New to TVNZ+: November 29-December 5

Prisoner 951 is based on the extraordinary true story of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian citizen who was imprisoned and held hostage by the Iranian state for six years while her husband campaigned for her return.

“It was state hostage-taking,” Joseph Fiennes, who plays Richard Ratcliffe in the four-part BBC drama, told The Guardian.

It clearly goes on, and innocent people and families are completely disrupted and tarred for life. And now I’ve told this story, I look at anyone that might be accused of something, and I don’t quite believe it.

Narges Rashidi (Gangs of London) co-stars in the Stephen (This City is Ours) Butchard dramatisation directed by Philippa Lowthorpe (Three Girls).

“It’s a political thriller that has, at the heart of it, a love story,” Lowthorpe said in Radio Times.

“This is a story about an ordinary couple getting caught up in geopolitics beyond their interest, beyond their lives, and catapulted into a Kafkaesque nightmare because one of them is in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Prisoner 951 goes to air in the UK on November 23; TVNZ+ will stream the first three episodes from December 1 and the fourth a week later (here’s the trailer).

Watching You (December 5) is an Aussie noir about a peeping Tom conspiracy that unfolds after a woman’s impulsive one-night stand with a stranger is captured on hidden camera.

ScreenHub thought it “slick and stylish … At its best, the psychological thriller treads boldly through murky sexual, emotional and moral territory.

“Watching You explores dark, unspeakable fears about our intimate moments not only being watched but recorded – captured – but also unspoken desires.”

But The Guardian said it’s “barely worth watching“, save doe the “standout” star turn by Aisha Dee (The Bold Type).

The full season of Watching You streams from December 5; view the trailer here.

The full first season of The Sentinels (December 2) is billed as a “steampunk sci-fi thriller” about a Frenchman seriously wounded in WWI who joins a top-secret army research project to become a super-soldier.

“It’s interesting to see the French making the superhero genre part of their own history,” ABC Radio said. “Not really the action-packed show I was expecting; it’s more of a slow-burn mystery … [and] I’m kind of gripped.”

SBS said the graphic novel adaptation is visually stunning with “no shortage of action” and the hero’s “Frankenstein-style series of transformations into a clanking WWI version of Robocop”.

Fresh from the Bravo Vault on December 1 are The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills S11,  Vanderpump Rules S4 and Orlando Bloom: To the Edge S1.

New movies to stream from December 1 include:

• Early Man
• The Lost City of Z
• Dance Academy
• The Others
• Gunpowder Milkshake
• Arthur the King
• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

The first cricket test between NZ and the West Indies live streams 10.30am Tuesday-Friday while making their linear debuts, as previewed here, are Au Pair, Love My Face, Bradley Walsh: Egypt’s Cosmic Code, Hunted, Kirstie & Phil: Bleeps, Bloops, & Best Bits and 25 Years of Location Location Location.