TV reviews: The White Lotus (Sky Atlantic), SAS Rogue Heroes (BBC1), Blockbuster (Netflix)

Luxury motor yacht to the quay, staff waving in unison and dispensing fizz – Prosecco this time because it’s Sicily.

Infinity pools, goose-down cushions (from geese perched on their own pillows, no doubt) and macaroons at turndown-time (because chocolates are so common and five-star, dahling). Yes, it can only be another visit to The White Lotus (Sky Atlantic) and we know this for sure because right away a dead body turns up in the sea.

In the first episode of the return of Mike White’s Emmy-laden satire about the super-rich on their holidays, someone remarks over preprandial cocktails that regarding television “there’s so much content now, billions of shows, it’s suffocating”.

This is true. Not all of the shows are truly great, but many are very good, although even they struggle to stand out.

Alfie Allen, Connor Swindells and Jack O'Connell are the SAS Rogue Heroes.

You can have too much of a very good thing and if dramas were rated like hotels, or maybe the treats left by the chambermaids, then there is probably a lot of chocolate clogging up your “recorded” box. There is in mine, but The White Lotus is definitely a macaroon, and as before this season is smart, sexy and skewers a particular type most deftly.

White has assembled a new array of guests, although Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) is back, still with husband Greg, but still needy, so her PA has come along, too. Each room contains a head-shaped vase in recognition of a long-ago infidelity resulting in decapitation. Tanya is the first to be unnerved by the local legend, but surely won’t be the last.

Who’s going to end up floating in the drink? F. Murray Abraham, so sinister in Homeland, gets to relax into black comedy as the octogenarian leader of three generations of Italo-Americans on a roots trip.

Maybe his character Bert is too relaxed, as he keeps breaking wind at inopportune moments, usually when he’s trying to chat up the attractive young female staff. His randiness embarrasses both son (The Sopranos’ Michael Imperioli) and grandson and also astonishes them.

But why the fuss over Gramps still being virile? “It’s a penis, not a sunset,” he reasons.

There are plenty of zingers in the script and perhaps the most telling line is uttered by Harper (Aubrey Plaza from Parks and Recreation), who says: “Is this what happens when you’re rich for too long – your brain just atrophies?”

Harper is married to Ethan. He’s nerdy and she’s neurotic, but at least they know what’s going in the world.

Next door are Ethan’s old college buddy and his wife, who are “so over the whole news cycle” and don’t even vote. The bimbo and her himbo, though, appear to be having fun on vacation, judging by the whoops coming from their room.

There’s a dividing door between the suites – something tells me it won’t stay closed.

In the first season the hotel manager was a Hawaiian version of Basil Fawlty. It’s tempting to say that the new boss, Valentina, is like Sybill as she seems more efficient. Though obviously guests dying on you still isn’t a good look.

Back when there weren’t billions of shows and we watched absolutely everything – Stars on Sunday, Late Call even The Open University – I enjoyed a Second World War drama about a crack unit dressed in shorts, which I always thought was called The Desert Rats but, checking now, seems to have had the title The Rat Patrol.

It was based on the exploits of our SAS who stuck it to Rommel in North Africa, but, being US-made, celebrated good ol’ American boys as the heroes, causing an outcry in the UK. It must have made a deep impression on me, however, because only six episodes were shown before the BBC pulled it.

SAS Rogue Heroes (BBC1), which revisits the same period and the same campaign, is “mostly true”. It’s written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, so has quickly been dubbed Khaki Blinders.

I never really got into Peaky – my loss, maybe – although enjoyed the odd episodes I caught. For the anachronistic rock music, the gangsters’ speechifying, their molls with the peekaboo hairstyle and, of course, the fact the setting wasn’t “Landan”.

This repeats the trick with the music and Wright has his trio of renegade soldiers being just as wordy and roaring about “layer upon layer of fossilised shit … a freemasonry of mediocrity”.

A British convoy trundling through the desert, destination Tobruk, has come to a juddering halt because of a French blunder, the fuel needed being calculated in kilometres not miles. So what are they going to do? Form their own parachute regiment and attack the Nazis from the air.

The three are Jack O’Connell, Alfie Allen and Connor Swindells from Sex Education, possessor of the squarest jaw since my Action Man and so a perfect fit for this.

Whisky hangovers are nursed with laughing gas, grenades are tossed onto snooker tables and poetry is composed. These guys might just make me forget all about The Rat Patrol.

Blockbuster is a comedy about the last movie hire outlet of that name left on the planet and the irony of it screening on Netflix produces the first gag. A customer who hasn’t visited for three years confesses he’s been glued to the streaming giant like everyone else.

But then Netflix’s algorithm recommended The Great British Bake Off based on the fact his girlfriend had left him from a pastry chef.

The staff resolve to do everything to keep the shop going to preserve human interaction. A sweet motive, but doomed to failure.