My Brilliant Career is the latest classic story to get the streaming treatment, premiering on Netflix this month with six episodes, reports streaming columnist NICK OVERALL.

The latest adaptation of the Aussie novel My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin is a true-blue production indeed. 

The majority of filming was done in SA and around Adelaide, with a cast and crew made up almost entirely of talent from down under. 

My Brilliant Career follows Sybylla Melvin, a young woman living in rural NSW in the early 1900s who dreams of becoming a writer.

However, her family expects her to adhere to the social norms of the day. Off to the marriage market, have some kids, raise a family and so on. 

When a wealthy young landowner named Harry Beecham arrives on the scene, Sybylla actually begins to wonder whether it’s what she wants

Choose marriage to the person she loves? Chase her dreams? Or can she balance both?

It’s this still pertinent question that’s made the story resonate decades after it was first published in 1901 when Franklin was just 21. 

Many will remember the 1979 Gillian Armstrong film starring Judy Davis and Sam Neill that has secured its place as a classic (streamable on Netflix).

In its shiny new television format though, this adaptation has spread the story across six hours rather than two and certainly benefits from it.

THE White Lotus has popularised the cashed-up holiday-from-hell sub-genre in recent years, sparking a string of shows that also put humans on vacation under the microscope.

Enter the latest show to do it: Two Weeks In August.

It’s a new British drama series on Binge that follows Zoe (Jessica Raine), a school teacher and mother of two, excited by a dream Greek holiday.

And what do you know? It’s not long before this idyllic getaway becomes more of a Greek tragedy.

The trip away with extended family takes a turn when Zoe’s husband Dan (Damien Molony) is caught kissing her friend. Drama! 

Set in motion is an investigation dripping in jealousy, obsession and secrecy that burns this holiday to the ground.

The inspiration is clear, but sometimes it feels like it’s trying a little too hard to be The White Lotus, which it most definitely is not.

The biting satire in Lotus delivers those uncomfortable or shocking laughs that keep you watching.

Two Weeks In August feels a bit bogged down in melodrama in comparison. 

There are still enough twists and turns here to keep its eight episodes engaging though.

Audiences who love getting caught up in the schadenfreude of a beautiful holiday gone bad will find plenty here. 

TAKE the producer of American Horror Story and Netflix’s more recent true crime Monster series and combine his talent with the imagination of the author of American Psycho.

Quite a dark combo and the result is a twisted new series streaming on Disney Plus.

Called The Shards, it’s a serial-killer mystery set in an elite Los Angeles primary school in the ‘80s.

The main character is a fictionalised, teenage version of Bret Easton Ellis (the author of American Psycho) who becomes obsessed with a mysterious new student who starts at his school.

At the same time, a string of murders have been unfolding across LA.

The culprit, named “The Trawler” by frightened residents, has people terrified and fascinated, including the young protagonist here.

Eventually, he can’t help but begin to think the new student who has caught his eye has some kind of connection to the killings.

This series is based on a novel by Easton Ellis, who injected a semi-autobiographical version of himself into the story.

Much less known compared to American Psycho, which got its own film adaptation with Christian Bale, The Shards still seems like a story that was begging for a TV reimagining.

Does Murphy pull it off?

Stylistically there’s a lot to chew on – a glossy look at the 1980s and morbid teenage obsession.

Beyond that though it, sadly, doesn’t seem to be much below the surface.

Honing in on the drama of its young characters rather than using them to paint a more fascinating picture of the era, the show has great moments interspersed with a lot of tedium, leaving The Shards rather broken. 

News all day, every day at CityNewsQBN.com.au.