Catch Up: Top TV to watch in October 2026
Claire Sawers finds real-life stars becoming onscreen brothers, murder-mystery mash-ups, messy midlife romcoms and a wargaming reality show that absolutely no one had on their bingo card
Brothers (Apple TV) doesn’t hit the same heights as 2014’s True Detective opening season (can anything?) but reuniting Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey was just too tempting an idea to pass up. Based on their real-life friendship spanning three decades and internet rumours that the Texan actors might be biological brothers, this breezy comedy series follows gentle, weed-loving Harrelson, rocking up to handsome McConaughey’s ranch with his family. As with Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan, who have also fictionalised their real camaraderie, we glimpse this pair’s true selves among scripted hijinks and laddie scrapes. A heated punch-up at the rodeo is based on genuine fistfights while McConaughey’s mum really did know Harrelson’s dad once upon a time, apparently. Their combo of whistly toothed and goofy charisma is irresistible, even if some jokes wear thin. Masculinity gets a playful interrogation too, as the sensitive, therapy-embracing young team rubs up against the gun-toting old school.
From Texas to north-east England, Graham Norton’s fourth novel Forever Home (Channel 5) is adapted for TV in a mash-up of gossipy soap opera, murder-mystery farce and domestic drama. Dougie Henshall plays Robert Barrie, living with early onset dementia and a rapidly defrosting corpse in the basement. Henshall plays it straight while his doting partner Carol (Amy Nuttall) and her mum (Denise Welch) get sucked into a daft caper. After their mum’s suspicious disappearance, son Kaden (Lewis Cope) fills the void by getting in debt and falling out with his unborn baby’s surrogate mother, while his wannabe tradwife sister is shagging a married man in the changing rooms at work. Definitely light entertainment rather than dark drama, it takes a fun poke at complex family issues along the way.
In Youth (HBO Max), Sharon Horgan plays a straight, fiftysomething divorced parent, permanently chasing her tail as she tries to impress the boss, sculpt her buttocks, find a serious life partner and show up for her teenage son, all at once. Aran Murphy (son of Cillian) is glorious as the sweetly gauche son, gradually voting with his feet as his absent dad ignores his phone calls while his mum knows when to come to the rescue. Actor/creator Horgan nails her character’s chaotic, contradictory mix of desires to be a good daughter and career dynamo, while bedhopping with HRT patches on. Even in all this turmoil, things look aspirationally glossy, with high heels and Ibiza trips replacing the school-run drudgery of the excellent Motherland, which Horgan co-wrote. It’s not as funny as that series, but it’s still a very bingeable, messy, romcom look at midlife anxiety and emancipation.
The theatre of armed conflict gets a small-screen adaptation in The Wargame (Now), a truly bizarre, yet utterly gripping reality show where ten politicians, military leaders and intelligence chiefs gather to respond to a fake security emergency. Michael Gove looks pumped at his chance to play prime minister while Nicola Sturgeon, his shrewd, pretend deputy, cautions against alpha-male escalation. Following real life plans from the UK government to raise annual defence funding from £54 billion to £80 billion by 2029, the show seems an unsubtle ploy to justify that, and sure enough, 15 minutes in, a Navy commander reports huge shortages of warships and submarines. Still, it does a compelling job of touching on the complexities of cyber attacks, disinformation, spin and false flags, all with rolling social media. Should we take note of all this for the upcoming apocalypse or consider it as scaremongering to boost warmongering?
Sawers also saw…
SNL UK on Now: ‘Jeff Goldblum and CMAT guest on season two of the surreal, satire sketch show’; Colin From Accounts on BBC iPlayer: ‘A charming return with a third and final season of the funny Aussie romcom with a big heart’; Rùrachd on BBC iPlayer: ‘Wholesome foraging and nature-appreciating with Mary Ann Kennedy and Lucy Cooke’.