Five things to watch this weekend

Litvinenko — Showmax

Scottish national treasure David Tennant teams up with ITV to take on the role of former Russian secret agent turned whistle-blower Alexander Litvinenko, whose poisoning by agents of Vladimir Putin’s regime made international headlines in 2006. The last few weeks of Litvinenko’s life play out in a London hospital room, where he lies dying, his hair having fallen out from the radioactive polonium he was slipped by an FSB agent. Loyal, sometimes to a fault, to the facts of Litvinenko’s statement to the police and the slow pace of their investigations, it’s a solid recreation of a series of shocking incidents that gave an early warning of the lengths to which the Russian leader is willing to go in order to silence his opponents.

Drops of God — Apple TV +

A very French premise anchors this engaging inheritance drama. When a world-renowned wine expert with terrible people skills dies, his will dictates that his estranged daughter and his Japanese former student compete in a wine tasting to determine which will inherit his multimillion-dollar wine collection. The problem is that his daughter is so traumatised by her childhood experiences of trying to learn her father’s craft that she’s allergic to alcohol, while her Japanese rival finds his dedication to the craft alienates his family. As the showdown approaches, she must reckon with her demons and he must learn to make his own way in the world. Both will also realise that their relationship with the dead puppet master may not have been what it seemed. Surprisingly, thanks to some innovative methods of translating the senses of smell and taste to screen, the series makes for some pretty entertaining drama.

The Diplomat — Netflix

Keri Russell stars in this tense political drama — created by former West Wing writer Debora Cahn — as a US career diplomat who, after receiving a promotion to the post of ambassador to the UK, is thrown almost immediately into a political crisis that tests her mettle and places strain on her marriage to a wheeler-dealer politician (Rufus Sewell) with major ambitions of his own.

Chimp Empire — Netflix

Oscar winner Mahershala Ali employs his suitably dramatic voice-over talents as the narrator of this fascinating documentary helmed by My Octopus Teacher director James Reed. In the jungles of Uganda, a band of man’s closest genetic relatives navigate the challenges of social relationships, family drama and sometimes potentially lethal territorial clashes that have marked the drama of chimpanzee existence for millions of years, and which bear strong resemblance to many of our own challenges as humans.

The Good Mothers — Disney Plus

Based on a book by journalist Alex Perry, this lushly filmed Italian noir drama tells the true story of three brave women who, after the murder of one of their friends, banded together to bring down the notorious Ndrangheta in Calabria. They were aided in their life-threatening quest by the efforts of an equally courageous female prosecutor who helped them reveal the nefarious workings of one of Italy’s most powerful, feared and oldest Mafia families.