For whatever reason, I never reviewed the first season of “Sugar,” which I’d stopped watching before its late-season big reveal — the detective (Colin Farrell as John Sugar) is an alien. Had that happened earlier in the story I might have hung on, but strictly as a production, I’d found its brand of neo-noir to be mannered, gimmicky, obvious, overdirected (by Fernando Meirelles, the Brazilian director of the fine “City of Men”) and, as you may have surmised, off-putting.
This is by way of announcing that the second season arrives Friday on Apple TV and that I like it very much. The stylistic eccentricities have been dialed back, including the use of old Hollywood film clips to reflect the action and possibly the thoughts of its main character, a cinephile from space, who is both practicing and enacting the work of a private detective. He reads American Cinematographer; he takes the Paramount studio tour, then takes it again.
One might navigate the new season without having watched the first, though at least reading an online synopsis. Sam Catlin (“Preacher”) has taken over as showrunner from series creator Mark Protosevich; the tone is lighter, the plot less perverse. Under new director of photography Marshall Adams, the camerawork, formerly too quirky by half — a mishmash of lenses and film stocks and canted angles — has settled down, as has the editing, enhancing the story by letting it breathe and staying out of the way of Farrell’s singular performance — the series’ distinguishing feature and warm heart.
For all his influences, Det. Sugar is the one character who can’t easily be traced back to an earlier model. As detectives go, he’s unusually sweet, optimistic, diplomatic, willing to give a villain a way out, closer to the Man Who Fell to Earth than to Sam Spade. He loves animals, and they love him.
Farrell, who also narrates in a soft voice, often wears a look of shy incomprehension, as if a beat behind in translating the world around him, a stranger in a strange land.
Using his mild telekinetic powers, Det. John Sugar (Colin Farrell) makes a tennis ball float in the air, to the delight of some dogs in “Sugar.”
(Apple TV)
As aliens go, he is also something of a lightweight, demonstrating some mild telekinetic abilities (making a tennis ball float to entertain a pack of dogs, stirring the ice cubes in his drink) and the ability to speak any language, which underscores his empathetic nature. He makes friends with cab drivers, tour guides and security guards; as an “immigrant,” he appreciates immigrants. He’ll do the dishes for a woman too grief-stricken to attend to them, explain to a man who hates his own name that it’s a reference to Bogart’s character in “Casablanca” and a sign of his mother’s love. He can drink as much alcohol as he likes — his metabolism keeps him from getting drunk — which makes him indefatigable company in a bar, but he is horribly allergic to cinnamon. Remember that, if you’re ever forced to defend yourself from an ET.
Where classic noir detectives tend to be middle-class sorts a job or two ahead of losing their office, Sugar has a lot of money, whether saved up from earlier high-priced cases — his Season 1 client is a rich old man ripped from “The Big Sleep” — or piped down from space. He wears expensive suits, lives in a bungalow in a high-end Los Angeles hotel but also buys a house in the Hollywood Hills because its view allows him to spy on a dodgy character from Season 1; and drives a Nassau Blue 1966 convertible Corvette that he blithely parks in bad neighborhoods with the top down. When the car actually is stolen in this season’s opening episode, it brings him into contact with Val (Sasha Calle, Supergirl in “The Flash” movie), a spunky, punky petty criminal who negotiates its return and whom Sugar makes his assistant; I wouldn’t say Calle is underused, but I would have liked to see more of her.
Sugar came to Earth as part of a group of “thousands,” mixing among humans incognito just to observe them, for benign alien reasons, like Starship Enterprise on its five-year mission. (We get a flashback to Sugar’s first days on Earth, before he acquired the suits and the car and settled on a profession.) At the end of Season 1, their cover being blown, and humans being famously weird when it comes to extraterrestrials — you’ve seen the movies — they return home en masse, except for Sugar. He’s still working a missing persons case of his own, looking for his sister, hopefully alive, somewhere on the planet. And he’s becoming more of an Earthman — the dangers of assimilation are a specific Season 1 plot point. On top of that, like a lot of people, he just loves L.A.
Laura Donnelly as flirtatious Charlotte in “Sugar.”
(Jason LaVeris / Apple TV)
And then there’s Charlotte (Laura Donnelly), whom he meets in the bar of his hotel; it doesn’t take a degree in postwar genre fiction to recognize that there may be something fishy, perhaps “fatale,” about her. But like Sugar, we’re content to put that question off as long as possible, in the hopes that maybe this relationship will be as uncomplicated as we’d like it to be, and a tonic for Sugar’s loneliness. (He no longer has his dog, even.) He regularly gets on the subspace shortwave looking for any others of his kind left on Earth.
The new season will get around to that question, though the alien and earthly plot lines are kept on separate tracks. Most of the time “Sugar” functions as a straightforward compelling detective story, as the protagonist hunts for Ji Moon (Raymond Lee), the missing junkie brother of Danny Moon (Jin Ha), a talented young Korean American prizefighter on the first rung of the ladder to success. (Sugar is working pro bono, not needing the money but very much needing something to do.) It brings him into the orbit of drug dealers and crooked police officers and through an array of Southland locations, including the Beverly Center — finally, a good use for that place — Koreatown, the Vista Theater and the Huntington Gardens.
While there’s nothing particularly novel about that plot, it pulls you along, and the series as a whole is orchestrated to make one care about the characters and worry over their fates. Vivid minor characters — there are pro turns from Shea Whigham, Laura San Giacomo and Mireille Enos — make the story live. All in all, a good meal that leaves no bitter aftertaste.
The show takes a fresh group of young people each week, plucking them from their comfort zones and dropping them headfirst into a completely different way of life.
On Sunday night (May 10), viewers watched as self-confessed shopaholics Saffron, Umar, and Bridie swapped their lavish lifestyles for a 1960s-inspired, off-grid existence in Cornwall.
Things quickly became overwhelming for Saffron, however, when the reality of her new surroundings hit home upon arrival.
The moment she stepped into their accommodation with her suitcase in tow, the 26-year-old broke down in tears, reports Wales Online.
She commented: “I can’t do this, I don’t like any of it. I don’t want to do this anymore. No, I really don’t want to do this anymore. It’s too much, I can’t.”
Farm resident Babu stepped in to comfort a distressed Saffron, who struggled to articulate just how overwhelming she found the whole experience. She added: “The bees, the walking, the climbing. I’m not used to quiet at all.”
With some gentle encouragement from Babu, Saffron ultimately decided to stick it out and embrace farm life. Throughout the episode, viewers also gained a fascinating insight into her life back home.
Speaking candidly to the camera, she revealed: “I am a sugar baby. A sugar baby is basically a companion. When I have a long-term sugar daddy, then the items per month would be a few Chanel handbags or a few Christian Louboutins.
“The men that I’ve dated, they’ve always looked after me, I’m just a 24/7 princess, so I don’t know what life is without that.”
Saffron explained to the group at the farm that their relationships remain platonic, focusing primarily on conversation rather than anything physical.
After a difficult beginning, Channel 5 audiences witnessed a transformation in Saffron as she threw herself into producing fresh organic apple juice for sale at a farmers’ market.
The 26 year old became emotional later in the programme when discussing the bullying she endured in her younger years, though the experience appeared largely beneficial for her overall.
Reflecting as the episode concluded, she admitted: “The biggest challenge of this week has been the whole bl***y week! I know that everyone thought I was going to leave day one, myself included, but no, I stayed the week! I’m not proud of myself this week, no.”
She continued candidly: “I’m going to be real, I think there’s a lot more I could’ve tried, but there was so much emotion that kept coming over me every time in every single activity, I was finding bits of myself that I’d hidden for so long.”
Trading Places is available to watch on Channel 5.
For the first time, BBC will air the first ever full-length series of the show – six episodes filmed across six weeks – as the celebrities will face a range of weekly business challenges set by the business mogul
Zara Zubeidi Deputy Showbiz Editor
09:37, 19 Apr 2026Updated 09:38, 19 Apr 2026
The Celebrity Apprentice line-up has been confirmed(Image: RAY BURMISTON/BBC)
For the first time ever, BBC will air the first ever full-length series of the show – six episodes filmed across six weeks – as the celebrities face a range of weekly business challenges set by the business mogul.
Competing for the chance to win a £100,000 donation to a charity of their choice, they will each be hoping to prove their business acumen and ultimately be crowned The Celebrity Apprentice winner.
There will be another change to this star-studded series – the boardroom will relocate to a London City skyscraper, providing a distinctive new setting for Lord Sugar’s final deliberations.
The full line up includes Alexandra Burke, actor Danny Miller, presenter Gethin Jones, dancer and presenter Jordan Banjo, journalist Kay Burley, actress and online personality Maddie Grace Jepson, presenter, podcaster and content creator Max Balegde, Gladiator Sheli McCoy, UK garage legend DJ Spoony, TV and BBC Radio 2 presenter Richie Anderson, comedian and writer Laura Smyth and television personality Toni Laites.
Lord Sugar said: “We’ve not done anything like this before, and it’ll be entertaining to see these 12 celebrities being put through six weeks of some brilliant business challenges. But just because they’re celebrities, it doesn’t mean they’re going to get an easy ride, especially when there’s £100,000 at stake for their chosen charity.”
Kalpna Patel-Knight, Head of Entertainment Commissioning at the BBC says: “This brand-new full-length series of The Celebrity Apprentice takes everything audiences love about the format and turns the pressure right up. This year’s celebrities arrive with strong reputations – but in the boardroom, status counts for nothing.
“They’ll be tested on leadership, teamwork and commercial instinct, and only those who can truly deliver will make it through. It’s bold, unpredictable and hugely entertaining – and viewers are in for a brilliant ride.”
Broadcast details for The Celebrity Apprentice will be confirmed in due course. The announcement comes after Karishma Vijay was crowned the winner of the BBC business show last week after an all-female final, which saw her battle it out for Lord Sugar’s coveted investment against Pascha Myhill.
Karishma, from Surrey, recounted the moment Lord Sugar told her she had won and would be receiving his £250,000 investment, and said: “I was so blown away, so shocked – but I kept it very cool. Then, I got in my car and I was screaming. It was just insane – I can’t believe I’ve gone and done it after not having watched the show, I feel like that’s so cheeky.”
Explaining his decision on the hit BBC show, Lord Sugar said: “As always, it was close competition in the final after two outstanding pitches by two brilliant young businesswomen. But Karishma really impressed me throughout the process and has proven why she deserves my investment. She’s a proper grafter and she’s got that entrepreneurial spirit that I always look for. The cosmetics industry is one I know a lot about, and I know our partnership will pave the way for a bright future.”
