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Out in full on HBO Max in the US, and coming to the UK/Ireland via StarzPlay on Amazon from the end of January, Station Eleven is a 10 part miniseries that hops between characters and timelines just before and a long time after a pandemic wipes out almost everyone overnight.

It's from some of the folks who made the dearly departed Leftovers and stars Mackenzie Davis and David Wilmot, but it follows a few different mini-ensembles and subplots that seem initially unrelated and turn out not to be - a woman who dates a movie star before the pandemic, a guy trying to get a lost little girl home just as it starts, and a group of travelling performers who migrate from village to village 20 years after. It also has Himesh Patel, ex Tamwar from Eastenders, having staged an almighty glow up.

It's not nearly as grim and self serious as it sounds, and it's a very different animal to any other current post apocalyptica. More than survival or pandemics, it's mostly about community and the value of art - whether that's Shakespeare or the titular in-world comic book.

It can also be genuinely, and impressively weird, with some fabulous and often quite bold direction, audio gimmicks and editing. It rewards close attention - a throwaway gag in Ep 2 can turn out to explain the fate of a character we only meet in Ep 9 - but the visuals, vibes and...vperformances are strong enough to carry you regardless.

I think it's one of the best things I've seen in years and I think folks here will appreciate a lot of the sidelong classic sf references and interlocking narratives. It has very little in common with either, but personally I'd rank it up with The Terror or Chernobyl in the "amazing miniseries out of nowhere" pantheon.

Don't miss it if you can help it, and try not to spoil yourself on anything before you see it. It's the first thing I've watched "live" for years, and I'd forgotten what it felt like to have a week to speculate between episodes. I had some misgivings about one subplot but overall it knocked my socks off.