Netflix’s latest true crime hits Worst Ex Ever and Should I Marry a Murderer? are topping streaming charts, writes columnist NICK OVERALL.

One can’t help but question the state of modern relationships when the two shows trending at the top of Netflix’s streaming charts this month are Worst Ex Ever and, a tad more disconcerting, Should I Marry a Murderer?

Well, that’s what the streaming giant has served up, and audiences are loving it.

Starting with the former, Worst Ex Ever features four hour-long episodes, each telling the story of a relationship going down a sinister spiral.

The true-crime docuseries (now in its second season) follows the cases of some very unfortunate significant others who discovered their ex-partners to be murderers, manipulators, kidnappers, and all sorts of the worst of humanity.

Some slight red flags there.

It follows on from the huge success of Netflix’s 2022 documentary Worst Roommate Ever, and it doesn’t exactly take atom-splitting insight to work out what that show was about.

Should I Marry a Murderer? also ticks those true-crime boxes that subscribers can’t get enough of.

It’s focused on an infamous case in the UK where a cyclist bizarrely vanished in the Scottish Highlands.

The disappearance baffled detectives for years and had all but gone cold. Then, in 2020, police had an unlikely breakthrough that would finally see them move closer to solving the mystery: a tip from none other than the man’s fiancée.

Clocking in at three roughly 50-minute episodes, this series makes for more of a binge than an episode-a-night type deal.

The fact that not one but two shows of this subject matter can hold a place in Netflix’s top 10 at the same time proves the sheer popularity true crime continues to hold, especially when an element of poisoned romance is mixed right in.

APPLE TV+ has proven itself to sling some of the best sci-fi on streaming, and this month an unusual spin-off to one of its flagship shows launches on the platform.

Star City is the newest story branching from the lauded drama series For All Mankind, a show which imagines an alternate history where the space race never ended.

In this universe, it was actually the Soviet Union that got to the Moon first, sparking a desperate attempt from the US to catch up and outdo its cosmonaut competitors.

Each season of the show jumps around a decade in time, giving the audience a look at how technology, culture, and politics might have evolved in a very different world.

For All Mankind has run for five seasons, and a sixth is on the way, but this new spin-off series tells a different side of the story.

While the original show focuses heavily on the cosmic contest from the perspective of the Americans, Star City explores the Russian side, going deep into the lives of astronauts, scientists, and politicians fighting for space supremacy.

Unlike the more optimistic tone of the main series set in America, Star City has a colder atmosphere, one fuelled by Cold War paranoia, espionage, and surveillance in a speculative reality where the USSR was emboldened by reaching our lunar neighbour first.

Perhaps the creators of For All Mankind found they couldn’t quite pack in all the story they wanted to tell before the series wraps up and decided an entirely new show was the way to go.

It’s one of Apple’s most critically lauded shows, but also one of its most underrated, making it a curious choice for a spin-off.

For those who haven’t heard of it before, this new entry to the story could be a great excuse to give the series a try.

Not exactly casual viewing, For All Mankind is going to appeal mainly to those fascinated with the particular area of history it explores.

Think the pacing and writing calibre of Mad Men with a space theme.

It will be interesting to see whether this spin-off is what For All Mankind really needs to take off.