What are you going to be watching this week? We round up everything coming to streaming services this week, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, ThreeNow, Neon and TVNZ+.
The biggies
Squid Game: The Challenge (on Netflix from November 22)
A real-life href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/squid-game-reality-series-plagued-by-accusations-of-rigging-and-inhumane-conditions/VWLZ3P2SV5CU5BNPBN3RG2KYPE/" target="_blank">Squid Game feels a little bit on the nose for a dystopia, but hey, that’s where we are in 2023 apparently. In this series, 456 players compete to win $4.56 million, the largest single cash prize in reality TV ever (breaking a previous record of $2.6 million). As per the hit series, each player is put through a series of games. Not per the series, players will not be killed off in droves. / Sam Brooks
Faraway Downs (on Disney+ from November 26)
Remember Baz Luhrmann’s 2008 film Australia? Probably not, because it was hyped a lot and came out to middling box office returns and even more middling reviews. The general consensus that it was simply too much movie, and a pretty disjointed one at that. So now, 15 years later, it is coming to Disney+ as a six-part miniseries, using what has to be swathes of unused footage. I actually have a soft spot for the OG film – it’s very 1930s, in a good way – so I’m looking forward to this. / SB
Fargo (season five on Neon from November 22)
If you told me 10 years ago that a Coen brothers film would have a spinoff series that lasted for five seasons, I would have assumed that spinoff series would come from O Brother Where Are Thou?, not Fargo, but that’s where we are. The fifth season of this anthology series sees Ted Lasso’s Juno Temple as Dot, a seemingly typical Midwestern housewife whose past comes to haunt her when Sheriff Roy Tillman (Jon Hamm!) comes searching for her. / SB
The notables
Doctor Who: The Star Beast (on Disney+ from November 26)
It’s been a hard few years to be a Doctor Who fan. Several mediocre seasons made it seem as though the show was destined to be cancelled for the second time in its 60-year history. But now, with returning talent behind and in front of the camera in the forms of writer Russell T. Davies and stars David Tennant and Catherine Tate, it’s starting to feel like Doctor Who has been saved from extinction. The uniquely British show has partnered with Disney+, bringing international production values to a programme that has historically been made on a shoestring budget. Hype for these three specials, celebrating six decades of the time lord, is at an all-time high. / Stewart Sowman-Lund
Devil’s Peak (on ThreeNow from November 21)
This series, adapted from Deon Meyer’s detective novels of the same name, follows disillusioned detective Benny Griesel, who is forced back into action in crime-plagued Cape Town by a new case – a local vigilante killer with a personal vendetta is taking matters into his own hands when it comes to people committing crimes against children. Gritty! / SB
Utopia (all seasons on TVNZ+ from November 23)
In this cult hit, a community of comic book fans believe a graphic novel predicted several disastrous epidemics, including mad cow disease, and a rumoured unpublished sequel supposedly contains further information on future world events. When one fan finds the manuscript, he and his friends find themselves as the target of a secret organisation which will kill anyone in its way to get its hands on the manuscript. I’ve not seen this one but fans speak incredibly highly of it, so if this sounds even remotely like your jam, give it a spin. (This is the original British version of the series, by the way! You can also watch the American adaptation on Prime Video if you so desire.) / SB
This isn’t your mother’s Exorcist, it’s your Pope’s exorcist! This horror is, somewhat surprisingly, based on not one but two books by Father Gabriel Amorth – An Exorcist Tells His Story and An Exorcist: More Stories (sadly “The Exorcist” was already taken). All you need to know, really, is that Russell Crowe plays a scooter-riding priest in the 1980s. I’ll let you take it from there. / SB
Leo (on Netflix from November 21)
The second animated film from Adam Sandler’s production company stars the man himself as Leo, a jaded and desperate lizard who gets depressed after a visitor to the classroom where he lives suggests he’s old. Sure! When the chance to explore the world presents itself, Leo jumps at the chance to be taken home by his students but, surprise surprise, it turns out he can talk. Hijinks, presumably, ensue. / SB
Salt (on Neon from November 24)
Is Salt a good movie? Maybe, maybe not. But what it definitely is, is a film where Angelina Jolie knocks things and people down while wearing a very conspicuous wig. Jolie movies (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Wanted, Mr and Mrs Smith, Maleficent) are always guaranteed good times, and Salt is no exception to the rule. / SB
Netflix
November 20
Stamped from the Beginning
November 21
Leo
November 22
Squid Game: The Challenge
Crime Diaries: The Celebrity Stylist
I Don’t Expect Anyone to Believe Me
High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America: Season Two
