Must Watch reviews: Lord of the Flies, The Muppet Show, and Betrayal

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

This week, Hayley Campbell and Scott Bryan join Naga Munchetty to review ‘Lord of the Flies’, ‘The Muppet Show’ and ‘Betrayal’.

What do the Must Watch reviewers make of them?

This is a new adaptation of the book, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983. The adaptation is by Jack Thorne, known for The Hack, Best Interests, Toxic Town, Then Barbara Met Alan, and for co-writing Adolescence.

Just like in the books, the cast are mostly between the ages of 10 and 13, with many of them making their acting debut. The four part series follows a set of boys who are trapped on an island following a plane crash, where anarchy is shortly unravelled.

Both Scott and Hayley think Lord of the Flies is a Must Watch.

Scott calls the show a “fantastic adaptation” and “probably some of the most unsettling TV I’ve seen for quite some time.”

“There’s shots where they stay on the characters for just that little bit longer than you ever expect it to.”

He describes this as a “quiet agony because there’s tension as you see organisation turn into anarchy.”

“I found it hypnotic but also devastating simultaneously. It looks at the human condition, the male condition, young male rage, behaviour, class and status and entitlement.”

He says whilst it is “tense and cinematic” it “doesn’t feel pretentious”.

“For me it is a Must Watch. This is a very unsettling piece of TV, but it should be, and that’s the point.”

Hayley says she has “always loved this story".

“It’s basically Jack Thorne rolling around in the swamp of young masculinity again.”

She particularly loves “the relationship between Piggy and Ralph” and finds that Piggy’s character “pulls it back from the brink of pure horror and gives the madness a starker contrast".

“The casting is extraordinary, having none of them annoy me is really rare. They’re amazing and I think so many of these kids will go on to do good things.”

She says the show is “bizarre” and the soundtrack is “jarring and full of choirboys”, she also highlights the “shots of weird animals on the island” and the lighting being “stark”.

“It’s directed by Marc Munden, a director who knows how to build tension and horror and panic. It is basically catnip to me.”

All four episodes of Lord of the Flies are available to watch now on BBC iPlayer.

This is a reboot of The Muppet Show, which is a half-hour special. It’s to mark the 50th anniversary of the show, but it’s also serving as a pilot for a possible whole series in the future. Seth Rogen serves as an executive producer on this one, and the special guest star is Sabrina Carpenter.

Scott and Hayley both think The Muppet Show is a Must Watch.

Scott says, “Who would have thought that one of the best things they could have done is just do The Muppet Show again.”

“They retained the original look and feel. The opening title sequence is exactly the same to the beat. The hairs on the back of my arm were standing on end.”

He says the show is a good opportunity, like Saturday Night Live, to “bring on a big A‑lister to make fun of themselves.”

“Even things you would find annoying, like a laughter track, work here because the original had one.”

He says watching the show made him feel “eight again”.

Hayley says, “it feels like The Muppet Show made by people who understood what was good about The Muppet Show.”

“They’ve rebooted it, but they haven’t changed anything. It’s traditional, corny in a good way, and deeply old‑fashioned.”

She finds it has “sex jokes that fly above the radar of any kid watching it” and “Statler and Waldorf hating it".

“This is all I want from The Muppet Show.”

Hayley is “not a Sabrina Carpenter fan” but liked the pop star’s “willingness to make fun of herself. She’s up for the chaos.”

“I thought this was great fun.”

The Muppet Show is available to watch on Disney+.

Betrayal is a four part series on ITV, starring Shaun Evans. In this, he’s an MI5 officer struggling in his job and his marriage. When his latest case goes wrong and a man ends up dead, he meets Mehreen (played by Zahra Ahmadi), an intelligence operative who is tasked with taking over his duties.

Scott and Hayley do not think Betrayal is a Must Watch.

Hayley calls the show a “good watch” rather than a Must Watch but does say it is “way better than usual ITV stuff.”

“The opening scene is him about to apply cream to his haemorrhoids, and later on his wife offers to have a look. I just love the fact that we really are just monkeys sometimes picking at each other.”

She admits the show has the “general crime show clichés” but does think “there are enough human little details in it that lifted it out of what I thought it was going to be.”

“It’s supposed to be an espionage thriller but it’s more in line with the bleak and depressing crime shows that I like to watch.”

Scott says the show didn’t work for him, although he did find the premise “fascinating”.

He finds the protagonist to be “a character that you don’t really want to follow.”

“He’s got anger‑management issues, he makes some really poor decisions and people end up getting killed.”

He says the show feels “quite familiar” in the way it “crosses into talking about domestic life and I feel like I’ve seen those beats on ITV before.”

“I enjoy the fact that it's spinning a bit differently than how ITV dramas normally do. I like the fact that it is really quite sweary and quite dark from the off. That is against your expectations. But unfortunately, it just didn't hook me in.”

All four episodes of Betrayal are now available to watch on ITVX.

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.