We've all found ourselves with a bit more time on our hands since the Covid-19 Delta variant found its way into the community a few weeks ago. Streaming accounts have become invaluable members of the family as we reach for the remote and search for the next TV show to binge-watch.
With so many shows on offer these days though, it can be hard to know what to choose. To help you out we've pulled together the best shows due to be released, as well as the best of the year so far.
Top five shows to watch out for
American Rust
There used to be a time before Ryan Murphy came along when "American" at the start of the title all but guaranteed something was going to be good. American Rust, coming to Neon, looks like a throwback to that time. Adapted from Phillipp Meyer's 2009 novel, it stars Jeff Daniels as the chief of police in a struggling rust belt town, and a complex murder case that intersects with his equally complex personal life. Big Mare of Easttown vibes.
Coming to Neon in September.
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Reservation Dogs
We've all been waiting patiently for Taika Waititi's new series to be available to stream here since it started screening in the US, and now we have a date to circle on our calendars: September 15. Made together with Sterlin Harjo, the series follows the day-to-day adventures of four Indigenous teens growing up on a reservation in Oklahoma, the kind of place you have to make your own fun. It's received unanimously positive reviews from those who've seen it so far.
Coming to Star on Disney Plus in September.
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Invasion
The aliens are coming to Apple TV+ in October, and Sam Neill is among the international cast waiting to meet them. The big-budget sci-fi series from Simon Kinberg (X-Men) and David Weil (Hunters) is a bit more Arrival than Cloverfield, following the invasion from a variety of different perspectives set all around the world. Unfortunately, that doesn't include New Zealand – Neill will be dusting off his American accent to play a rugged rural sheriff on the verge of retirement.
Coming to Apple TV+ in October.
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Chapelwaite
Did you really think we could go the rest of the year without a Stephen King adaptation? This one's based on his 1970s short story Jerusalem's Lot, about an 1850s widower (Adrien Brody) who moves with his children to an extremely creaky old house in an extremely gloomy small town in where else but Maine. Fans of The Haunting of Hill House or of ghosts more generally will be delighted to learn that this house is indeed haunted.
Coming to TVNZ OnDemand in October.
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Pieces of Her
Toni Collette stars as a mum with secrets in her past in Netflix's adaptation of Karin Slaughter's 2018 novel. Those secrets start to spill out after she winds up in the spotlight after a scary active shooter situation in a shopping mall, revealing she's not the woman her adult daughter thought she knew inside out after all. Netflix still doesn't have a release date other than "late 2021" for what promises to be the thriller of the year, but you'll know all about it once it's available.
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Best TV of 2021 so far
Who'd have predicted Kate Winslet as a detective in a big jacket, puffing relentlessly on a vape and huffing around the beautifully bleak suburbs of Philadelphia would make for the most talked-about TV series of 2021? HBO limited series Mare of Easttown is worth diving into if you missed the train earlier in the year, as is the recently completed first season of The White Lotus, in which a group of strangers at an expensive Hawaiian resort are each in their own unique way the absolute worst. Both available on Neon.
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Another of the year's best dramas, British series It's A Sin told the profoundly sad story of the 1980s HIV/AIDS crisis through the lives of a group of London flatmates on their friends. That's available on TVNZ OnDemand, along with two of the year's best TV comedies if you need something a little more easy-to-watch: stereotype-busting musical series We Are Lady Parts and Rose Matafeo's modern rom-com Starstruck.
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And while the Marvel conveyor belt has been going full tilt on Disney Plus this year, their best new show is the eccentric kid-friendly mystery series The Mysterious Benedict Society. The year's best comic book adaptation, meanwhile, might just be Netflix's Sweet Tooth, filmed here in New Zealand.
