Must Watch reviews: The Beast in Me, The Death of Bunny Munro, and Wild Cherry

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

This week, Scott Bryan and Hayley Campbell join Naga Munchetty to review ‘The Beast in Me’, ‘The Death of Bunny Munro’ and ‘Wild Cherry’.

What do the Must Watch reviewers make of them?

It’s a psychological thriller and one of the top shows on Netflix this week. Claire Danes stars as Aggie Wiggs, an author struggling to write her new book, and Matthew Rhys plays Nile Jarvis, the son of a real estate magnate who moves in next door to Aggie to hide out with his second wife, after he allegedly killed his first.

Scott and Hayley both think that The Beast in Me is a Must Watch.

Scott says this is because “it has a great central mystery about a writer stuck with writer’s block and grieving the loss of her son.”

“She becomes interested in her neighbour, who’s tied to a missing person’s case. It sets up this elaborate cat-and-mouse game.”

“You’re never really able to work out the character’s true intentions. I found the realism and the way it looks very compelling.”

He calls the show “a very solid Netflix thriller… I haven’t seen a good one for quite a while and this is the first I’d recommend.”

Hayley says she’s “having great fun” with the show.

“I liked that in the beginning it had this interesting ethics in journalism stuff going on… it starts there but then gets increasingly silly, and I don’t care because I’m so invested.”

She describes actor Matthew Rhys as “the right level of creepy”, adding that “he even eats chicken in a creepy way.”

“Claire Danes always seems like she’s on the brink of either screaming or crying. I think this is the perfect show to binge when it’s freezing outside.”

All episodes of The Beast In Me are available to watch on Netflix.

Starring Matt Smith, the six parter is an adaptation of the 2009 Nick Cave novel about a door-to-door salesman and lothario whose life falls apart after his wife dies, resulting in an increasingly bizarre road trip around Brighton with his son.
The screenplay has been written by the BAFTA Award winning writer Pete Jackson, behind Somewhere Boy, and Nick Cave also performs the opening theme.

Hayley gives the show “two thumbs up” and had been anticipating it after she read the novel when it first came out.

“Matt Smith gets the tone right. He’s this selfish man spiralling out of control, struggling with grief and suddenly having to look after his son."

“The kid who plays the son, Rafael Mathé, is brilliant. I think he’ll make you cry.”

She says she loves that the women in the show are “interesting middle-aged character actresses… it’s a story about a misogynistic man and his son, but the women don’t fade into the background.”

Scott agrees that the show is a Must Watch and says that the titular character Bunny, played by Matt Smith, “couldn’t be any worse” and is “probably one of the most awful people I’ve seen on TV this year, and that includes reality television.”

“You then try to work out why they are the way they are. I find it just a fascinating character profile.”

He thinks that the setting of Brighton is “like a character in itself, set just after West Pier burnt down, giving this ominous dark feeling.”

“It has some really dark but also really quite funny moments. It’s unlike anything on TV at the moment.”

The Death of Bunny Munro debuts on Sky and the streaming service NOW on Thursday 20th November and will also air this Thursday at 9pm on Sky Atlantic.

Created, written, produced and co-starring Nicôle Lecky who was behind the BAFTA award-winning series Mood, the drama takes us into a very affluent neighbourhood and a private school and follows the peer and social media pressure between a set of schoolmates. After two of them are accused by the school of making a lewd video, parents Juliet (Eve Best) and Lorna (Carmen Ejogo) are roped in to find out what's happened.

Scott says Wild Cherry “isn’t a Must Watch” but can see what the show “is trying to do.”

“Nicôle Lecky wanted to look into social media pressures that a lot of young women are facing.”

He described the show as “strange in that it felt a bit British and American simultaneously. It kept doing this sort of glowy thing in which it felt like you’ve got margarine smeared on the lens.”

“It doesn’t really have any likeable characters. Every single person has their soul eroded in one way or another, so you don’t really root for them.”

“There’s a central mystery, but I didn’t feel invested enough to find out why or what was responsible for it. It has its heart in the right place, but it just didn’t work for me.”

Hayley says she “didn’t like this one at all”, adding “I was kind of surprised it was on BBC One because it feels like a Netflix show to me.”

“It felt like a British attempt at doing Euphoria or Gossip Girl. But it’s almost like a surface-level attempt at what those shows were getting into.”

She finds the acting and the dialogue “very cringe” and says that “there were lots of shots of posh houses to remind us we’re dealing with very rich people, but none of it rang true.”

“It was just person after person looking at their phone. I know that’s what we’re like now, but it’s a hard thing to watch. I found it agonising.”

All episodes of Wild Cherry are available to watch on BBC iPlayer with the second episode airing on BBC One this Saturday 22nd November at 9pm.

Listen to the full reviews of all three programmes on BBC Sounds.

But before all that, why not contact Scott and Hayley with the shows you’ve been loving, loathing or both on mustwatch@bbc.co.uk.

We used AI to transcribe and summarise our Must Watch feature. This article was then written and reviewed by a BBC journalist. More on how the BBC uses AI.