November Cultural Highlights A good month for drama and one of our reads of the year.

December 5, 2025

Discover what caught our cultural attention in November.

Television 

All Her Fault  Sky Atlantic

★★★★★

Sky’s heavily promoted show of the month and it’s easy to see why. This could just be the best drama of 2025, and it shouldn’t be. Dramas based on a missing child are almost as numerous as those involving a troubled detective.

All Her Fault is something different as we learn fairly early on who the culprit is and how that plays out is not what you would expect. There is a division of lifestyles with the wealthy Bostonites on one side of the divide and the lead detective and the “trailer” trash girl on the other. But it’s not as simple as expecting the rich to get what they deserve. Whilst the central characters firmly believe they are doing what is right, they each have a different justification for what that is.

There is one of the best red herrings, we’ve seen in a drama for quite some time when the lead detective, who we know is honourable and honest, succumbs to temptation in so his disabled son can be admitted into the right school. You wonder when this will catch up with him but then realise it is entirely necessary for the conclusion.

This is brilliant, well-acted, written and plotted and best of all, unlike irritating Apple TV or Disney, can be binged to suit.

Task  Sky Atlantic

★★★★

Mark Ruffalo stars as a former priest now heading an FBI task force of rather predictable disparate characters. They are on the trail of biker gangs who fight over the control of drugs and there’s criminality on criminality as two best friends are raiding the dealers houses for cash but after one fateful raid end up with 12 kilos Fentanyl and everyone after them. They also compound the error by kidnapping a six-year-old witness.

This is not a drama full of Christmas cheer, it’s bleak, it looks bleak and it’s largely formulaic. I would have given up after a couple of episodes but was persuaded to continue with the promise of what is to come, and it does gather pace as we race towards the probable conclusion.

Landman Series 2  Paramount+

★★★★

If there is ever a reason to subscribe to Paramount + (£4.95 also incl in Sky Cinema subscription) then it’s Landman from prolific writer/director Taylor Sheridan. Perhaps best known for Yellowstone, another 5-star series, such is the rich vein of Sheridan’s work that NBC/Universal have pinched him from Paramount with a contract than could be worth a billion dollars.

Where that will leave future Landman series is unclear, so best to make the most of it whilst it’s under his tutelage.

Like other Sheridan shows, Landman has a wealth of characters, headed by Billy Bob Thornton as he plots his way around the Texas Oil industry. With Sam Elliott, Demi Moore and Andy Garcia waiting in the wings, plots are likely to come thick and fast. This show endorses the importance of casting because without Thornton it would suffer in comparison to other Sheridan shows.

The Serpent Queen Ch4

★★★★

First shown three years ago on StarzPlay, The Serpent Queen is now available on Ch4. It’s set in France, in the late 16^th century at the time of Catherine de Medici aka The Serpent Queen played by Samantha Morton.

The Serpent Queen is a different kind of revisionist history. Funny, but in the vicious, gleefully anachronistic way devoid of most period dramas. Catherine, an orphan and commoner, is offered in marriage to the second son of the King of France by her uncle, Pope Clement. In the vicious world of the French court, and when her uncle fails to pay her dowry in full, she’s reliant on her weak-willed husband who ascends the throne and constantly battling with his mistress, Diane de Poitiers.

Morton is perfectly cast and makes this an enjoyably historical drama with costumes galore, irreverence and courtly intrigue.

Podcast

Charlene Somebody Knows Something  Various

★★★★★

An investigation over a three-year period by Nicola Thorp into the disappearance over 20 years ago of 14-year-old Charlene Downes.

That Thorp was raised in the vicinity of the disappearance explains her dedication to the story which initially was surrounded by lurid tales that Charlene’s body was turned into kebab meat. Two Middle Eastern men were falsely imprisoned and later received compensation.

The series is gripping, with all the hallmarks of the genre, including reveals and cliffhangers that come with ethical questions about true crime as entertainment. The police investigation was flawed from the beginning and when the two accused were exonerated, crucial time had been lost and Charlene’s family and associates as well as grooming gangs became the focus of suspicion.    

James Corden This Life of Mine Various

★★★★

Celebrity interview podcasts are almost as prolific as true crime and James Corden becomes the latest genre inductee.

Corden polarises many, and I’ll admit I thought he was tiresome and talentless before I was won over by his performance in the play One Man Two Guvnors in which he was absolutely brilliant and then when he departed for the Late Late Show, his invention Carpool Karoake is the most original addition to a chat show for many a long time.

He came to prominence with a Comic Relief sketch involving the England Football team but his one with George Michael https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdg7Tgv5lo0 is hilarious.

In This Life of Mine, Corden interviews a diverse range of guests and His Desert Island Discs-esque format invites them to expand on the people, places and cultural artefacts that have shaped them. Yes, there’s a lot of collective admiration but he does have the skill and the familiarity with his guests to extract more from them than a normal interviewer would and that makes his chats more intriguing.

Books

The Token Sharon Bolton

★★★★

Seven strangers receive a mysterious note that billionaire Logan Quick is leaving them his vast fortune. All they need to do is accept the enclosed Token and wait for his death. None of them know why they’ve been chosen, but all seven desperately need the money and the chance of a fresh start.

It’s an interesting premise and well-constructed. It does, though, heavily depend on the revealed connection between the seven and the billionaire. For me, the reveal was a bit of a letdown but an enjoyable read all the same.

Cursed Daughters  Oyinkan Braithwaite

★★★★★

From the author My Sister, the Serial Killer this is a clever, funny, brilliantly perceptive novel about love, female rivalry, and superstition.

A family is cursed “No man will call your house his home. And if they try, they will not have peace…” which has been handed down from generation to generation, breaking hearts and causing three generations of abandoned Falodun women to live under the same roof in Lagos. 

Eniiyi, the last of the line, is born on the day her mother’s cousin Monife is buried and there is no denying the startling resemblance between the child and the dead woman. Is the child fated to suffer the same fate as Monife, or can she break the family curse?

This an extremely well written and engrossing novel that poses many questions concerning jealousy, obsession and second chances. A contender for one of our Books of the Year which will be revealed next month.

Death At The White Hart Chris Chibnall

★★★

A man is found dead, tied to a chair in the middle of the road, with a stag’s antlers on his head. The gruesome scene stuns the local village of Fleetcombe, especially when they learn that it is Jim Tiernan, owner of the White Hart pub, who has been found murdered.

Is it a personal vendetta, or something more macabre?

Detective Nicola Bridge grew up in Fleetcombe and is a mentor to DC Harry Ward who is ten years younger and they make an interesting partnership.

A number of suspects are lined up and when the eventual culprit is a surprising reveal. This is a good thriller with enough plot twists to keep you engaged.

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