In a different life, I would be a world-renowned professor of TV and give lectures on the influence of The Way We Were on the Gilmore Girls. However, in this life, all I have is this humble blog with which to share my exciting TV insights and opinions. So here are three of my current favourite TV shows:

Unforgotten

This may be the best TV show I have watched in the last year. It is a cold case crime drama and focuses on people more than the police investigation. All the suspects have a deep dark secret that they have been hiding for years, but the secret is not necessarily directly connected to the murder. I love any drama that’s about deep dark secrets. The idea that someone knows something is what makes famous cold cases so compelling and yet so frustrating. We know that there are people living today who know the truth, we just don’t know who they are. Unforgotten is about people who have done their best to hide their secrets only to have them come out as part of a murder case.

The detectives are played by Nicola Walker and Sanjeev Bhaskar, and I really appreciate how compassionate and human they are. There are no traditional macho police characters in sight. And this is not the kind of show that’s about dead women with gratuitous shots of naked female corpses, so far only 1 season out of 3 has been about the murder of a young woman.

There are too many good things about Unforgotten to list so just get on and watch it!

Seasons 1 and 2 are available on Netflix and ITV hub, and Season 3 is currently going out on ITV on Sunday nights (and you can catch up on ITV hub!)

Dietland

Dietland is an angry show for a terrifying time. It’s part story of self-discovery and enlightenment, and part feminist revenge fantasy. 

Plum Kettle is a fat woman planning stomach bypass surgery so that she can be thin, and her real life can begin. She lives a small life, working from home and only leaving her apartment to attend weight loss meetings or visit a local café. Then one day she meets a young woman named Leta and everything changes.

Oh and there’s a feminist terrorist group killing rapists and dropping them from the sky…

Just watch it! Dietland is not perfect, but it’s just what I need when I am despairing of the world. Joy Nash is spectacular as Plum. Watch it and then follow Joy on Instagram so that you can gaze upon her beauty.

Dietland is available on Amazon Prime.

Keeping Faith

This is a bit of a wildcard because I’ve not watched a lot of this yet and I’m not sure what I think.

Faith is a solicitor on maternity leave, seemingly happily married with three children and living in Wales. One day her husband disappears on his way to work, and she starts to try and work out what has happened.

Keeping Faith was originally on BBC Wales, but it was a bit of a word-of-mouth sensation, and people all over the UK watched it on iplayer. Now they are airing it on BBC One for people like me who missed out on it the first time around.

This is being shown on Thursdays on BBC One and the rest is available on BBC iplayer