An afterlife sitcom, an angry penguin, tossed salad and scrambled eggs, and a Corby trouser press … our writers pick the shows they would happily watch on a loop for ever

I love every character and every aspect of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. There isn’t a weak link in the cast and they work together as seamlessly and apparently joyfully as you could wish.

(Transgressive)
In Jenny Hollingworth’s first solo venture, her singular songwriting powers shine in swooping vocals and transcendent pop melodies

Over the past decade, 27-year-old Jenny Hollingworth’s musical output has become steadily less strange. As half of Let’s Eat Grandma, the Norwich native started out making freaky synth-folk the arch syrupiness of which chimed with the then-nascent hyperpop scene: I, Gemini, the duo’s 2016 debut, was outsiderish juvenilia of the most thrilling variety. For its follow-up, I’m All Ears, Hollingworth and her bandmate, Rosa Walton, sharpened their songwriting skills while holding tight to their eccentricities; the result was an album of sensational futurist pop. By 2022’s Two Ribbons, they were slipping into slightly more subdued, conventional territory – albeit retaining enough idiosyncratic sonic detailing to maintain their place at the edge.

So it takes a moment to adjust to the overt familiarity of Hollingworth’s first solo venture. Like Two Ribbons, it reflects on grief (she lost her partner in 2019) and the temporary disintegration of her lifelong friendship with Walton, except this time the introspection is set to knowingly nostalgic 1980s new wave. When the choruses don’t sparkle, Quicksand Heart can feel like plodding through the past, but the moment Hollingworth lands on an irresistible melody – see: Every Ounce of Me, whose bittersweet bounce bridges the gap between Olivia Rodrigo and the Waterboys – the effect is transcendent. The record peaks with the archetypally perfect powerpop number Appetite and the genre-bending Do You Still Believe in Me? in which Hollingworth patchworks together breakbeats, vertiginously swooping vocals, squealing hair metal bombast and shoegazey dissonance, reminding us of her singular powers in the process.