Channel 4 describe the programme "Series that captures the work of police, probation, prison, prosecution and parole".

Here's a link to the first episode: https://www.channel4.com/programmes/crime-and-punishment/on-demand/64655-001

Crime and punishment is a documentary series that looks inside prison to tell the stories of the criminal justice system from the viewpoint of those involved.

The first episode spends some time talking about the unjust "Imprisonment for Public Protection"[1] sentences (these are no longer given by the courts but there are thousands of prisoners still imprisoned on them), how they went wrong, and the awful effect they have upon prisoners. It's a difficult watch. It shows how severely the mental health of prisoners is when they're on this type of sentence, including their serious self harm.

Episode two talks about pressure inside prisons and how that results in "riots", about how prisoners use the only power they have available to them.

I like the programme because it avoids judgmentalism. The prisoners are not reduced to the bad guys; the officers are not simplified to the good guys. You hear a little bit about some of the offences committed by the prisoners

Here's a Twitter thread from someone working in the English NHS. She works in forensic services as a psychologist. https://twitter.com/SarahE_Davidson/status/1173707912981700608

I guess Channel 4 On Demand have geo-blocking. I don't know if it's available on other services, or on torrent.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprisonment_for_public_protection

This is a British cookery show. They take a bunch of people who cook for a living but who have basic skills. These people are paired with a chef who has four Michelin stars and eighteen restaurants. They visit different restaurants around Europe to have competitions to cook that restaurant's own food.

Things I enjoy about it: it does a good job of showing that people who have somewhat fucked up lives will always find a place in cheffing. They could have stayed in the UK but they decided to go around Europe.[1] There's a couple of incidents of poor behaviour being corrected (some of the women chefs are ignored and spoken over by some men, the women stand up for themselves and get an apology).

Things I don't like: there's some cheffy bollocks around the pressure and discipline of a brigade; it's still a reality-show competition and that introduces some artificiallity; they send people home each week and I always hate that aspect of programmes.

It's available on Pirate Bay.

Here are some reviews which I think are fair.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/jul/30/the-chefs-brigade-review-a-cookery-challenge-worthy-of-willy-wonka

https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/the-chefs-brigade-bbc2-episode-1-review-jason-atherton/

[1] I can't describe how pathologically awful Brexit has been for the UK. :-(

I feel like most people on reddit (and probably here, too) only really watch American shows, but there IS a lot of good content in Europe and other countries as well. Sometimes those shows come to the US in a butchered, Americanized remake, but those are rarely as good as the original show.

Bonus points if it's not orginally in English (so British & Australian shows don't count either!).

One of my favorite tv shows (at least the first season) is the French 2012 supernatural drama series Les Revenants. It's got a captivating story with some great acting and a killer soundtrack (by the Scottish post-rock band Mogwai, if you're into that kind of music). It fell apart a bit in season 2 and never got picked up for a third season, but it's still very much worth watching for that first, brilliant season.