Television

Is it even possible to satirise the political and cultural landscape in 2020? Nearly a quarter of a century since its last full series, the creators of this nightmarish puppet-based institution clearly think so. New regular characters include the obvious – Trump, Johnson and Kanye West – alongside the likes of Ed Sheeran with a turnip for a head.
Saturday, BritBox

The second part of Dennis Kelly’s mind-bending drama is an audacious 12-hour live event created by theatrical innovators Punchdrunk. Shot in one continuous take over one day, Autumn features cast members Katherine Waterston and Jude Law.
Saturday, 9.30am, Sky Arts

You’s Victoria Pedretti and Years and Years’ T’Nia Miller (pictured) feature in this horror loosely based on Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw and created by the team behind The Haunting of Hill House. Pedretti is an au pair taking care of two very strange children living in a very strange house.
Friday, Netflix

Anna Kendrick stars as lovelorn millennial Darby Carter in this romcom-referencing series. With each episode chronicling a different romance in her life from her early 20s to her 30s, we find Darby in New York and navigating everything from first love to first heartbreak. Lesley Manville narrates her exploits in what’s an easily bingeable watch.
Wednesday, 10.45pm, BBC One

John Lennon: The Last Weekend

As this week marks what would have been John Lennon’s 80th birthday, this documentary recounts his final interview, just two days before he was murdered. An ideal visual accompaniment to Saturday’s Radio 2 doc, John Lennon at 80.
Friday, 1.45am, Sky Arts

Anna Konkle and Maya Erskine return for the second season of this surreal comedy, starring as themselves in a middle-school teen guise. After the drama of the school dance, where the pair patched up their rift, we open two days later with an invite to a pool party replete with potential crushes.
Monday, 9pm, Sky Comedy

Married at First Sight

The lonely hearts assemble for this fifth season of Channel 4’s arranged-marriage reality staple. Four hopefuls have been selected by a trio of relationship experts from more than 7,000 applicants to meet their matches for the first time – on their wedding day.
Tuesday, 9.30pm, Channel 4

This eight-part doc follows the highs and lows of a group of students at Washington DC’s Gallaudet University, a private institution for the deaf and hard of hearing. As well as navigating the usual pressures of college life, the friends also deal with the feeling of “not being deaf enough”.
Friday, Netflix

National treasure Michael Palin reflects on some of his landmark adventures in this new four-part documentary series, with the help of audio recordings and diaries. Episode one focuses on his travel-presenting debut, 1989’s Around the World in 80 Days series, in which Palin made like Phileas Fogg and, you guessed it, travelled round the world in 80 days.
Sunday, 8pm, BBC Two

Based on Tom Wolfe’s book of the same name, The Right Stuff follows the Mercury Seven, the military test pilots who, in 1959, were chosen by Nasa to take part in the first human spaceflight programme. Mad Men’s Aaron Staton and Limitless’s Jake McDorman star.
Friday, Disney+

Podcast

Cultural critics Simran Hans and Tara Joshi front this insightful and entertaining podcast on the most formative pop culture moments of the year 2000. We open on the changing lineups of Destiny’s Child and Beyoncé’s ultimate ascension to the status of “legacy artist”, while future episodes cover Big Brother and Zadie Smith.
Weekly, widely available

Get your daily dose of the biggest news stories from halfway around the globe in this podcast from Guardian Australia’s reporting team. Recent investigations unpicked in conversation include the changing rights of Indigenous land-owners over mining companies and the nation’s relationship with China.
Weekdays, the Guardian

As the US presidential elections loom, the aptly named Center for Public Integrity has put together this audio series dissecting the financial consequences of Trump’s leadership. Reporters break down the economics for even the most numerically illiterate, detailing the legislative victories for Republican donors and the story of treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin.
Weekly, widely available

This 10-part podcast goes on what it calls a “perverse journey”, as it recalls the US’s decades-long involvement in Iraq. Given one of its hosts is an alumnus of “dirtbag left” podcast Chapo Trap House, it’s suitably scathing, but more a caustic history lesson than pure screed, with archive clips and the odd Sopranos reference to keep things thrumming along.
Widely available

The second season of this Minnesota music history podcast focuses on the legendary First Avenue club in Minneapolis. Having played a pivotal role in the advancement of local talent including Hüsker Dü and Prince (who shot some of Purple Rain there), its fabled, 50-year history is ripe for unpicking.
Weekly, widely available

Film

(12A) (Sofia Coppola) 96 mins
Sofia Coppola’s latest is getting a brief release in cinemas before it drops on Apple TV+ on 23 October. She joins forces with Bill Murray for the third time (after Lost in Translation and the comedy special A Very Murray Christmas). He plays Rashida Jones’s charming dad, who helps her out when she suspects her husband (Marlon Wayans) might be having an affair.
In cinemas

(No cert) (Kirsten Johnson) 90 mins
A new doc from the director of ultra-imaginative collage-essay Cameraperson. Kirsten Johnson constructs a sort of living obituary of her father Dick, a retired psychologist whose faculties are beginning to fray. Nightmares, memories, jokes and games are all folded into the mix.
Netflix

(No cert) (Joe Mantello) 122 mins
Mart Crowley’s play about New York friends became a 1970 William Friedkin film, celebrated for its depiction of LGBTQ life. Pose co-creator Ryan Murphy has resurrected it, with Jim Parsons and Zachary Quinto in the cast; Mantello directed the recent Broadway revival.
Netflix

(15) 111 mins
Oliver Stone made his name with this Vietnam war movie, which gave lead roles to Charlie Sheen and Willem Dafoe as it followed an infantry unit in combat in south-east Asia. All the main faces contribute to this reminiscence.
Digital platforms from Mon

(No cert)
From budget horror studio Blumhouse Productions, four films packaged in a digital answer to the likes of Chiller Theatre. First up are The Lie, about a teen killer, and Black Box, involving a man with memory loss.
Amazon Prime Video from Tue

A nine-year-old Zambian girl is accused of witchcraft and sent to a “witch camp” tourist attraction in this magical debut feature from writer-director Rungano Nyoni. Inept official Mr Banda (Henry BJ Phiri) spies a chance to profit from little Shula (Maggie Mulubwa) in a highly original blend of satire, slapstick and haunting imagery.
Sunday, 12.15am, Channel 4