James R | On 08, May 2019

Netflix. Amazon Prime Video. BBC iPlayer. NOW. Walter Presents. There’s so much TV to watch these days in so many places that it can be hard to keep up. Every month, we boil down what’s on the box to the essentials you need in your streaming queue.

May may still be dominated by weekly episodes of Game of Thrones, but the battle for viewers’ attention is only just getting started, with everyone else bringing out some of their biggest guns – from Amazon’s Good Omens, BBC’s What We Do in the Shadows and Sky and HBO’s Chernobyl to the return of Lucifer and, perhaps most exciting of all, the return of Shane Meadows with a new Channel 4 series.

We’ve sorted through All The TV to bring you your May watchlist – what’s worth watching, why and where you can find it online in the UK:

Taskmaster: Season 8

The double BAFTA nominated and Broadcast Award winning UKTV Original series Taskmaster returns to Dave and welcomes a new group of candidates placing themselves at the mercy of Taskmaster tyrant Greg Davies, and the scrutiny of stats keeper and skivvy Little Alex Horne. Risking life, limb, and dignity in the hope of making the Taskmaster proud are BAFTA winning comedian Iain Stirling (Love Island, Host of Dog Ate My Homework), actor and writer Joe Thomas (Inbetweeners, Fresh Meat), acclaimed stand-up Lou Sanders (8 Out of 10 Cats, Sick of It), comedian and champion quizzer Paul Sinha (The Chase, Tonight At The Palladium), and BAFTA winning actor Sian Gibson (Peter Kay’s Car Share, Murder On the Blackpool Express). Expect hilarious things.

Lucifer: Season 4

The once-cancelled series returns, as Netflix resurrects the unlikely crime drama starring Tom Ellis the Devil himself, who has gotten bored of Hell and instead retired to Los Angeles to run a nightclub – and help LAPD detective Chloe Decker solve murders around the city. As Chloe struggles to come to terms with Lucifer’s disturbing revelation, Season 4 sees a rogue priest set out to stop a long-rumoured prophecy.

Chernobyl

Chronicling the real-life events of one of the worst man-made disasters in history, Sky’s skin-crawling thriller sees Mad Men’s Jared Harris team up with Red Dragon’s Emily Watson in a race to get to the bottom of the tragic incident. The miniseries follows the disaster from the very beginning, the sacrifices made to save Europe from unimaginable disaster and the community caught up in between.

Tuca & Bertie

Tiffany Haddish and Ali Wong star in this adult animated comedy from BoJack Horseman’s creators, which follows two bird women – a carefree toucan and anxious songbird – who live in the same apartment building and share their lives.

Dead to Me

Christina Applegate, Linda Cardellini and James Marsden star in Netflix’s dark comedy about a powerful friendship that blossoms between a tightly wound widow and a free spirit with a shocking secret.

iZombie: Season 5

The CW’s hugely enjoyable crime-solving comedy/drama about a zombie who works at a coroner’s office returns for its fifth and final season.

Sneaky Pete: Season 3

Amazon’s twisting, entertaining drama about a con man who gets out of prison and assumes the identity of his cellmate, Pete, returns for a third run.

The Society

When everyone else mysteriously vanishes from their wealthy town, the teen residents of West Ham must forge their own society to survive in Netflix’s new drama, inspired by Lord of the Flies.

Easy: Season 3

Diverse characters fumble through the modern maze of love, sex, technology and culture in Chicago in the final season of Joe Swanberg’s remarkable anthology series.

Mary Kills People

This dark, provocative drama follows Dr. Mary Harris (Caroline Dhavernas), an overworked single mother and ER doctor, who lives a double life helping terminally ill patients with assisted deaths. So far Mary has managed to stay under the radar but her double life is getting complicated. When her world starts to unravel, Mary realizes she’s going to have to fight dirty if she’s going to stay in the killing game. Also starring in the series are Jay Ryan as Joel, one of Mary’s terminally ill clients, but a mutual attraction blurs the lines of their doctor-patient relationship; and Richard Short as Des, Mary’s trusted partner in crime.

Eurovision

It’s finally here. The world’s biggest music competition returns this May as the Eurovision Song Contest is broadcast live on BBC One from Tel Aviv. Michael Rice was chosen to represent the United Kingdom after winning the public vote in Eurovision: You Decide. Michael will head to Tel Aviv to perform his power ballad Bigger Than Us – and, like last year, the result will be decided for 50% by you, the public, and for 50% by a group of music industry professionals. While we get through to the final automatically, don’t miss extra entries trying to break through the semi-finals on BBC Four at 8pm on Tuesday 14th May and Thursday 16th May.

Years and Years

Years and Years, by Russell T Davies, is an epic saga that takes an ordinary family and catapults them through the next 15 years. As society changes, faster than ever, the Lyons will experience everything we hope for in the future, and everything we fear. They’ll fall in and out of love and grow old, fall apart and come back together, while constantly looking forward.

Each episode propels us a year or two ahead, following the lives of Daniel (Russell Tovey), Stephen (Rory Kinnear) and his wife Celeste (T’Nia Miller), sisters Rosie (Ruth Madeley) and Edith (Jessica Hynes), Gran Muriel (Anne Reid) and the family’s children, as they navigate a world made unstable by politics, the economy and technological advances.

The Virtues

Tackling themes of repressed memory, apocalyptic revenge and the hope of redemption, Shane Meadows’ new series stars Stephen Graham as Joseph, a barely on-the-wagon alcoholic whose precarious reality is knocked for six when his ex-partner moves abroad with their young son, from Liverpool to Australia, for a better life.

Sliced

Dave’s original comedies continue to impress, and this latest is a welcome change to the norm, as it follows the hustle and bustle of a low rent, backstreet pizza parlour. Through delivery riders Joshua (BAFTA nominee Samson Kayo) and Ricky’s (Theo Barklem Biggs) shifts, it’s a world of counterfeit money, vindictive call centre staff, hopeless security guards, hedonistic pensioners and aggressive teens. Three three episodes air on consecutive nights.

Mum: Season 3

BBC Two’s bittersweet, profound comedy, starring Lesley Manville and Peter Mullan, returns for a third and final season. The six-episode run kicks off as Cathy and her family arrive in the countryside to celebrate Derek’s birthday. Michael arrives too, which Jason finds troubling. Seasons 1 and 2 are on BBC iPlayer as box sets – don’t miss any of them.

The Rain: Season 2

Trapped in the Zone, Simone and her friends must find a cure for the virus Rasmus is carrying before it kills him – and the rest of humanity.

What We Do in the Shadows

From executive producers Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords), Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok) and Paul Simms (Atlanta) with Academy award-winner Scott Rudin, the comedy is based on the feature film by Waititi made in 2014. The 10-episode series will take place in New York City and follows three vampires who have been roommates for hundreds and hundreds of years trying to cope in the modern world. It stars BAFTA winner Matt Berry, Kayvan Novak, Natasia Demetriou, Harvey Guillen and Mark Proksch.

Gentleman Jack

Suranne Jones stars in Sally Wainwright’s eight-part love story about Anne Lister, who’s on a mission to marry a seriously wealthy woman. In West Yorkshire. In 1832. Set in the complex, changing world of Halifax – the cradle of the industrial revolution – we see Anne return to the town, after years of exotic travel, determined to transform the fate of her faded ancestral home, Shibden Hall. Jones is joined by Katherine Kelly, Sophie Rundle, Sofie Gråbøl, Gemma Whelan, Timothy West and Gemma Jones.

Hatton Garden

The most spectacular British crime of the decade has been dramatised by acclaimed BAFTA winning screenwriter Jeff Pope. Hatton Garden depicts the audacious jewellery, gold and cash burglary at the heart of London’s diamond district executed by an elderly gang of career criminals across the Easter Bank Holiday weekend in April 2015. Timothy Spall and Kenneth Cranham lead the cast. The four episodes air nightly across the week.

The Other Two

Siblings Cary (Drew Tarver – Bajillion Dollar Propertie$) and Brooke (Helene Yorke – Family Guy, The Good Fight) are just trying to find their place in the world. Cary is an aspiring actor, struggling to find roles beyond “Man At Party Who Smells Fart”. Meanwhile Brooke, a former professional dancer, is just trying to work out what she’s even doing with her life.

It’s all just become a little more complicated, as their thirteen-year-old brother Chase (Case Walker) has found sudden internet fame as “ChaseDreams”, a teen pop sensation. This wickedly funny satire is created and produced by Emmy-nominated duo Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider.

Riviera: Season 2

Julia Stiles’ Georgina Clios returns for a second round of intrigue and luxury in the French Riviera, where tensions are mounting following the explosive end to the first season. This time around, Georgina meets her match with the Eltham family who will descend upon the Cote D’Azur with their own tangled web of lies and secrets. New cast members Poppy Delevingne, Juliet Stevenson and Jack Fox bring an extra level of glamour to the sunny south of France.

She’s Gotta Have It: Season 2

Romantic turmoil, artistic challenges and an eye-opening trip to Puerto Rico set Nola Darling on a new course, as Spike Lee’s drama based on his seminal film continues.

What/If

Renee Zellwegger stars in Netflix’s raw, voyeuristic examination of acceptable people doing unacceptable things. A conflict driven series of high stakes morality plays with a first season narrative focusing on two struggling newlyweds who accept a powerful woman’s ethically perilous proposition to secure a badly needed financial windfall.

High Seas (Alta Mar)

Suspicious deaths aboard a luxurious ship traveling from Rio de Janeiro in the 1940s reveal secrets surrounding two sisters traveling together in Netflix’s atmospheric Spanish thriller.

Black Monday

Starring and executive produced by Don Cheadle, this new series takes us back to the big crash of 1987 – and all the fun that went with it. No one knows who caused the worst stock market crash in Wall Street history on 19 October 1987… until now. This is the comedic story of how a group of outsiders took on the blue blood, old boys club of Wall Street and ended up crashing the world’s largest financial system. And also a Lamborghini. All episodes will be available on-demand as a box set alongside Episode 1’s broadcast.

Good Omens

Amazon Prime Video’s series, based on the beloved book by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, sees the armies of Heaven and Hell amassing and The Four Horsemen are ready to ride. And so Aziraphale, an angel, and Crowley, a demon, agree to join forces to find the missing Anti-Christ and to stop the war that will end everything. David Tennant and Michael Sheen star as the duo on a quest to save the world, which they’ve become rather fond of. Expect hilarious things.

Good Girls: Season 2

Christina Hendricks, Retta, Mae Whitman, Reno Wilson return for the the second season of Netflix’s fun comedy-drama, which sees the women come face-to-face with the consequences of their criminal behaviour.

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