I'm glad I live in Scotland right now: everywhere else in the world appears to be far too hot or actually on fire. Going outside is a terrible idea at the best of times, and it's even more terrible when there's a distinct possibility you'll burst into flames before you reach the end of the street. Thank goodness for Netflix, then: it's dropping some killer shows this week that you won't want to miss. Stay inside!
1. The Umbrella Academy Season 3 (Wednesday)
Don't you just hate it when you have to deal with an unidentified destructive entity that could destroy all the matter in the universe? That's what Viktor, Luther and co have to deal with in the third season of Umbrella Academy, and as it's launching on Wednesday you'd better stream the first two seasons quickly if you don't want to be dodging spoilers later this week. According to Netflix: "The last time we saw the Umbrella Academy, they had just stopped 1963’s doomsday. Convinced they prevented the initial apocalypse and fixed this timeline for good, they return home to the present day. However, the celebration is short-lived when the crew realizes things aren’t exactly (okay, not at all) how they left them."
2. Man vs Bee (Friday)
This is either going to be a masterpiece or a so-bad-it's-good hate watch: whenever you see the phrase "wacky hi-jinks" in a show description it does tend to set off alarm bells. But if anybody can pull off a largely speech-free nine-episode series about a man being tormented by a bee, it's Rowan Atkinson – and here he's Trevor, who finds himself house-sitting a luxury mansion before the titular bee decides to be the ultimate buzzkill. I'll be honest, Atkinson's Mr Bean doesn't do it for me. But from what I've seen of Man Vs Bee this is more of a Home Alone-style destruction derby of increasingly daft and violent set pieces, and at just ten minutes per episode it shouldn't overstay its welcome.
3. Money Heist: Korea Joint Economic Area (Friday)
Yes, the title's terrible. But I'm really looking forward to this, because it's not so much a remake of the original as a reimaging of it. The basic setup os the same: there's a professor, a masked gang in boiler suits and a heist. But this time it takes place in a fictional united Korea and has a quality cast including Park Hae-soo, who you may remember as number 218 in Squid Game. I loved the original series – all five seasons are still streaming on Netflix – and I suspect this may have the same freshness and energy that the first season had.
