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I knew next to nothing about Ayrton Senna, apart from the obvious - he died in a Formula 1 crash. I wasn't even interested in his story, but I watched the series with my husband. What I found was a glossy hagiography, a man polished into near-sainthood.

A bit of digging online told me what the series refused to: Senna wasn't flawless. But here, he's always right, forever misunderstood, first because he was Brazilian, then because he was simply "too good." Which sounds strange, considering Brazil had already given the world Nelson Piquet and Emerson Fittipaldi, who somehow managed to survive the Formula 1 world without that particular halo of persecution.

Even through all the worship, it still peeks out: Senna could be whiny, sulky, and petty when things didn't go his way. Less tragic hero, more spoiled rich kid. And then there's the racing. Endless racing. For six episodes. Maybe thrilling for F1 fans, but for the rest of us, it's like watching someone else's home movies on repeat - loud, fast, and way too long.

Brazil probably loved it. I was just waiting for the checkered flag.

Not to be confused with Saboteur, Hitchcock's Sabotage is smaller, darker, and crueller. Mrs. Verloc runs a cinema with her shady husband and cares for her little brother Stevie, blissfully unaware that her husband moonlights as a bomber.

Scotland Yard has him under watch through undercover Sgt. Spencer, the shop assistant next door.

The film's great shock comes when Verloc, fearing exposure, sends Stevie to deliver a bomb. The boy dawdles, the tension stretches unbearably, and the bus explodes - one of Hitchcock's most audaciously grim sequences.

What follows is domestic horror: Mrs. Verloc's grief, the grotesque banality of her husband's reaction, and the unbearable contrast of a silly cartoon playing in the theater below.

The climax is pure Hitchcock irony: carving a roast turns into murder, "accidentally" ridding Mrs. Verloc of her husband. A fire conveniently wipes away the evidence, leaving her free to imagine a future with Spencer.

Sabotage may lack the polish of his later thrillers, but its cruelty is unforgettable.

Saboteur is Hitchcock rehearsing themes he would later refine in North by Northwest and Notorious: the wrong man on the run, the uneasy alliance with a woman who doesn't entirely trust him, and the discovery that evil often wears tuxedos.

Barry, accused of sabotage and murder, flees across America with reluctant companion Pat, uncovering not just shadowy agents but the complicity of polite society.

It's not subtle, culminating in the Statue of Liberty climax where symbolism hangs as heavily as Barry's dangling hand, but it's effective. A brisk thriller, full of Hitchcock's knack for suspense in ordinary spaces, and an early sketch for masterpieces to come.