Foreign.

Welcome to Binge Watch, the podcast where we take a look at the hottest new TV and film releases on streaming television platforms.

I'm Hannah Fernando, the group editor of Woman and Woman and Home magazine.

And I'm Ian McEwan, writer on TV and Satellite Week, TV Times, what's on TV whattowatch.com and today we're looking at the new releases that will be available on Friday 27 June 2025, including Taran Egerton and Jumi Smollett in the hunt for two Pyromaniacs in the Apple TV thriller series Smoke and Toilet Trouble.

Yes.

At Sea in the Netflix documentary Trainwreck Poop Cruise.

Honestly, the levels we go to.

And we'll also be checking out Jordan Grey's new comedy transaction on ITV2.

And Netflix action thriller series Countdown, starring Supernatural's Jensen Ackles.

But first, Ian, what is in the news?

MGM +1980s set crime drama the Westies will star the brilliant J.K.

simmons as the head of a brutal Irish American gang in New York City's Hell's Kitchen.

What else is in the news, Hannah?

Well, on Apple TV, there will be the film Being a Human.

It's based on the memoir of Judy Heumann.

Ruth Madeley will play the disability rights activist who led a sit in protest in San Francisco in 1977.

Good stuff.

Well, if there is a theme this week, and who's to say, perhaps it's people who are a little bit unlikable.

Ponder on that.

So we're going to start on Prime Video with a new action thriller series called Countdown.

And here's a clip.

You are the best or I would not have selected you.

Our mission could prevent another 9 11.

Foreign player was planning a Chernobyl level of battle here in Los Angeles.

Nobody can know what we're working on.

You've done a few undercover runs.

Yeah.

Oh, the Indran's about improv.

You almost shot me.

Yeah, but I didn't.

So this is from the creator of Chicago Fire, which has spin offs all about the emergency services.

The drama set in Chicago, it's basically about a kind of a crack team brought together to avert a terrorist threat.

Okay.

And it stars Jensen Ackles, who you may know from Supernatural or from that excellent subversive superhero series the Boys, which is also on Prime.

So, yeah, each member of the team comes from a kind of different area of law enforcement and so they're bringing their own specialisms, but they've been brought together very quickly and they've got to learn how to work together.

And they're brought together by Special Agent Nathan Blythe, played by Eric Dane.

Grey's Anatomy.

Yeah.

So the main man, I guess is this Detective Mark Meacham, played by Ackles.

When we meet him, he's undercover in a prison.

Yeah.

And he's a right Burke, to be honest.

He's really annoying, really annoying character.

Very kind of cocky and arrogant and he clashes in a rather forced, bantering way with this undercover DEA agent called Amber.

Yeah.

Then you got some other bods.

You've got a graduate from the FBI academy who's kind of a techie whiz.

You got somebody who works in lapd, gangs and narcotics.

You've also got a terrorism expert.

So yeah, there's plenty of action.

It felt a little bit, kind of, a little bit kind of old fashioned to me really.

I felt the characterization was a bit broad, some of the dialogue wasn't that great.

But it's entertaining enough.

I suppose to a degree.

It depends on how you react to Meacham, the character.

Detective Meacham, who I just found him really annoying.

And I didn't really believe the kind of relationships either.

But hey, it's, it's entertaining enough and oh, I, I've got a feeling there could be one of those will they, won't they bickering relationships at work here.

And anyway, what did you think?

He's really annoying, isn't he?

Really, really very annoying.

Do you know what?

I think it started out quite well.

I quite liked it.

You know, this is quite Pacey and I thought, you know, this is going to go somewhere and obviously given the subject matter and our current climate, I don't know, it kind of resonates a bit, that whole kind of terrorist threat.

And it is pretty action packed.

But like you say, it lives and dies a little bit really with the, with the main characters and you know that Detective Mark Meacham is just really irritating.

And I couldn't decide whether it was the way he played the cop, whether it was the script or whether it was just him.

I couldn't kind of work out what it was, but it just.

And I think once he annoys you, you of check out.

So yeah, I.

Not, not great for me.

Have I told you about my new acronym that I've invented?

No, but please do.

GAB Grade A Burke.

Okay, I shall note that down for future.

Well, we're going to move across to Apple TV plus for our next offering.

It's another series.

It's called Smoke and here's a clip.

I've been told I have two serial arsonists working this area.

No significant leads on either.

Why send you?

You don't know anything about arson.

Yeah, but I know a ton about crime scene analysis.

Yes.

So this is based on a true story of a serial arsonist and who caused no end of destruction in California in the 80s and 90s.

And in true Apple TV plus form, this is completely slick, in my opinion.

It's been created by Shutter island and Gone, Baby Gone writer Dennis Lehane.

And I think the script, unlike the last one, really was very good.

I found it is slick.

It's attention to detail is phenomenal.

And as you'd imagine, it's all about fire.

And I don't know about you, Ian, but there are.

Sometimes it's so.

You're so drawn into something that.

That fire crackling, the fire kind of mirroring people's eyes.

You feel hot watching it.

You feel like your heart's racing.

And this follows the story of this really quite charismatic, very pleasant to the eye chap called Dave Goodson.

And he quit firefighting, and he's now an arson investigator.

But he's kind of.

It's a fictional town that they're in, in America's Pacific Northwest.

And he is a really confident exterior.

He's really sort of verging on arrogance, I would say, in places.

But he's haunted by what he's seen before, you know, being trapped in burning houses.

I mean, we hear all the time about firemen, fire women, losing their lives, trying to put out fires, because, of course, it's not discriminatory, is it?

Fire, it just comes for you and at you and never more.

Do you feel like that watching this?

And his unique skills of kind of understanding arson attacks and trying to stop them are called upon because these two arsonists start to terrorize the local area where he is.

And it's really quite frightening.

I mean, it really is quite frightening.

There's multiple fires everywhere.

One of them does that so that they can kind of escape.

These two arsonists have different ways of setting things on fire, but equally destructive.

And, you know, they.

They want to stop it before someone gets seriously hurt.

And this is when you kind of meet this very ambitious but trouble, troubled detective, Michelle Calderone.

And she sent to help Dave, and he's quite unimpressed.

And I go back to that point of him being a bit arrogant.

I can do this.

But she hasn't got any arson experience.

She doesn't understand what he does about fire.

But she is a really Brilliant investigator.

And the heat intensifies between them as well during this.

And I think at one point there's a quote where she says, or the narrator says something about the truth will be found in the ashes or it's on the ground and she has to find out who these people are that are setting fire to absolutely everything.

It's really captivating.

It's really different and literally has the kind of star wattage you'd expect from Apple TV plus in terms of its production.

Did you enjoy it, Ian?

I thought it was very good.

So, yes.

Taron Edgerton, or is it Egerton?

I don't know.

He was brilliant as Elton John in Rocket man, wasn't he?

So he's the main man.

And you have Jimmy Smollett from True Blood plays Michelle.

They're a good duo, but it's directed with incredible panache.

I must say it looks fantastic.

Especially the sequences with the.

Remember when Backdraft came out about firefighters, that film, and people thought they'd never seen fire portrayed.

This is another giant leap forward.

It's incredibly well done, as you say.

Yeah, great dialogue, good characterization.

I didn't recognize him.

But Rafe Spall plays this police captain who had been having a relationship with Michelle, but it kind of ended and then he's punished her by sending her to do this fire investigation job.

So, yeah, I was completely drawn in.

You do have to pay attention because there's a lot going on.

But yeah, top quality with a great cast.

Over on Netflix, we have a new one off documentary called Trainwreck Poop Cruise.

And here's a clip.

More than 4,000 people are stuck on a cruise ship that is dead in the water.

That's when all of us were like, what the.

When power goes.

Knocked it everything out.

It was immediately crisis mode.

The toilets weren't working.

Well, we can do a number one in the shower and then I'm telling you, it got bad fast.

I would never expect having to poop in a red bag.

Oh, no.

Well, the title says it all, doesn't it?

So Trainwreck is a sort of anthology documentary series, which you may have seen some of them already.

They're about kind of about things that go horrifically wrong.

There's been a couple about music festivals, I think, and there was a recent one about a politician, a Canadian politician, he was caught smoking crystal meth.

But this one is, I guess, is kind of a little bit more light hearted.

And yeah, as the title suggests, it's about a cruise which goes dramatically awry.

And yeah, sewage is heavily involved.

It's about this Triumph cruise ship.

It's one of those absolutely ginormous cruise ships with so many stories and thousands of people on board.

I mean, it's not my idea of hell, but anyway, the engine catches fire and you see smoke kind of pouring out of the funnel and then the power supply fails.

So there's no light, there's no power, and they're just kind of drifting and they can't use the toilets.

So there's testimony from a lot of passengers who are on the cruise and some of the staff.

The staff are very good value and quite amusing, but the passengers are a right shower, really.

I mean, I know it was bad that they were kind of stranded for five days and they had to poo into kind of bags, but, you know, it's not a total disaster.

If anything, it's just quite an amusing story.

But some of the people seem to be taking it, you know, very seriously as a kind of trauma.

So there's some good characters, there's.

There's one member, a Russian member of staff who kind of says, well, this is what it was like in Soviet Russia, you know, so why is everyone making a big deal of it?

And there's a sort of no nonsense, Northern English crew member who is good value as well.

And some of the, some of the passengers.

Hilarious.

So there's sort of a bachelorette party of girls who only seem kind of interested in where they can get their next cocktail.

And yeah, there's a really annoying guy who.

He's on the cruise for the first time with his prospective in laws and he's just.

He's very annoying.

So some of them, he thought, I'm kind of glad that you went through this in a funny way, but it's.

Yeah.

And there's also a chef who is.

Who is great value as well, who describes trying to use one of the toilets when people were still using them even though they weren't working.

And he said it was like insert word here, lasagna, because it was like feces, toilet paper feces, just right up to the brim.

So, yeah, it's pretty grim stuff.

But nonetheless, as you know, people going through slightly amusing but very uncomfortable experiences often is.

Yeah.

Entertaining, perhaps in the wrong way.

So, yeah, I would recommend these, these train wreck, the one about the mayor of Toronto, which I just watched this week.

Yeah, it's pretty good.

And then the two about the music festivals are compelling as well.

So.

Yes, yeah, quite, quite, quite different.

Hannah, did you like this?

Do you like cruises?

I Can't think of anything worse than a cruise.

I mean, the idea of being stuck on something with a load of people I don't know, or having to queue or imagine if the weather's bad and you'll have to sit inside.

What do you do?

Just drink and play cards?

I mean, I'm sure it's not like that.

I'm sure a cruise is amazing, but it's just not for me.

And then this happening.

I mean, you are right, there's a lot of badly behaved people on here, but I genuinely can't imagine how I would behave.

Would I be stoic and, you know, it's one of those things.

Come on, guys.

Or perhaps they didn't know it was only going to last five days.

Or, you know, I don't know, the idea of, you know, number ones being able to be done in the shower and number twos to be done in the red biohazard bags that you, you know, you.

That were being distributed around the ship and then you just pop outside for some, you know, unnamed staff member to come and pick up of which they were not interviewed for this, were they?

Of course.

But it seems that in the, in the, in the time that's gone since that happening and now people seem really have, like, almost PTSD from it, don't they?

It's really.

It was really bad.

I mean, perhaps the.

I mean, as you say, worse things happen at sea.

See what I did there?

But.

But I don't know.

I'm not so sure it's.

It's okay to watch.

I'm not sure it's something that I would want to watch again.

Okay, well, we need a bit of light relief after all that, I think.

So we're going to guess it in the fourth form of a new comedy on ITVX called Transaction.

And here's a clip.

Welcome to the night shift.

Rest assured, we here at Pellets are.

A fully inclusive workforce.

Simon wants to wheel me out like.

A prized transgender ham.

I mean, how much more diverse does this place want to be?

We look like the setup to a.

Joke that would get you uninvited to Christmas dinner.

We want you to be as loud.

And as proud as you like.

Olivia, promise me you're going to follow the rules.

Unexpected item in bagging area.

Yes, we do need some night entertainment and this certainly provides it.

This is kind of a bit like, you know, this sort of office type vibe.

I suppose that's exactly what this has around it.

I.

I guess that awkwardness of a boss and that kind of the stuff he shouldn't be saying and is saying.

Anyway.

Anyway, there's trouble in store for this supermarket chain called Pelux, as you say.

This is on ITV2 and it's called Transaction.

It's newest employee, she causes absolute havoc on, on the night shift.

So they're in trouble this, this chain of stores as Pellocks because they have this new, very ill advised new marketing campaign and the management team are accused of being transphobic.

So the boss, I go back to the office.

Simon, who's played by Mr.

Sloane's Nick Frost, tries to restore Pelux's reputation and hires a transgender woman called Liv, who's played by the comedian Jordan Gray.

And she is very funny, but she quickly realizes that actually she can do whatever she wants to do because the company can't really afford the bad PR if they were to sack her.

So she's a complete egomaniac.

She does whatever she wants.

She doesn't want to be friends with anyone, she doesn't work with anyone.

You know, she's really difficult and what have you.

But it's quite funny and some of the lines are quite funny in it.

But actually, over time you see her warming to her colleagues and becoming a side of her that perhaps you wouldn't, you know, you wouldn't expect to see.

It's a tale of a journey, but it is not peppered because it's more than that.

It is really quite funny.

I think it's something that you need to watch for a little bit.

I think if you just watch the first part, you'll think, I'm not.

This is not really for me.

I think you need to stick with something like this.

And I found it really quite funny.

It was an easy laugh.

What did you think?

Yeah, I quite enjoyed it.

I mean, it's very much Jordan Gray's baby, isn't it?

And she wrote it, created it, stars in it.

And she talks about the fact that, yes, she's deliberately made Liv not a very appealing character.

I mean, she's very selfish and rude and, you know, I kind of feel within the sitcoms with the characters that are quite unlikable, such as David Brent or Basil Fawlsey or Alan Partridge.

In a funny way, we still want them to win.

We want them to win even though they're really pretty obnoxious.

I'm not sure I felt that at this stage about live, but that may change.

It's got plenty of laughs in it.

I sort of felt the premise was rather thin about this ad campaign which says ladyboys get out by mistake.

I didn't really buy into that.

But she's got some great cast in the main.

Nick Frost is terrific as the sort of hapless manager you've got.

Liv's best friend is played by Thomas Gray, who was in Peacock, of course.

And you've got Francesca Mills is very funny.

I mean, she's got real funny bones like Frost as sort of sidekicks.

The manager, Millie.

So, yeah, I mean, and also it's.

It feels like quite a milestone moment to have to have this.

This new comedy all about a transgender woman.

I think it's great.

And this, yeah, there's plenty of laughs in it.

So, yeah, I've enjoyed what I've seen so far.

Well, we've finally got to that time, Hannah, we find out what the hell you've been binge watching.

Well, I had a good binge watch of Panorama and they've done some great stuff recently.

Always do, actually, don't they?

But this was really.

The time just went.

So it was absolutely interesting.

But it was all about health influences and the potential spread of misinformation, and it followed a particular family and it was.

It was incredibly interesting because I think we've all.

We all know somebody.

This is quite extreme, I hasten to add.

So not perhaps this extreme, but we know somebody who maybe doesn't agree with, you know, some of modern medicine, for example, and this is sort of shows how quickly that that might spiral.

Really, really fascinating.

Go and watch it on.

Catch Up.

And for myself, as I mentioned, I watched the train wreck mayor of Mayhem, but also, finally, I missed it in the cinema.

And finally, Saltburn has been shown on the Beeb, so it will be available on the iplayer.

And if you haven't seen it, it's kind of got a bit of sort of Brideshead Revisited type vibe.

So it's this young lad, played by Barry Keegan, who is invited by his Oxbridge friend to go and stay with his family at his stately pile.

And yes, bad things happen, but what a cast.

Me, Keegan, an Oscar winner.

Also Richard E.

Grant, Rosamund Pike.

It's good, but very dark.

Now we've just got time to look ahead to next week's offering.

So what is on the agenda, Brenda?

Well, I can tell you that Neil Gaiman's fantasy drama the Sandman returns for a final season on Netflix.

Yes, been watching season one of that again, and it's top notch.

And a Now TV sports documentary profiles former F1 champion Damon Hill, who was the very first person I ever interviewed for TV times quite a long time ago, so we look forward to those and much, much more.

But in the meantime, dear listeners, keep.

Watch.