What to watch on BBC iPlayer this March

Inside No. 9

All four series of this dark comedy anthology television programme are currently available to watch online. Written by Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton and produced by the BBC, each quirky episode is a self-contained story with new characters and a fresh setting.

Similar to Black Mirror but with much less American influence, it’s a great series to binge on, since the episodes rarely go over half an hour.

Baptiste

This is a spin-off series from the drama The Missing that focuses on one of the central characters, Julien Baptiste. First broadcast on BBC One last month, it shares the excellent style with the original thanks to it being created by Missing writers Jack and Harry Williams.

After having an operation on his brain tumour, Julien Baptiste fears he is not the man he once was. His old boss persuades him to help the Dutch police look for a missing sex worker in Amsterdam. Whilst searching, he meets Edward, the uncle of the missing girl – but all is not as it seems, and there are other suspects lurking in the shadows.

Shetland

Initially based on the novels of Ann Cleeves, Shetland was brought to the small screen by David Kane, who has remained a principal writer throughout all five series. The story takes place largely on the eponymous Scottish archipelago. The new series started out on a morbid note, with a jogger on her morning run discovering a severed hand on the beach, and a holdall containing further body parts is found at an inlet nearby. As the series progresses, the investigation is set to take a sinister turn when the team identifies the victim and begins to scrutinise his emails and social media accounts.

Abused By My Girlfriend

Abused By My Girlfriend tells the tragic and remarkable story of Alex Skeel, a young man from Bedford who survived a severely abusive relationship with his girlfriend Jordan Worth. Combining observational filming with personal and police archive footage, this film provides a raw and uninhibited window into a teenage romance that descended into terrible and unimaginable violence.

Bedfordshire Police have described it as one of the most extreme cases of domestic violence they had ever dealt with. By sharing his story, Alex hopes to challenge assumptions about violence and masculinity in relationships, and to empower other victims of domestic violence to come forward and tell their story.

It Follows

Currently streaming on iPlayer, It Follows is a 2014 American supernatural psychological horror film written and directed by David Robert Mitchell.

The tale follows a teenage girl named Jay, who is pursued by a supernatural entity after what started out as a seemingly innocent sexual encounter turns into something much more sinister.

Fans of classic ‘80s horror films will love this nostalgic flick.