With a mix of comedies, dramas, documentaries and thrillers on offer, these acclaimed series from the US, UK, Denmark, Spain and France will have you enthralled.
Shrill
Comedy series Shrill is based on ’s best-selling memoir. Based on her life and times as a “fat” woman navigating her twenties, the show’s writers have also stepped outside West’s personal experience to create the unique lead, Annie Easton, played beautifully by Saturday Night Live’s Aidy Bryant. Annie deals with fat-shaming, an infuriating boss and a drop-kick of a boyfriend while discovering the value of her own voice. English comedian Lolly Adefope plays Annie’s bestie, Fran.
Shrill screens on SBS VICELAND Tuesdays in September at 9.30pm and the entire season is at SBS On Demand.
Whisky Cavalier
This comedy-drama out of the US stars Scott Foley as FBI agent Will Chase (who’s code name is the titular Whisky Cavalier) and Lauren Cohan as CIA operative Frankie Trowbridge (code name: Fiery Tribune). Chase and Trowbridge lead a Prague-based team of spies who traipse around Europe foiling various criminal plots from assassination attempts to world-saving schemes. The ensemble cast are imminently watchable, as are the locations, but this centres on the chemistry between the leads.
Whisky Cavalier is streaming at SBS On Demand from 18 September.
The Crimson Rivers
Based on the best-selling novel by Jean-Christophe Grangé, who is also the creative force behind the show, this gripping French thriller follows detective Pierre Niémans (played by the legendary Olivier Marchal) and his new partner Camille Delauney (Erika Sainte) as they investigate a series of bizarre crimes in remote areas across France. Each case has a touch of the mystical about it, revealing forgotten customs or regional myths.
Season 1 of The Crimson Rivers is streaming at SBS On Demand from 26 September. Here’s the trailer:
Below The Surface
Johannes Lassen is back as chief of Denmark’s Terror Task Force Philip Nørgaard. When June Al-Baqee (Yasmin Mahmoud) shows up to tell him Danish soldiers are illegally fighting in Syria, things escalate rapidly when she’s promptly kidnapped. Nørgaard calls in his comrades S.P. (Alexandre Willaume) and Simon (Peder Thomas Pedersen) to investigate, and in the meantime lands himself on a ferry that’s leaving for Sweden, with Al-Baqee and the kidnappers all on board. How will Nørgaard and Al-Baqee get out of this hostage situation?
Season 2 of Below The Surface is streaming at SBS On Demand from Thursday 5 September. .
The Looming Tower
Written by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Dan Futterman and based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Lawrence Wright, this drama follows members of the FBI’s and CIA’s counterterrorism divisions in the late 1990s as they compete for ownership of information as the threat of Osama Bin Laden rises. While hellbent on preventing an attack on American soil, did their rivalry inadvertently set the path for 9/11? The all-star cast includes Jeff Daniels, Tahar Rahim, Wrenn Schmidt, Peter Sarsgaard and Alec Baldwin.
The Looming Tower is streaming at SBS On Demand from 11 September. Here’s the trailer:
Instinctive Desires
This erotic thriller (titled Instinto in Spain) revolves around successful young businessman Marco Mur (Mario Casas). Rather than form real relationships, he visits a private club for intimate encounters where everyone is wearing masks to maintain anonymity. His traumatic past catches up with him, though, and he’s forced to face it as well as other conflicts in his life.
Instinctive Desires is streaming at SBS On Demand from 19 September. Here’s the trailer:
Spiral
This popular French crime thriller is now into its sixth season. Centring on the lives of the people upholding law and order in Paris, the show follows criminal investigations from the different points of view of those affected. Starring Caroline Proust (Colette une Femme Libre), Audrey Fleurot (The Intouchables) and Thierry Godard (Bastille Day), Spiral is gripping viewing.
Seasons 5 and 6 of Spiral are streaming now at SBS On Demand. Here’s season 6 episode 1:
Let’s Talk About Sex
From the UK comes this four-part documentary in which families have the frankest discussions about sex. Danny Dyer, Miriam Margolyes, Alastair Campbell, London Hughes and Ulrika Jonsson provide answers to the big questions about the birds and the bees, while participants, parents and their teens, look at what sex education tells us and how it’s changed over the years.
Let’s Talk About Sex is streaming at SBS On Demand from 16 September.
Porn Laid Bare
This three-part British documentary from takes six people in their twenties to Spain to explore its sprawling adult film industry. Arriving with different attitudes to pornography, the group meets producers, performers, members of the police force and their informants in one of Europe’s biggest pornography production hubs on their way to discovering who makes porn, how and why they make it, and who makes money from it.
Porn Laid Bare premieres on Friday, 13 September at 9:25pm on SBS VICELAND. The three episodes will stream at SBS On Demand after broadcast.
Riviera
Julia Stiles plays Georgina, a woman whose life of luxury is torn apart when her billionaire husband (Anthony LaPaglia) is killed suddenly, and she suspects, not accidentally. This thriller is intoxicating not just for its glamorous setting, but also for its cast of characters, including Lena Olin, Dimitri Leonidas and Adrian Lester. Who is shady? Who can Georgina trust? Season 2 picks up where the left off.
Double episodes of Riviera air on Thursday nights from 8:30pm on SBS. Catch up on the first two episodes at SBS On Demand:
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