy and privacy. It's available now on Sky On Demand and NOW TV. 

Scott says: "It puts you on the spot"

"It’s a Must Watch. This was a book from 1932 and they’ve really updated it to incorporate themes that are there in our modern lives. It puts you on the spot about whether you have the influence of direction within your own life and if it’s better to be by yourself or in a happy relationship. I like the look of it, even if it’s not THE stand out show we’ve seen in the last few months, I will certainly keep watching it."

Hayley says: "It's pretty entertaining"

"I liked it, it’s a Must Watch. And I would say stick with it for at least two episodes before you decide whether or not you like it. The first one felt like a Black Mirror episode in that sort of cold sci-fi way where everything is shiny and they're giving you a tour of what their iPads can do. The second one gives it a plot and a heart and stuff starts to happen. It doesn’t go as deeply into the philosophical aspects of the book, but how could it? As a sci-fi TV show it is pretty entertaining."

Agatha and the Midnight Murders

Helen Baxendale and Blake Harrison star in Channel 5's third Christie feature-length drama. Set during the Second World War, a debt-ridden Agatha Christie attempts to sell one of her unpublished manuscripts but an air raid and a mystery get in the way. You can catch up on Agatha and the Midnight Murders on My5.

Scott says: "They could have done it in different parts"

"It’s not a Must Watch but that’s not really down to the plot. This is a TV film so it’s more about the length. It’s just too long and they could have done it in different parts. Any show, no matter how good it is, has to try incredibly hard to keep an audience there for a long time. I remember the days of watching Downton Abbey and thinking who is actually watching this for two hours? It would perhaps work as an afternoon screening as opposed to something that’s on in the evening."

Hayley says: "I thought it was a little too long"

"It’s also not a Must Watch for me. I do like the seed of this story because it’s about Agatha Christie not as a genius storyteller, but as a writer who doesn’t have any money – now that is a world I know all about! The writer of this show, Tom Dalton, found out that in 1940 when Christie was struggling to make ends meet, she wrote a novel where Poirot was killed off. Then she put it in a vault to be published after her death. This story fascinated him – why would she write a novel that would sell brilliantly at a time when she needed money and then not publish it? This whole movie is his fan-fiction answer to why that happened – essentially, a murder mystery got in the way. It’s taking the tropes of an Agatha Christie murder mystery to tell a story about Christie itself. Like Scott, I thought it was a little long."

Spitting Image 

The satirical puppet show from the eighties has been revamped for 2020 to lampoon a new generation of political figures. Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and Dominic Cummings get the treatment, as well as Greta Thunberg and Kanye West. Matt Forde and Debra Stephenson are among the voice cast. 

Hayley says: "It's throwing punches that aren't landing"

“No, it’s not a Must Watch. The big questions we're dealing with here are: is satire valid? And if it is, is Spitting Image any good at it? Yes, satire is always valid. Mockery and ridicule are essential to freedom. Humour is a psychological self-defence mechanism in humans. It’s not that you can’t parody politics right now: people parodied Hitler during the war. Humour should always be allowed because if you have no humour you have no hope. As for whether Spitting Image is any good at it: yes, but at this point in history it doesn't really work for reasons outside of their control.

“The people we have right now, the politicians, have access to us at all times and they can broadcast themselves at all hours of the day on social media, and what they’re saying in itself is so ridiculous that it would take a really good joke to beat it. They themselves are cartoons. In my opinion the punches that Spitting Image is throwing aren’t really landing with enough weight to leave a mark.

“The other thing is a bigger problem to do with satirical shows in general, like ‘Have I Got News For You’ and ‘Mock the Week’. None of this is the show’s fault, it’s to do with the nature of trying to create something timely and to put it out into the world right now. News is moving so fast that by the time it comes onto our TV it feels dated.”

Scott says: "More misses than there are hits"

“It’s a maybe watch. The characters themselves are spot on, there’s Jacinda Ardern the Prime Minister of New Zealand, there’s Dominic Cummings, there’s Sir Keir Starmer and a hundred others. The reason why they’ve gone viral is because of that attention to detail.

“The jokes are so uneven though - I think some of the sketches are far too long. There’s one with Trump and Mike Pence in a bunker and it just lasts forever! Sketch shows throughout time have always had those hit and misses but it feels that there are more misses than there are hits.

“I would give a show like this a chance if it was popping up on ITV every week - but with this sort of satire, I don’t think people will stick around on a streaming service if it doesn’t hit the mark straight away.”

Must Watch is released as a podcast every Monday evening from BBC Sounds, or through your podcast app.

This week, the team speak to Harry Lloyd about 'Brave New World' on Sky One and Blake Harrison about Channel 5's 'Agatha and the Midnight Murders.' 

Click here to listen to the latest episode.