Appointment Viewing: The shows you’ll always want to pencil in on your calendar and unpack in your group chat.
Scrolling through 12 streaming platforms but still can’t find something to watch? You’re not alone. Our television columnist Michel Ghanem, a.k.a. @tvscholar, watches over 160 seasons of television each year, and he is here for you. Perhaps you’re in the mood for a hidden gem that’s sitting undiscovered on a streamer or a series with mysteries so tantalizing you can’t stop thinking about them long after the credits roll. It’s all about carving out time for the shows that are actually worth it — your appointment viewing. Fire up that group chat, because we’ve got some unpacking to do.
At the tail end of last year, we had to cover Heated Rivalry, which dominated our hearts and minds over the holiday season. Looking ahead at our third year of “Appointment Viewing,” there is a lot of television coming our way. And while Industry and The Pitt are obviously staples in our television diet, Tom Hiddleston reprising his role as Jonathan Pine in The Night Manager after ten years on Prime Video has completely seduced us — you’ll want to tune in before the Emmy nominations come around later this year.
The Night Manager works because Tom Hiddleston is hot. I know it, you know it, and the show certainly knows it. The first season, which aired to acclaim a decade ago, always seemed to me like it was framed with a female gaze: There are plenty of languid shots of the Loki actor unbuttoning his crisp shirts as an overnight hotel concierge turned spy, dousing himself under a waterfall, and hooking up with practically every woman he meets. His hotness — both physical and exuded through his swagger and confidence — is how he gains the trust of his targets and gets himself in the right rooms as a spy. The actor has even admitted it himself on his press tour: Seduction is the name of the game.
In the TV adaptation of John le Carré’s 1993 novel, Hiddleston plays Jonathan Pine, a spy who slips into various aliases. In season one, he falls into spying accidentally when he surmises a beautiful woman staying at his hotel in Cairo might be under the control of a violent man. He takes action when she asks him to photocopy an extensive list of military equipment on her lover’s behalf, eventually embroiling Pine with Angela Burr (Olivia Colman), a government agent who has made it her mission to bring down the big bad behind it all, Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie). Pine’s strategy is to integrate himself into Roper’s inner circle — to seduce his way to intimacy, wearing his lies as truth. He becomes Roper’s unsteady confidant and friend; has an affair with his girlfriend, Jed (Elizabeth Debicki); and bides his time until the opportunity to pounce presents itself — before Roper can execute a dastardly weapons-trading deal.
The tension of The Night Manager hinges on the uncertainty of whether or not Pine has gone too deep. Is he so entangled that his morals have been compromised? After becoming increasingly ruthless to get to this point, is he still good? The enduring answer, obviously, is that he does what needs to be done. The first season was a BBC and AMC co-production that won quite a few awards back in 2016. We didn’t necessarily need a follow-up ten years later, but, thankfully, returning to this world is just as propulsive and exciting as the first go-round. Still written by David Farr but this time for Prime Video, the second season seduces you even when the plot starts to retread similar stakes as before: A list of military equipment that gets photocopied, this time in Colombia, is all a little too familiar.
In the years since the events of the first season, Pine has been working among a Slow Horses–esque spy team with MI6, the Night Owls, in London under another alias. An old associate of Roper’s pops up during one of their spy missions, which sets things off, connecting Pine to Colombian arms magnate Teddy Dos Santos (Diego Calva). Like Roper before, he makes his way into Teddy’s inner circle in Colombia and gets quite cozy with Roxana Bolaños (Camila Morrone), a character reminiscent of Debicki’s Jed. In a deliciously soap-operatic twist at the end of the third episode, the connection between the two seasons is made very clear.
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There is something about the globe-trotting vision of The Night Manager that is such a visual treat. Of course, there’s Hiddleston’s sex appeal giving us plenty of eye candy to devour, which director Georgi Banks-Davies playfully told me is “all for story.” Even in the first episode, when he wears a “dull” costume, he’s “designed to blend into London; you don’t even notice the guy is a soldier,” she said. Also, compared to the dozens of spy shows today that rely a lot on green screens and locations masquerading as other cities, The Night Manager goes for realism in its approach to commercialized political destabilization in Colombia.
Banks-Davies, who previously worked on I Hate Suzie and Kaos, talked to me about the painstaking lengths to which the production team went to capture realism, which is her preferred style of work, having come from a background in commercials, a line of work that has sent her around the world with massive budgets. “I’m such a realist. I can’t fake anything,” she said. The series was shot on location in each city it portrays, and every vehicle, from cars to motorcycles, is driven by the actors, so they’re actually stuck in traffic in the middle of Cartagena, complex logistics be damned. “I know that that’s what triggers me to do my best work. That’s when I’m really in it,” said Banks-Davies. She compares the production to a jazz beat, a tense chaos that requires in-the-moment reactions — like on-set script rewrites — which is exactly what makes this season come alive.
Banks-Davies also shared some intentional shifts in the second season, such as a particular attention to the representation of women. The first season had a real damsel-in-distress issue, especially apparent while watching with 2026 hindsight. This is at least subverted with Roxana, who is much craftier and quicker to sleuth her way out of situations without becoming beholden to either Teddy or Pine. Despite being the object of both of their desires, the dynamic of attraction shifts more toward Teddy and Pine themselves as they flirt and grind on each other in a lengthy dance scene reminiscent of one you’ll recognize from Alfonso Cuarón’s Y Tu Mamá También. “Camila sent me a message where someone told her, ‘I already know you’re the hot girl who needs saving,’” Banks-Davies said. “This is great, because it means you have an expectation that we can play with.”
Encoded messages:
- Also of note in the cast is Hayley Squires, who comes in clutch for on-the-ground support in Colombia as MI6 officer Sally Price-Jones. If you haven’t watched Squires in her BAFTA-nominated role in the miniseries Adult Material, definitely add that one to the list.
- The Night Manager was one of Hamnet star Noah Jupe’s first projects. He plays Roper’s son, Daniel, and while he’s off at boarding school this season, we get two very memorable scenes with him in these episodes.
- Pine’s cat is named Corky, after Tom Hollander’s (queer) character from the first season.
- Is Pine queer too? The question is still lingering for me, even after a very dark finale. I’m leaning toward yes, but let me know what you think when you watch it.
New episodes of The Night Manager stream every Sunday on Prime Video until the finale on February 1.
