10 of the best TV shows to watch this February

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9. The Gray House

Set during the US Civil War, this historical drama is inspired by the true stories of four very different Southern women – a socialite and her mother, a courtesan and a formerly enslaved woman – who become spies for the Union army, secretly sending intelligence from within the Confederacy. Mary Louise Parker plays Eliza Van Lew, but the story is more focused on Eliza’s daughter, Elizabeth (Daisy Head) and the formerly enslaved Mary Jane Richards (Amethyst Davis). There are battle scenes along with the espionage in this ambitious series, entirely directed by Roland Joffe (The Killing Fields). Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman are among the executive producers of the show, which is also one of many period pieces lately to use contemporary music, with country singers including Willie Nelson and Shania Twain on the soundtrack.

The Gray House premieres 26 February on Prime Video internationally

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10. Love Story: John F Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette

True romance or exploitation? This story about the meeting, marriage and deaths of John, the golden-boy scion of the Kennedy dynasty, and Carolyn, the beautiful former publicist for Calvin Klein, comes 27 years after they died in the crash of a plane JFK Jr was piloting. For the principal roles, this miniseries has gone for relative unknowns who vaguely resemble the real people: Paul Kelly and Sarah Pidgeon. Others in the cast are more familiar, with Naomi Watts as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (who died before her son married and who never met Carolyn), Alessandro Nivola as Klein and Grace Gummer as Caroline Kennedy. The show is produced by Ryan Murphy, and for all its glossy romance doesn’t sugar-coat the fierce arguments the couple reportedly had. It has already been criticised by Caroline’s son, Jack Schlossberg, who on Instagram said the show was “profiting off” his uncle’s life and death “in a grotesque way,” a post that set off a tussle in the media between him and Murphy, who then claimed Schlossberg’s comments caused “threats against my personal safety.”

Love Story: John F Kennedy Jr & Carolyn Bessette premieres 12 February on FX and Hulu in the US and 13 February on Disney+ in the UK

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