What to stream this week: A terrific Sophie Turner thriller and five more picks

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his week’s top picks include a terrific new thriller starring Game of Thrones′ Sophie Turner, the latest Agatha Christie adaptation on Netflix and some more comfort viewing in Shrinking.

Steal ★★★★ (Amazon Prime)

This British crime thriller starts with Die Hard vibes but, like the armed criminals who take over the London office of a pension fund manager in the opening sequence, it moves in decisive and unexpected ways.

Emotionally taut and tinged with desperation, Steal never forgets the harsh personal truths that are uncovered in its twisty plot. There are all kinds of revelations, especially for the terrified transaction clerks – Zara (Sophie Turner) and Luke (Archie Madekwe) – made to send $8 billion into the ether.

That 21st century armed robbery is just the first salvo of a limited series that feels plugged into today’s world in telling, unexpected ways. Creator Sotiris Nikias, who is now a major talent to watch, draws together inequality’s menace and personal disaffection. If everything is rigged against the ordinary person, it asks, why bother obeying the rules? The robbery’s aftermath, as the Metropolitan Police’s Rhys Kovaci (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd) leads the investigation and MI5 hovers, is when the show becomes genuinely gripping.

Zara and Luke are underpaid workers thrust into the spotlight. Suspicion surrounds them even as they’re dealing with gun-to-the-head trauma. Luke starts cracking, but Zara, whose life has lacked for purposes, becomes motivated. Fear makes her realise that she doesn’t want to stay in her lane of work drudgery and getting wasted every weekend.

“It’s a very dangerous combination: intelligence and frustration,” notes her estranged, uncaring mother Haley (Anastasia Hille). The acid leached off their encounter lingers, seeping into Zara’s increasingly desperate actions.

With Martin Phipps’ electronic score jangling nerves, Steal gets the basics right. Need a splenetic billionaire to sum up the arrogance of the 1 per cent? Here’s Peter Mullan (Ozark). Want a terrifying casual explainer on how the intelligence services can disappear you? Leave it to Anna Maxwell Martin (Line of Duty).

For the most part, the story is a step ahead of expectations, but the disclosures have a psychological heft and a social critique. With money as the just out-of-reach reward, betrayal becomes the norm. When characters start referencing millions, there’s a hunger that’s disorientating.

This is ideal ground for Turner, whose Game of Thrones arc as Sansa Stark was one of shedding comforting myths as a means of steely survival. She’s exceptionally good at revealing Zara’s failing comfort mechanisms and what, for better or worse, lies beneath them. The character is neither a heroine nor a cold professional – in trying to make sense of what happened she makes potentially fatal mistakes. Zara has to survive herself, let alone the various forces arrayed around her.

This is a pawn’s gambit, and it’s a terrific watch.

Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials ★★½ (Netflix)

Critics didn’t particularly care for Agatha Christie’s The Seven Dials Mystery when it was published in 1929, and not quite a century later this latest British screen adaptation of the whodunit is rightfully eliciting a similar response. Told over three hour-long episodes, the show lacks for verve, a genuinely knotty plot, and a sense of place. Everything feels like it was manufactured, from the sets to the dialogue, and it’s all being propped up.

The silver lining is the lead performance of Mia McKenna-Bruce as Lady Eileen “Bundle” Brent, who is convinced that foul play befell her suitor when he is found dead at a weekend involving the rich and powerful that is being hosted at the country home of her haughty widowed mother, Lady Caterham (Helena Bonham Carter). Bruce delivers a pop of 1920s fizz, and you can see her flourishing as an amateur detective making deductive leaps.

But for the most part, creator Chris Chibnall (Broadchurch) and director Chris Sweeney (The Tourist) deliver a show that doesn’t want to make overt choices. The inclusiveness is passive, as if the goal is simply to meld a younger audience and long-time devotees of the Agatha Christie brand. It is, mostly, decent, but if you’re looking for something better among recent takes on the author’s works consider BritBox’s Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? and Towards Zero.

Mistress Dispeller ★★★★ (DocPlay)

A fascinating portrait of contemporary China, Elizabeth Lo’s documentary follows Wang Zhenxi, whose titular job involves her being hired by a wife to deal with her husband and his mistress. A mix of fixer, confidante and relationship analyst, Wang discreetly moves between the triangle of Mr and Mrs Li and the younger, provincial Fei Fei, serving her client in unexpected ways. The film isn’t judgmental, nor deeply interested in the subject’s broader lives, despite all four giving Lo access. It’s a film about connection and emotional need, told amid a society barrelling into the future.

Free Bert ★★★ (Netflix)

Netflix continues to pivot its stand-up stars into scripted series, with big-bellied comic Bert Kreischer – his performance trademark is going shirtless – playing a fictionalised version of himself in this brisk comedy. This Bert has the same successful career, but struggles to adapt to the snooty Beverly Hills private school in which his wife has enrolled their two daughters. Mean girls and their entitled mothers are not swayed by either his gags or his entreaties. The humour is crude, but Kreischer is playing more than a buffoon. There’s a hint of Roseanne.

Shrinking ★★★½ Apple TV

I still enjoy this Californian comic-drama about widowed therapist Jimmy Laird (co-creator Jason Segel) and his extended family of colleagues and friends, but now in its third season it’s lost the genuine emotional turbulence it once had. The characters are so blithe and goofy in their support for each other that the issues thrown up by the show are mere speed bumps on the way to a resolution that is satisfying for its droll humour and maximum reassurance. It’s become comfort viewing, albeit with the continued bonus of Harrison Ford acing his every scene as Jimmy’s cranky, ailing mentor.

Idiocracy ★★★★ (HBO Max)

It was a box-office bomb on release in 2006, but this satire of American stupidity from Beavis and Butt-Head creator Mike Judge is savagely prescient in 2026. Luke Wilson plays an everyman who spends 500 years in suspended animation before awakening in a dumbed-down America: the president is a professional wrestler, the “Extreme Court” settles disputes, Costo is a university, and a sports drink company has purchased the Food and Drug Administration. The absurdism is extreme, but once you watch the movie it’s not hard to plug today’s headlines in.

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