One of the defining words of 2025 has been slop. Coined, ironically, by someone on X (formerly Twitter), it refers to the sort of online content that’s destined to be consumed passively yet addictively. A video of raccoons behaving foolishly, say, or teenagers ringing a doorbell and running away.
Those of us who’ve managed to resist doomscrolling are finding little more depth in traditional entertainment. Netflix’s original programming, in particular, has become a den of slop: the result of a commercial push to treat screenplays like algorithms.
Country Life staff have been mulling this over in various team meetings (it is work, we promise) and with slop coming at us from all angles, we feel the best solution is often to revisit the classics. Campion, the BBC drama about a private detective in 1930s Britain, has proven popular, as have Mad Men (Netflix) and the original Sex And The City (HBO). There is still some great new drama to be found if you know where to look — and, lo and behold, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve compiled our picks for the autumn. Happy watching.
Andor
What is more terrifying, a man named Darth with a red lightsaber and poor breathing apparatus, or the very machinery of subjugation? For Tony Gilroy, the creator of Andor, the answer is obvious.
In his show, we see how the creeping tendrils of the Empire permeate an indifferent society, while, in contrast, rebellion and hope rise from the extraordinary actions of the ordinary. These stories, told together, bring an entire galaxy to life beyond the simple family drama of the Skywalkers. Standout performances from Stellan Skarsgård, Denise Gough, Andy Serkis and Diego Luna elevate the show from simple science fiction and into one of the decade’s best human dramas. James Fisher
Where to watch: Disney+
Drops of God
A French-Japanese-American series about wine tasting based on a manga comic book series, Drops of God doesn't make for easy comparisons. Still, this is one of the best things I've watched this year. The premise is simple: the greatest oenologist in the world dies leaving his priceless cellar to whoever can win a taste-off. The competitors are his estranged daughter Camille, who he trained from childhood, and his supremely talented student, Issei. The settings are glorious, the competition is cut throat, the twists unexpected and it is never obvious who will win. Elegant, refined, beautiful to look at — and that's even if you can't get excited about wine. Tiffany Daneff
Where to watch: Apple TV
Slow Horses
Do as I did (after the rest of the world) and read Mick Herron's Slough House spy novels about a group of sad, blundering spooks before watching the TV series (with friends, in sessions, with wine) as the replication of the characters is pitch-perfect. Sir Gary Oldman, hilarious as the wind-breaking, bitterly insulting yet loyal spy chief Jackson Lamb — 'they're idiots, but they're my idiots' — has said that this will be his last major role, so savour it. Kristin Scott-Thomas as the corrupt First Desk, Sam West as a slimy politician, Saskia Reeves as Lamb's put-upon sidekick and Christopher Chung as an annoying geek are dazzling.
The next series is coming at the end of next month — hurrah — and a ninth book, Clown House, is out on September 11. Kate Green
Where to watch: Apple TV
Rivals
I remember the disappointment of the last Jilly Cooper adaptation I watched. It was 1993 and a DVD of Riders had been given away free with The Daily Mail. ‘Sex and horses; who could ask for more,’ quipped the Sunday Telegraph. Well, me actually. It was utterly dreadful.
I was initially dubious when Rivals was announced last year. Would it be possible to communicate the hedonism of Thatcher-era excess in the contemporary climate? What if they got Rupert Campbell-Black wrong, again? I need not have fretted. As soon as the opening bars of Robert Palmer’s Addicted To Love soundtracked a little jaunt to the Mile High Club on Concorde, I knew I was in for a treat.
Raunchy, witty and dripping in glamour, this eight-episode series is everything I wanted an adaptation of a Jilly bonkbuster to be. The naked tennis scene is a triumph and Alex Hassell’s Campbell-Black may not be blonde and blue-eyed, but he is every bit the unashamedly entitled former Olympic showjumper I wanted him to be, laced with rakish charm and expensive French aftershave which his groom can’t pronounce. Roll on season two. Agnes Stamp
Where to watch: Disney+
The Narrow Road To The Deep North
Richard Flanagan won the 2014 Man Booker Prize for his brutal tale of wartime trauma, extramarital guilt and the difficulties of memory. These are weighty and challenging themes, to which this adaptation by Justin Kurzel does powerful justice. Starring man of the moment Jacob Elordi (Saltburn, On Swift Horses), it is easily the best TV drama I have seen in the last two years.
Our hero (or antihero) is Dorrigo, a Tasmanian doctor who is posted to Thailand during the Second World War. He tends to his fellow prisoners as they are whipped, tortured and in some cases, murdered by the Japanese army, who put them to work on building a railway into Myanmar (Thailand was allied with Japan during the conflict).
Unfurling over three different time periods — Dorrigo’s life before, during and decades after the war — this is sensual, beautiful and deeply tragic television, sparing none of the source text’s horrifying details. Be warned, some scenes are unwatchable; but this is a courageous and sensitive undertaking that leaves one with more faith in modern TV than they had before they started watching. Will Hosie
Where to watch: BBC iPlayer
A Place to Call Home
I recently discovered this sublime Australian drama series and have been addicted ever since. Set in the 1950s, it tells the story of a nurse returning home to a small town outside Sydney, Australia, having married a Jewish man, converted to Judaism and, we learn, being interned in a concentration camp.
It follows her encounters with the Blighs, the grand local family that harbours secrets, prejudices and hidden desires, an honourable doctor, the local busybody and honest farmers, with incursions from the city, humour, tragedy and all the accoutrements of a long-running dramatic saga.
It sounds soapy, but the production values are superb, the script engaging, the characters many-faceted and sympathetic (except for one woman whose comeuppance you long for). The scenery is also gorgeous and the storylines, with their of-the-time beliefs, sense of changing mores and hidden depths, keep you watching. An antidote to all the 'gritty' dramas and preposterous 'historical' adaptations that clutter up the mainstream channels. Octavia Pollock
Where to watch: Prime Video
Sex and The City
SATC is the marmite of television, splitting sofa surfers into two distinct camps: the people who have watched it and can quote all 94 episodes, and the people who would rather pluck out their own eyeballs than give it a go — ignorant of the fun they are missing out on. Guess which camp I’m in?
I watched my first episode when I was a (possibly too young) teenager and have since sat through all six seasons, four times, in order. If marmite is my comfort food of choice, then SATC is my comfort show. Yes, it’s flawed when viewed through the lens of 2025, but I love that I got to walk the streets of New York by watching it, long before I actually ever visited, and I love how the writers never shied away from their character’s flaws (even if Sarah Jessica’s Parker’s Carrie left me with some very unrealistic expectations about what I’d be able to afford on a journalist’s salary). Rosie Paterson
Where to watch: HBO
Campion
I recently dug up a real gem on iPlayer from the glory days of BBC drama commissioning: Campion, in which a 1930s gentleman detective of the same name (Peter Davison, immediately post Doctor Who and immaculately attired) solves crimes. The costumes, cars and country houses are a joy, and silliness-wise it's just short of Wodehouse (the supporting characters have names like Magersfontein Lugg and Stanislaus Oates), but because it was made in the days before our brains stopped working you do actually have to put your phone down when you're watching or you get completely lost; perfect. Emma Hughes
Where to watch: BBC iPlayer
Murderbot
I didn’t expect to fall for a sci-fi series, but Murderbot completely got me. This was largely thanks to Alexander Skarsgård, who plays a security robot with a dry wit and reluctant heroism that’s both hilarious and oddly moving. The conflict between programmed duty and an emerging sense of self makes for unpredictable and tantalising viewing. It’s sharp, pacy, funny and full of heart — and yes, it doesn’t hurt that Alexander is ridiculously handsome. I’m counting down the days until season two. Florence Allen
Where to watch: Apple TV
Ripley
Dream opportunities rarely land in one's lap. Yet for Tom Ripley – a hustler in 1960s New York – that's exactly what happens when he is tasked with persuading a businessman's errant son to return home from gallivanting in Italy. However, when Ripley gets a taste of Dickie Greenleaf's lifestyle on the Amalfi Coast, he covets it with a capital 'C' and things begin to unravel.
Netflix's miniseries, based on Patricia Highsmith's 1955 novel The Talented Mr Ripley, hits the spot thanks to Andrew Scott's interpretation of the titular character (less loveable rogue, more ice-cold antihero) and classy black and white cinematography. As with a glass of Chianti, this is one to be savoured. Clifford Hope
Where to watch: Netflix
Succession
Freud would have had a field day with Succession, Jesse Armstrong’s thinly veiled satire of the Murdoch clan and the closest that screenwriting has ever got to Shakespearean. Patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox) is an irascible, power-obsessed maniac, unable to reconcile his children’s failures (addiction, indolence, delusions of grandeur) with the fact he may have been a somewhat absent father.
Even without reading too much into the characters’ psychology, the series is a joy, offering some of the most thrilling plot twists in modern drama thanks to a relentless power struggle between father and children — and later, among the siblings themselves. This, along with a riveting fictionalisation of recent real-world events (the American election, rise of populism and various culture wars).
‘You are not real people,’ Logan tells his children during one of their many attempts to take him down. He is right, but the drama feels so real, so close to the truth, that everyone’s antiheroism and unlikeability makes a compelling series an equally convincing one. Will Hosie
Where to watch: HBO
Mad Men
Sometimes, the past is a nice place to visit. Just as Don Draper knew nostalgia was the key to successful advertising campaigns, re-watching Mad Men is a welcome return to the Golden Age of 21st century television.
Set in the tumultuous 1960s, the seven-season show explores the bleak reality behind creating the American Dream through the eyes of a New York advertising agency. This is the era of Martini lunches on expenses, smoking at any given opportunity and complex sexual politics (particularly in the office).
Mad Men won 16 Emmys and five Golden Globes and rightly so — it still feels timeless the second time around. For me, as AI threatens to destroy what’s left of the publishing industry, Draper’s wisdom continues to echo in my mind: ‘We’re going to sit at our desks and keep typing while the walls fall down around us because we’re creative — the least important, most important thing there is.’ Agnes Stamp
Where to watch: Netflix
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