What to stream this week: Succession star’s new cringy loser and five more picks

Don’t miss Matthew Macfadyen in the historical assassination drama Death by Lightning, the battle of wits in The Iris Affair, an updated The Wedding Banquet and 30 Rock star Tracey Morgan’s new comedy.

Death by Lightning ★★★★ (Netflix)

It’s no accident this 19th century historical drama, which maps the intersecting paths of America’s 20th president, James Garfield (Michael Shannon), and his assassin, Charles Guiteau (Matthew Macfadyen), is full of contemporary references. There is an 1880 misinformation campaign, rankcorruption and a vice-presidential candidate who drunkenly demands, “Music! Fighting! Sausages!” on a night out. The current shortcomings of power in the United States are nothing new, this limited series suggests, but nor are they unstoppable.

What makes the timeliness resonate is the sly humour and sharp depictions. At just four episodes, as if Netflix were scared audiences would drift off, Death by Lightning smashes together the great-man-in-history portrait with a dreadfully-dodgy-man-in-history depiction. Garfield, a Civil War hero, is a retired congressman who goes to the Republican convention to nominate a colleague and gives such a stirring speech that he becomes the party’s presidential candidate. Guiteau is a felon, lickspittle lackey and perennial incompetent.

The casting is chef’s kiss, with creator Mike Makowsky (Bad Education) and director Matt Ross (Captain Fantastic) leaning right into Macfadyen’s previous role as Succession striver Tom Wambsgans. When Guiteau tries to ingratiate himself with his sister’s wealthy husband, his unctuousness is comically cringeworthy. Shannon, by contrast, is august and dedicated, but the actor, so often a memorable villain, carries a horrified weight. His Garfield is haunted by the possibility of frittering away his unexpected opportunity to effectively wield power.

The tone moves between ornate public declarations and contemporary conversations in private. Many fine character actors, including Bradley Whitford, Nick Offerman, and Shea Whigham, overcome large beards with pithy commentary, while Betty Gilpin is given a measure of genuine influence as Garfield’s straight-talking wife, Lucretia.

There’s just enough era-specific detail in the storytelling, adapted from Candice Millard’s 2011 book Destiny of the Republic, to ground the plot’s broad strokes. CNN’s election coverage has nothing on the breathless delivery of telegrams, while the jibe about raffling off cabinet posts to the 1 per cent helps too.

That the increasingly delusional Guiteau is inspired by Garfield’s hardscrabble beginnings and surprise nomination, only to become aggrieved when his enthusiasm isn’t rewarded with a government position, is a telling 21st century correlation.

An assassin is the ultimate attention-seeker, and there’s a final failure for Guiteau in that his name has none of the infamy attributed to Lee Harvey Oswald and John Wilkes Booth.

The spectre of failure, no matter who’s trying, lurks at every turn in Death by Lightning. What remains is the outsider’s American conundrum: should you laugh or should you cry?

The Iris Affair ★★★(Stan)

Luther creator Neil Cross goes big – extra, extra big – with this European thriller. The elements include a deadly battle of wits between an enigmatic genius and a ruthless entrepreneur, respectively Iris Newton (Niamh Algar) and Cameron Beck (Tom Hollander), the hunt for the key that unlocks a sentient quantum computer known as Charlie Big Potatoes, corrupt police, countless double-crosses, and mathematical philosophising. It gets convoluted at times, but it absolutely never slows down.

I cheered when, in one of many flashbacks, Cameron first took Iris to inspect Charlie, which had been turned off by its regretful creator, Jensen Lind (Kristofer Hivju): the mogul’s secret base looked like a villain’s lair from a 1960s Bond movie. Jensen’s encrypted diary holds the key to restarting the all-powerful AI, but once Iris realises what Charlie is capable of, she steals the diary and absconds, only to be discovered in the present day.

Hollander moves between fickle and furious with his usual ease, but it’s Algar who gets to flourish. Whether swanning around sunny Sardinia in a chic white suit, saying big brain lines such as, “Infinity minus one is still infinity”, or bedding and abandoning local hunks, the Irish actress gets to play the coolly collected anti-hero who values no one but nonetheless wants to save the world. She’s the ideal protagonist for this outlandish adventure.

Crutch ★★★ (Paramount+)

Stand-up comedian-turned-comic actor Tracy Morgan memorably sent himself up as 30 Rock’s celebrity chaos agent Tracy Jordan, but on this amusing, multigenerational sitcom he plays the irascible straight man. Morgan is Francois “Crutch” Crutchfield, the widowed co-owner of a Harlem flooring company, whose quiet brownstone home gets crowded when his adult children and grandchildren return home for various reasons. This multicamera comedy feels familiar – Crutch even has an opinionated neighbour, Miss Pearl (Luenell), who supplies pesky commentary – but it emphasises a modern take on community and family.

The Wedding Banquet ★★★ (Netflix)

When you’re remaking a film as good as Ang Lee’s 1993 romantic comedy, where an arranged wedding helped a gay immigrant hide from his conservative Taiwanese family, the best you can hope for is a timely update that has its own tenor.

Transposed from New York City to Seattle, Andrew Ahn’s film mostly achieves those benchmarks. Starring Lily Gladstone (Under the Bridge), Bowen Yang (Saturday Night Live) and Kelly Marie Tran (The Last Jedi), it leans into the solidarity of love and companionship. The farce is fleeting, but 21st century family is forever.

High Potential ★★★★ (Disney+)

With this charming, unconventional crime procedural enjoying a recess – the second season resumes on January 7 – it’s a good time to make the case for catching up on what is one of the best case-of-the-week series now streaming. With It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star Kaitlin Olson headlining as idiosyncratic genius and single mother of three Morgan Gillory, a curious and often caustic consultant to the Los Angeles Police Department, High Potential gets through Columbo-like cases with a healthy defiance of the rules and feel-good family interludes. It’s a great change of pace.

Mitchell and Webb Are Not Helping ★★★½ (HBO Max)

In the 20th century, sketch shows from British comedy duos were a broadcast television mainstay – think Alas Smith and Jones, French and Saunders, A Bit of Fry & Laurie – so this reunion from long-time collaborators David Mitchell and Robert Webb has a nostalgic format and a contemporary charge. The Peep Show stars front an ensemble that invests costume dramas with absurd reasoning and infomercial satires with monotonal menace. As with all sketch shows, there’s a hit-and-miss element, but Mitchell and Webb fare well, especially with guest stars such as Olivia Colman helping.

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