What and what not to watch

Miss Lumière's guide to eight of the best and two of the worst on a screen near you ... The not-so idiot box ... Documentaries, drama, politics, sex ... From Lee Miller to Bill Clinton and Jeffrey Epstein ... The human experience in its many shades  

Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich (Netflix)

Good title. And that's just the beginning of the pleasures/horrors presented in this measured examination of just how known paedophile (and all-round sleaze) Jeffrey Epstein got away with it for so long. This well-composed four part series (directed by Lisa Bryant) gives voice to many of Epstein's legion of teenage victims (a "sexual pyramid scheme") and covers police investigations going back to 1996, journalists and employees intimidated or bought off, and lawyers perverting the course of justice. While some questions remain unanswered, Filthy Rich lives up to its name - morally repugnant and rich in detail.  

The Plot Against America (Foxtel)

1940's America, from a Philip Roth novel, with fascism rampant, Charles Lindbergh as president, John Turturro as an unctuous, apologist rabbi and Winona Ryder surprisingly brittle and brilliant as his social-climbing wife. What's not to like? Very little it turns out. This six-part series skewers both an imagined past and the frightening present. Political insanity runs riot, carrying with it Roth's divided New Jersey Jewish family. A chilling satire on all things American. 

Normal People (Stan)

There's nothing normal here, from the sensitively written script to the radiant performances of the two young leads - Daisy Edgar-Jones as poor-little-rich-girl Marianne and Paul Mescal as hunky working class Connell. Normal People, based on the book by Ireland's latest literary sensation Sally Rooney, traces Connell and Marianne's love affair (passionate, tortured, pure and ultimately kind) from high school to the end of university. It's a sometimes-painful rite of passage, full of raw sex, yet utterly romantic. Perfect fare for those who remember what it was like to be young and un-free.

Capturing Lee Miller (YouTube) 

Model, bohemian, surrealist, adventuress, war photographer, victim; the fantastical story of Lee Miller is brought to life in this elegant, probing documentary full of insights from the various worlds she inhabited. Miller moved (not quite seamlessly) from Man Ray's Paris studio to Hitler's Munich bathtub. Along the way she lived a louche life in Cairo and London and documented the horrors of Dachau (for Vogue magazine), which more or less ended her love affair with the still image. Particularly moving is her son, the photographer Antony Penrose, who uncovered his mother's extraordinary life and stunning body of work only after she died. 

Mrs America (Foxtel)

Cate Blanchett has never been more creepily coiffed or coldly determined than as Phyllis Schlafly, the self-appointed moral guardian of American housewives' right to remain stagnant. Set in the sexy seventies, Mrs America centres on the battle to get the Equal Rights Amendment ratified by at least three-quarters of the 50 US states. Mrs Schlafly and her pearl-jammed band of Republican housewives are up against the times - in the shape of glamourpuss feminist Gloria Steinem (a groovy turn by Rose Byrne), Bella Abzug (an hilarious Margot Martindale) and godmother of the "libbers" Betty Friedan (a very angry Tracey Ullman) among others. It's a romp, with enough great music, bad hair, flared trousers and crass politicking to last nine episodes.  

The Capture (ABC iView)

A clever examination of the power of digital surveillance and its employment for vile political ends. Made by the BBC, this contemporary and all too plausible thriller tells the story of a British soldier charged with a war crime. The footage has been manipulated, but by whom, and why? Written and directed by Ben Chanan, The Capture is a rollicking, tense drama that kept Miss Lumière guessing (almost) until the end. With steely cinematography and uniformly fine performances from Callum Turner as the soldier, Holliday Grainger as the detective and Laura Haddock as the barrister.

The Clinton Affair (SBS On Demand)

Six episodes is a long haul for any affair, but this documentary shows that the good 'ole boy from Arkansas had sufficient smarm and grit to make it last. Crisply directed by Blair Foster, The Clinton Affair traverses a landscape littered with sex scandals, financial malfeasance, political skulduggery and insider gossip. The producers have done a fine job trawling through the archival footage and getting so many protagonists (significantly, not the Clintons) to talk. Twenty years after Monica Lewinsky, Whitewater and the Starr investigation, the whole affair seems half-as-grubby and twice as fascinating. 

I Am Not Your Negro (SBS On Demand) 

Featuring the incomparably eloquent black writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin, Raoul Peck's mesmerising 2016 documentary looks at the story of race in America. Baldwin's words (powerfully rendered by Samuel L. Jackson) may be finely honed, but his critique of the mechanics of institutionalised racism is both fierce and lethal. Based on Baldwin's unfinished novel Remember This House, and with stirring archival appearances by Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jnr and Medgar Evers, this is an intelligently crafted look at America's blighted racial politics. 

The Great  (Foxtel) 

Despite its promising credentials (created by The Favourite's co-writer, Tony McNamara) The Great just isn't. It's tedious. And puerile. And unforgivably unfunny for a satire. Russian empress Catherine the Great (a misdirected Elle Fanning) and her spoilt emperor husband Peter (a pantomime Nicolas Hoult) have little more than adolescent slapstick to play with, so overwrought and underwritten is this series. Watch it for the costumes, with the sound off and a big, stiff vodka.

The Eddy   (Netflix)

If it weren't for the occasional thrilling piece of jazz (a special mention to singer Joanna Kulig from Cold War), The Eddy might easily disappear down the streaming gurgler. If only. This inexcusable waste of digitised soap has all the excitement of a late-night visit to McDonald's (in Paris) - with lighting just as bad. A confused French-American co-production that fails narratively and fakes most things, except the music. Not even La La Land's Damien Chazelle can save this chien's breakfast.