Screen Babble: Weekend Watch: World on Fire season 2, Bird Box Barcelona, and THTH S5 among highlights

There’s plenty arriving on streaming platforms on Friday 14 July - Bird Box: Barcelona, a Spanish language sequel to the 2018 Sandra Bullock post-apocalyptic horror lands on Netflix. The second season of Isaac Azimov’s sprawling sci-fi novel series adaptation Foundation will also start on Friday, with the first episode the first episode landing on Apple TV+. There are 10 episodes in the second season and they will be released weekly.

Also on Friday, Too Hot to Handle season 5 begins on Netflix. This time a group of attractive singles think they’re heading off on a Caribbean cruise when Lana reveals the reality show they’re actually taking part in. Apparently it’s a marmite show, though it’s hard to imagine anyone actually enjoying the series non-ironically. For those that do, the first four episodes land on Friday 14, another three on 21, and the final three episodes on 28.

On Sunday, the long-awaited second season of World on Fire begins airing. The first series of this Second World War drama, told from the perspective of a number of interconnected individuals across Europe, aired in 2019. The second season, follows the War through the Blitz and the beginning of the North Africa campaign. There are six episodes in the series, the first episode airs at 9pm on 16 July - the following five episodes will air at the same time weekly. Each episode will be available to watch on BBC iPlayer after it first airs.

A gripping new crime drama, The Sixth Commandment, airs this weekend. The series, starring Timothy Spall and Anna Crilly, follows the mysterious deaths of Peter Farquhar and Ann Moore-Martin in Maids Moreton, Buckinghamshire, in 2015, and the shocking events that happened in the following years. There are four episodes in the series and they will air on BBC One at 9pm on Monday 17, Tuesday 18, Monday 24 and Tuesday 25.

Another programme worth catching this week is the newest series of University Challenge, which will be the first without Jeremy Paxman as host since 1987. Broadcaster Amol Rajan is replacing Paxman, who stepped down from the role after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. The first episode, which sees Trinity College, Cambridge face off against University of Manchester, airs on BBC Two on Monday 17 at 8.30pm.

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