Lauded as one of the best nail-biters of the year, streaming columnist NICK OVERALL gets his teeth into “The Bear”.

A COOKING show has never been as intense as what’s dished up in Disney Plus’ sizzling new drama series “The Bear”.

Think “Hell’s Kitchen”, double it, and it’s somewhere in the ballpark of the tension in this TV series being lauded as one of the best of the year.

On the outset one might think that the story of a fine-dining chef returning home to Chicago to work in his family’s sandwich shop couldn’t be that nail-biting. I certainly didn’t.

But it’s not long into this story before viewers find out there’s far more ingredients being stirred around in this pot than first appears.

Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) takes over the shop following the tragic suicide of his older brother, the former owner who leaves the place in a state of disarray and drowning in debt.

A cluster of intriguing characters played with some dedicated performances make “The Bear” easy to get sucked into, but what’s really making it stand out is how realistically it captures the stress of working in the heat of a kitchen.

Chefs from around the world have praised the series, saying the high-pressure environment is captured so accurately that it’s almost hard to watch. 

It’s an area seen little in fictional drama television. Cooking has normally been a big-ticket item in the reality TV sphere like what’s seen in “MasterChef” or anything Gordon Ramsay, but “The Bear” proves that the setting is one more than worthy of a big-budget drama.

Whether viewers are interested in cooking or not, this is one series deserving of a taste test.

It’s streaming on Disney Plus. Bon Appétit.

AUDIENCES looking for some espionage action will find just that in “Tehran”, a subversive, Israeli spy thriller on Apple TV+.

This slick series follows Tamar Rabinyan (Niv Sultan), a Mossad hacker-agent who infiltrates the capital of Iran under a false identity to help destroy the country’s nuclear reactor.

The show’s eponymous city makes for an intriguing, and rarely-seen cinematic setting and its excellently timed twists and turns keep it engaging throughout the two seasons so far produced.

With a third season likely on the way, now’s a great time to jump aboard.

THERE’S something about a party gone wrong that people just can’t look away from.

Australians saw it in the headlines in July when “Splendour in the Grass”, one of Byron Bay’s most popular music festivals, got pounded with rain.

The disastrous weather caused havoc for people who had travelled hours to see some of their favourite artists. Festival-goers were stuck in traffic all night without food or water, performances were cancelled, those who did brave the storm were up to their knees in mud for the majority of the event and doing all they could to keep their tents upright against the deluge. 

Like a car crash impossible to look away from, the festival dominated news over the three days it unfolded as footage was plastered throughout social media apps. It might have something to do with why Netflix’s new doco, “Trainwreck: Woodstock ‘99” recently hit number one on the streaming platform in Australia.

This mini-series recounts the events which saw the infamous American music festival fall completely off the rails. Extreme heat, piles of trash, violence, riots, assaults and more plagued the festival over the three days of insanity which saw it turn into a catastrophe.

Each of the doco’s three episodes covers one of these days of the festival, charting the deterioration of the event which by the end was nothing short of horrific.

Of course, Woodstock ‘99 was far more disastrous than what happened in Byron Bay in July,  but it’s intriguing indeed how audiences do get so swept up in the spectacle of a failed festivity.

Take Netflix’s 2019 doco phenomenon “Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened”, which recounted the true story of the infamous festival organised by a conman that saw people sleeping on dirt, unable to access food or water, and stranded for days without a way home.

I wonder if anyone’s thought of a doco idea for what happened at “Splendour”. How about “Rain on the Parade” for a title? You can have that one, Netflix.