High Country
Binge
There's a new Aussie mystery series to keep you on your toes in High Country.
Leah Purcell (The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart) plays police sergeant Andie Whitford in the Victorian-set series.
She's taken over the top job in the small mountain town from the soon-to-be-retired Sam Dyson (Ian McElhinney, better known as Barristan Selmy from Game of Thrones), and one of her first cases is the disappearance of a Melbourne obstetrician who abandoned his car on the side of the road.
The more time Andie spends looking into the case, and other strange and unexplained disappearances in the region over the past year, the more unanswered questions arise.
And the town is full of secrets and internal politics that Andie is just pulling back the curtain on - the pariah of a former primary school teacher who claims to be psychic but is connected to several serious crimes; the criminal element who shoot deer to steal their antlers; the mysterious artist's retreat called The Farm.
Purcell, of course, continues to be excellent and excels in the lead role.
Episodes are dropping weekly, and there's more than enough questions of interest in the first couple of episodes to keep you tuning in.
3 Body Problem
Netflix
Speaking of Game of Thrones, the folks behind the juggernaut series - creators DB Weiss and David Benioff - are back with another sprawling show in Netflix's new expensive sci-fi 3 Body Problem.
Based on a popular Chinese science fiction novel, the series is difficult to distil in a summary, and seems to grow new layers with every episode.
Basically it follows a group of clever scientists and friends, some secret agent/spy types, and also flashes back to a Chinese woman from the late 1960s into the '70s and '80s, and her journey from the daughter of a slain physicist to a leading thinker.
How these different people intersect becomes clearer as the show progresses. It's best not to reveal too much plot and let the viewer come to it as they watch.
The show is immediately violent and brutal, before asking some (to the layperson anyway) mind-bending intellectual questions.
The cast is exciting and mostly gets to use their native accents, from Benedict Wong (finally allowed to be British) to Eiza Gonzalez, Alex Sharp, Rosalind Chao and Kiwi actress Jess Hong.
Game of Thrones stars Liam Cunnginham, Jonathan Pryce and John Bradley also appear.
Shirley
Netflix
A thorough understanding of the American political system will certainly improve your enjoyment of this biopic.
Oscar-winner Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk) plays former presidential candidate Shirley Chisolm as she attempts to shake up the system from within.
As a woman, and a black woman at that, in politics in the 1970s, Chisolm was barely given the time of day and treated far from equally by her peers, but she was determined to enact positive change - when someone said something couldn't be done, she simply refused to accept it.
The film co-stars fellow Oscar nominees Terrence Howard and Lucas Hedges as well as Lance Reddick and Andre Holland.
King, also a producer, delivers a fine performance and the film is decent if not overly exciting.
What it lacks in telling the story in a fresh or unique way, it makes up for in Chisolm's inspiring approach to politicking, portrayed wonderfully by King.
