Fine writing enables brilliant performances right across the board, not least from Worthington and a deeply unsettling Rory Culkin as Lafferty brother Samuel. A must-see.

Moonhaven ★★★
AMC+, from July 7

Well, the future sure took a strange turn. It seems we decided the best way to address our impending environmental catastrophe and other problems was to send artificial intelligence to the moon to think up solutions. That AI would be supported by colonists who would terraform part of the surface into a leafy forest idyll. The colonists’ descendants would live like hobbits in a cult-like hippie society isolated from the people of Earth, who they would study like insects from afar.

Now, a century later, the AI has everything figured out and it’s time to deliver all the answers to Earth. Trouble is, there’s been a murder, and the lunar detectives (Dominic Monaghan and Kadeem Hardison) aren’t great at investigating crimes because they never really have any. A spiky earthling freighter pilot (Emma McDonald) is soon caught in the middle of things, and it seems that certain interests might not want Earth to get fixed.

The world-building by series creator and showrunner Peter Ocko is fascinating, as is Monaghan’s most unusual character. The thriller element isn’t immediately that thrilling.

Nude Tuesday
Stan, from July 7*

It’s mad and it works: a comedy in which the actors speak complete gibberish, with different comedians writing different subtitles to create different films. Damon Herriman and Jackie van Beek are an unhappy couple going on a group retreat with a sex guru played by Jemaine Clement. Fiendish Brit Julia Davis comes out strong with subtitles focused on the trouser area; Celia Pacquola and Ronny Chieng have a different take and a different ending. There’s also a version without subtitles so you can improvise with family and friends.

The Secrets She Keeps
Paramount+, new season from Tuesday, July 12

The acclaimed Australian psychological thriller series returns with Jessica De Gouw and Downton Abbey’s Laura Carmichael in fine form. This second season, though, isn’t initially as assured as the first. It’s a bit Wentworth, with baby snatcher Agatha (Carmichael) in prison. Meghan (De Gouw) has her kid back but is being harassed by a student podcaster (Miranda Frangou) who seems just as much of a sociopath as Agatha. Michael Dorman leaves a big hole, but Todd Lasance does a fine job taking over the role of Meghan’s husband, Jack.

The Lazarus Project
Stan

This intelligent, imaginative sci-fi thriller series sets itself apart with complex, believable characters and dashes of incidental low-key humour that emerge organically from them. It’s a fresh new take on the old Groundhog Day thing. British app developer George (Paapa Essiedu) finds himself caught in a six-month time loop. He’s soon recruited into a secret outfit that uses a quirk of space-time to revert the whole planet to an earlier “save point” whenever there’s a civilisation-ending plague or nuclear war. People are flawed, though.

Web of Make Believe
Netflix

The internet has opened up many new avenues for human awfulness. Take the practice of swatting – using untraceable phone-call technology to trick heavily armed police into breaking down the doors of people who irritate you online. This hugely compelling American documentary series begins with the story of the fatal swatting of an unsuspecting man in Wichita, Kansas. Other episodes expose such things as the workings of online white supremacist communities and the extortion of women and girls tricked into giving criminals nude photos of themselves.

* Stan is owned by Nine, the owner of this masthead.

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