Listener’s July viewing guide

Upstairs, downstairs

The amusing double act that Michael Sheen and David Tennant brought to pandemic lockdown zoom-camera comedy Staged, in which they played themselves, actually started in 2019 on Good Omens. The occult comedy series was based on a bestseller co-written by Neil Gaiman and the late Terry Pratchett. The second season goes beyond the book and returns the immortal angel and demon mates to their lives among London’s mortals in contemporary Soho where the fussy Aziraphale (Sheen) runs a rare-books shop and Crowley (Tennant) hangs out with his only friend. Having ended with the pair preventing the end of days in the previous season, the new series – co-written by Gaiman – begins with Archangel Gabriel (Jon Hamm) turning up at the shop suffering from amnesia. The duo must hide him from their former employers in heaven and hell and try to avert another war between them.

Streaming: Amazon Prime from Friday July 28

Heroes & villains

The history of DC, the original comic-book superpower, gets a three-part television documentary treatment with 60 or so interviewees helping chart the brand’s roller-coaster ride through pop culture, publishing and screen production over the best part of a century. It has the feel of an officially sanctioned history and one that is pointedly reclaiming some kudos from rivals Marvel. The now-ubiquitous “multiverse” thing in mainly Marvel movies? DC invented that so long ago it killed it off and started again. Many of DC’s creative geniuses are long gone, but ample time is still given to many – and to the controversies over credit for who created what, something given short shrift in the recent Disney+ doco about Marvel figurehead Stan Lee. The second episode also reminds us that Christopher Reeve will always be the best screen Superman too.

Streaming: Neon/Sky Go from July 27

Freaky future fender benders

We’ve had videogame-based television shows of Halo and The Last of Us and now it’s the turn of Twisted Metal, the post-apocalyptic demolition derby that first appeared on

PlayStation way back in 1995 with a last update arriving in 2012. It was basically Mad Max given the arcade treatment. A planned movie fell apart a few years ago but Sony has produced a series for US streamer Peacock starring Anthony Mackie (The Falcon and The Winter Soldier), Neve Campbell and Thomas Haden Church. The game’s clown-masked trademark villain Sweet Tooth (he drives an ice-cream truck) is a combination of wrestler Samoa Joe with the voice of Lego Batman himself Will Arnett. The trailer suggests it has a sense of humour – violent slapstick with plenty of quips – akin to Deadpool or Peacemaker. It’s aimed at a demographic who grew up on the game and may have wondered who the heck was driving those other missile-armed cars.