What's new to your favourite streaming platform this week? Photo / The Spinoff
What's new to your favourite streaming platform this week? Photo / The Spinoff
This story was originally published by The Spinoff.
We round up everything coming to streaming services this week, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, ThreeNow, Neon and TVNZ+.
If you love a racy costume drama: Bridgerton (Netflix, May 16)
Based on a series of romance novels about eight(eight!!) siblings in Regency England looking for love, Bridgerton’s third season comes in two parts. The first four episodes are available this week, and the next four will be available from June 13. This season is about sibling Colin Bridgerton and Penelope, played by Nicola Coughlan. Apparently, their fan name is Polin. The Netflix machine has allowed stars to hint that season three is “super steamy”; if you love frothy dresses, grand ball scenes, longing looks, gossip and yes, steaminess, then we reckon Bridgerton’s third season will be as delightful as previous instalments. If you start unironically using the term Polin, then you’ll know you’ve been taken over by the romantic Netflix hit. / Shanti Mathias
If you love a dark comedy-drama: Big Mood (ThreeNow, May 13)
It’s a big week for Nicola Coughlan, who not only stars in the return of Bridgerton, but also pulls a stellar performance in new comedy-drama Big Mood. Coughlan and Lydia West play longtime best friends Maggie and Eddie, whose close relationship is pushed to the limits when bipolar writer Maggie decides to go off her meds. This is friendship and life in your 20s in all its messy, complex glory, with plenty of dark humour and emotional notes to keep you firmly in Maggie and Eddie’s corner. / Tara Ward
If you love ominous men in big hats: Deadwood
This beloved Western, set in the fictional mining town of Deadwood, South Dakota in the late 1800s after the American Civil War, is one of the finest prestige television shows ever to have been callously axed at season three. The story follows the inhabitants of Deadwood – a lawless society with a fast-growing population of pioneers, vagabonds and outcasts, who have come seeking their fortune. Not only is the subject matter thrilling, but the production has everything you could want in a historical TV show – a large cast of incredible character actors, laboriously historical dialogue, evocative shots of the windswept desert, and many ominous men in big hats. The show can occasionally be confusing, if, like me, you struggle to tell a cast of grizzled older white men apart, but it’s one of those shows that rewards rewatching. A must-see! / Hera Lindsay Bird
If you love trippy folk horror: Midsommar (TVNZ+, May 15)
For fans of The Wicker Man, The Witch, and any movie where a group of wanderlusting 20-somethings get themselves into a right pickle, make Midsommaryour next late-night horror watch. Directed by Ari Aster (Hereditary, Beau is Afraid), Midsommar follows a grieving Florence Pugh straight into the sun-soaked bowels of Swedish hell. After agreeing to accompany her boyfriend and his friends to a once-in-a-lifetime festival in Halsingland, things quickly turn out to be a little less Rhythm and Vines and a little more like your absolute worst nightmare on mushrooms. / Alex Casey
If you love reality TV: Vanderpump Rules (Netflix, May 15 / all seasons on Hayu)
Some people call Vanderpump Rules reality TV trash, I call it a piercing drama that investigates the personal struggles of a group of unlikely friends as they navigate a catastrophic world of their own making. Either way, the early seasons of the reality TV juggernaut drop on Netflix this week (all 11 seasons are also available on Hayu) and this is your chance to go back to the early 2010s and soak up a dramatic world filled with the chunky necklaces, layered haircuts and toxic relationships of a bunch of 20 somethings working in Real Housewife Lisa Vanderpump’s Los Angeles restaurant. / Tara Ward
