“What’s love got to do, got to do with it; what’s love, but a second-hand emotion?” as Tina Turner memorably warbled. One might ask the same of the reality stars of Indian Matchmaking (Netflix), the show that is to romance what chartered accountancy is to artistic expression. Biodata and personal profiles, it seems, are the contemporary currency of the “big business” that is marriage. Repeated totting up of the essential qualities demanded of a mate is the cornerstone of this revealing eight-part first series, rich in the inadvertent humour that flows from the general awfulness of those few entitled individuals who take themselves too seriously. Young and youngish, largely successful ethnically Indian professionals consult Sima Taparia , who modestly calls herself “Mumbai’s top matchmaker”, for help in finding life partners. “Auntie Sima” operates mostly in India and the United States – with off-camera diversions into the Hong Kong market – setting up dates for lonely hearts so they might achieve the venerated state of matrimony, which on occasion here seems more important to traditional, pushy parents than their offspring, who actually have to go through with it. Saving parental face subjects some “candidates” to intense pressure to marry by a certain age; to someone of a certain social standing; with no dirty little family secrets; to someone “like Will Smith”; with precise prospects; of particular cultural or racial aspect; of a certain height; and on and on. Despite their finickiness, however (“the clients, they want everything”, laments Taparia), most seem genuinely agreeable people simply unlucky in love. And Indian Matchmaking cleverly throws their good natures into relief by making room for the time wasters, mummy’s boys, participants who probably spotted an opportunity for self-advertisement and the plain obnoxious. Most frightening for some in this game of matrimonial headhunting though is the gauntlet-running otherwise known as meeting the family … the whole lot of them, sometimes, everyone inspecting the startled hopeful as if at a mob-handed job interview. Tradition can be terrifying. Taparia objects to the term because of its historical baggage, nevertheless, what she facilitates is the arranged marriage – an institution that, whatever cynics might say, can nurture true love. In When Harry Met Sally -style, couples married for decades take to the sofa to reminisce, suggesting that the biodata-crunching approach is merely the modern means of achieving the same, old, end. And when that doesn’t work, the exasperated matchmaker can always fall back on face-reading and astrology. Because marriage may be many stops down the line, says one stargazer, “when Lord Jupiter is driving your bus”. Absentia returns for a third season on Amazon Prime All that romantic rot is hardly the priority for television’s most fearsome females, whose ranks currently include the likes of Hanna, Dex Parios and renegade FBI special agent Emily Byrne (Stana Katic), back for a third season of Absentia (Amazon Prime, now streaming). Having been held hostage for years and declared dead in absentia, Byrne re-emerged to find her family had moved on and the world had changed. And she’s still an outsider now, watching her ever-shady bureau friends become chummy with a gang of human-organ traffickers. What Absentia continues to do with conviction is reflect an evermore confusing world, where the good guys versus bad no longer applies. For Byrne, that means fighting as much with her fists as her brains, repeatedly putting herself in mortal danger while figuring out whom to trust. One apparent ally is hacker Kai, played by Kaja Chan , who cut her showbiz teeth at the Fringe Club and as part of Lindsey McAlister’s Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation . A future action-thriller headliner? Don’t bet against her.