What to watch this weekend: Scott Ellis shares his streaming recommendations

Looking for something to watch on this stormy evening? Check out Scott Ellis’s recommendations.

Gold on Stan is just extraordinary. It’s largely a two-hander story. with Zac Efron and Anthony Hayes a pair of men living in a post-or-near apocalyptic world where everything is going to hell who meet on the edge of a desert were one (Zac’s character) has come looking for a job that could change his life. What he finds instead is a MASSIVE gold nugget and when he tells Anthony’s character hoping they can share, it sets off a thriller where paranoia, greed, and hope collide. Zac Efron is just incredible, alone on screen for long periods he shows how a dream of salvation can blind someone to the reality that a much better option is right in front of him. Susie Porter is brilliant as The Stranger, a woman who desperately tries to convince him there’s a better way. Just great.

 

Still on Stan, check out The Tourist, which follows a man (played by 50 Shades star Jamie Dornan) who wakes up in a remote Australian hospital with no memory of who he is, but the knowledge that someone has tried to kill him and is coming back to finish the job. It’s a great Memento-style mystery from here on where anyone could be his enemy, even himself.

 

Something a little lighter, but still filled with drama is Disney+’s Pam and Tommy, which looks at one of the most iconic 90’s relationships ever, between Baywatch star Pamela Anderson and Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee. Already an unmissable rock’n’roll love story with the manic Lee and beautiful Anderson, their story exploded when their private sex tape was stolen and made public and this eight part series shows what happened next. Be warned, this is not for kids (Tommy talks to “Little Tommy”, for example… and Little Tommy talks back) but it’s also surprisingly affecting as it shows how Anderson, was nearly destroyed by the tape. Her career and nearly her life, were effectively ruined by one thief’s act.

 

And something A LOT lighter, there’s a special episode of the anarchic cop comedy Reno 911: The Hunt For QAnon, where the barely functional officers go undercover on a QAnon cruise to uncover who is behind it all and serve a summons. It’s very funny, but also actually a bit scary how many of the comic moments are straight from the Q theories.

 

For British crime drama fans it doesn’t get much better than Queens of Mystery on Acorn, which follows Detective Sergeant Matilda Stone as she tries to solve the various crimes that hit her beloved village of Wildemarch. The big difference here is she has three aunts in their 50s who are more than happy to help her solve the crimes, even if it means doing a few in the process. Great fun who done it!