A brilliantly acted and mercifully short story of three young adult children coming to grips with their mother’s late-in-life affair with a suspicious widower, played with equal parts sleaze and menace by a wildly-maned Stephen Rea. Somehow in four episodes we were given relatively nuanced and complete stories of each offspring’s romantic relationship; their relationships with each other and their mother; a vivid busybody who lived next door (Imelda Staunton); and a convincing mystery around the mother’s suitor. Oh, and a criminal investigation that weaved throughout. All the characters were deeply flawed and not terribly attractive, but in a way that wasn’t offputting (unlike, say, Succession or House of Cards). And the failure to tie everything up at the end was somehow satisfying.

A charmingly unprofessional six-parter set in post-invasion Iraq, with political and ideological overtones overlaying the conflicts: Arab-Western, British-American, Arab-Arab. Waleed Zuaiter excels as the unflappable former Iraqi inspector who navigates the political shoals while trying to find one rebel daughter and get medical help for the other. (Rather like the hero in Trapped.) Corey Stoll got to play the good American–the villain, surprisingly, is British in a British-made show. We knew the ending would be happy–exactly what I wanted–but it was a pleasure to see it unwind. Also fun was hearing Arabic, although Dari (!) and English were also spoken.

What’s the problem with social media? This film cites two, without particularly differentiating them. 1) It’s an addiction that is consuming the time and minds of the younger generation, especially. 2) It’s driving the polarization of our society, as “likes” determine what information people receive. The first appears soluble, as several of the expert talking heads reveal at film’s end, by limiting, or even banning, their children’s exposure. The second is more accurately an accelerator, albeit on steroids, rather than an inherent problem. Polarization, and the universe of alternate facts, were being driven by Fox News and talk radio before we had Twitter. The problem is people’s willingness to accept false facts, not to mention disseminate them. Social media is just the messenger, and history shows that killing the messenger is never the answer.