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Every week, the Must Watch podcasters review the biggest TV and streaming shows.

This week, Scott Bryan and Hayley Campbell review ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North’.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North is a ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ adaptation of Richard Flanagan’s Booker prize-winning novel. It tells the epic and emotional story of Dorrigo Evans, an Australian doctor whose life is shaped by love, war, and memory.

Spanning decades, it weaves between his illicit romance before World War II, his harrowing time as a prisoner of war building the Thai-Burma railway, and his later years as a celebrated but haunted man.

Torn between duty and desire, Dorrigo struggles with the horrors he witnessed and the choices he made.

What does the team make of it?

Naga: “Scott what do you think?”

Scott: “I think it is a must watch.

“Normally with very upmarket, prestige shows, there tends to be a lot of issues around mumbling, because I think they always edit them in the same places they do edit film productions, so they have the idea that people would be watching it in surround sound or with immersive audio, when actually most people are just watching it obviously on their TV or on a screen. I did have issues with some of the dialogue and I agree with some of the complaints that have been made about this show.

“I agree that this is a Must Watch.”

Scott: “It is a bit flawed though, but the central concept I found to be quite compelling, because we follow Dorrigo on three timelines, so it can be hard to follow. I think what it does really well is that it does show the absolutely terrible consequences of war and the personal toll, particularly trauma and how that follows you for the rest of your life, even if you survive.

“I think with other war shows that we reviewed like Masters of the Air, there can be this mentality of, ‘oh it was a great adventure’, highlighting the horrors of it in part, but at the same time trying to give this glass half full nostalgic whimsy about it.

“The Narrow Road to the Deep North does not do that at all, it’s unspeakably grim, it’s compelling, it’s dark, I would say you wouldn’t regret watching it…”

Naga: “The first two minutes are…”

Scott: “Oh unbelievable. I think where it falls short for me is that, it can be a bit knotty and disorientating, it flicks from the war to someone writing something in the more present era to then them being back before the war.

“There’s problems with the audio as I alluded to before, I think also it feels as if this is a long film that they have just spliced into five parts and kind of shoved together, however, I do think as a final point, remarkable restraint by the fact that each episode is only about forty minutes, this could have been on a streamer, a fourteen-part, one-hour-fifteen-minutes TV show, but actually it’s a concise five-parter.”

Naga: “Hayley?”

Hayley: “Yeah this is a must watch for me too. I think it’s bleak but beautiful and I can’t remember the last time we reviewed a big drama like this…”

Scott: “No.”

Hayley: “Been a while since we’ve had one.

“It is – I will agree with the texters – a little frustrating to watch.

“I didn’t find the dialogue that irritating, but it suffers from the same thing that Game of Thrones did, which is that there aren’t enough lights on. It’s the kind of thing that would look beautiful in a cinema, but when you’re watching on a TV in a normal house, you’re looking at vague shapes in the dark.

“And sometimes those are beautiful too, they look like charcoal drawings of war, but it’s incredibly hard to see what’s going on and eventually you hope that someone will just light a cigarette just so you can see who is talking.”

Hayley: “That aside, there are lots of interesting people involved in making it. Justin Kurzel is the director, and most recently you might have seen his film, The Order, starring Jude Law and Nicholas Hoult.

“He’s also done an upcoming documentary on Warren Ellis from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. What I like about his work is he rarely does anything that’s straightforward, it always gets a bit strange somewhere.

“It’s also written by Shaun Grant who’s worked with Kurzel before as well as writing on David Fincher’s Mindhunter, which is a show I love. That’s before you even get to the cast, who are all great.

“So yes, it is a must watch. It’s a hard watch partly because it’s bleak and violent and incredibly gory and also because at times it can be literally hard to see what’s happening. But I do think this is a good one.”

Naga: “I thought it was an absolute must watch… I just saw the first… no, I think I just watched one and a bit, which means I did like it.

“I actually thought it was rather beautiful, and I liked the pacing.”

All five episodes of ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North’ are available to watch now on ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ iPlayer, with episodes also airing every Sunday at 9.15pm on ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ One.

But before all that, why not contact Scott and Hayley with the shows you’ve been loving, loathing or lamenting on mustwatch@bbc.co.uk.

This week, the team reviewed Mr Bigstuff and Untamed.

Must Watch is released as a podcast every Monday evening on ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Sounds.