Mr T: I Pity the Fool to Last Seen – the seven best shows to stream this week

Pick of the week
Untold: Mr T – I Pity the Fool

“I watched my father spend his whole life being called ‘Boy’,” says Mr T. “So I self-ordained myself ‘Mister’”. The man born Laurence Tureaud looks back on his life in this slight but sweet documentary. He grew up in Chicago and, in what is presented as a superhero origin story, understood his destiny as a bodyguard when hoodlums robbed his mother. From there, it’s a whistlestop tour through security work, acting, sudden global fame as The A-Team’s jewellery-laden man mountain BA Baracus, cancer and born-again Christianity. There’s a twinkle in T’s eye now, and vulnerability too. “I pity the man who don’t cry and let it out. That’s a fool.” Phil Harrison
Netflix, from Thursday 10 September

Last Seen

If you only know Patrick Brammall as the shambolic lead in Colin from Accounts, you’re in for a surprise. In this mystery he stars as Ian Ridley, a police dispatcher whose life imploded after the disappearance of his young daughter. As we meet Ian, he’s six months sober, has a complicated private life and is just about keeping it together. But when the body of a young girl is found near his home, it triggers chaos. The premise feels slightly contrived but Last Seen is carried by Brammall’s sensitive performance. Even in a downbeat role, there’s warmth alongside the sadness, plus a sense of latent menace.
Apple TV, from Wednesday 9 September

How the Tudors Lost Their Heads

As historian Dan Snow points out, the deadly machinations of the Tudor era are straight out of the Game of Thrones playbook. Snow is joined by Prof Suzannah Lipscomb for a series that concentrates on different doomed protagonists: each episode begins with the heads of the likes of Anne Boleyn, Perkin Warbeck and Mary, Queen of Scots literally on the chopping block. From there, Snow and Lipscomb work their way backwards, mapping out the causes of their fates. It’s a neat, perspective-altering narrative device, engagingly presented.
Disney+, from Sunday 6 September

Crew Girl

Rowing is one of the few sports that hasn’t had a comedy drama made about it. Crew Girl puts that right, combining a sports story with a teen love triangle. Teagan Tao (Mika Martineau) is a promising rower whose life is upended when her fraudster father disappears. Inexplicably, Teagan and her mother’s downward spiral sees her land at a private school resembling Hogwarts, where she’s distressed to learn there’s no girls’ rowing team. Still, Teagan finds herself having to choose between teen rowers Josh (arrogant) and Cam (enigmatic). Ridiculously generic.
Netflix, from Thursday 10 September

The Perfect Lie

This Dutch drama begins in the rubble of a house fire. A father is dead and his family are fighting for their lives. How did this happen? Based on a novel by Saskia Noort, the story centres on the extravagant social lives of the Dinner Club, a self-regarding clique of middle-aged couples who become central to the lives of Karen and her family when they move to Bergen in North Holland. But their hedonism hides tensions. Big Little Lies feels like an obvious comparison, but even though the premise is familiar, it’s a slick and twisty take.
Netflix, from Thursday 10 September

The Twelve: Botox Murders

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury: I apologise for the gruesome images you are about to see.” A promising start to the third season of this Belgian anthology drama, which follows jury deliberations during fictional cases. This time, a Botox poisoning: did Francis and his girlfriend Klara murder Francis’s father and his pregnant wife? The Twelve establishes its stakes by delving into the inner lives of the jurors, from a shy woman pushed into a leadership role to a Muslim at a faith-related crossroads and an angry, racist white guy.
Channel 4, from Friday 11 September

A Killer Story

Dana Chandler was finally sentenced for the 2002 murders of her ex-husband, Mike Sisco, and his partner, Karen Harkness, in 2025. In between times came an extraordinary case that involved three trials, family feuds, allegations of misconduct (an initial verdict was overturned after a prosecutor was ruled to have fabricated evidence) and, eventually, widespread national attention. This true-crime series explores the story with an emphasis on the uncertainty that, 24 years on from the initial crimes, still exists.
HBO Max, from Friday 11 September