RECOMMENDED
Double Parked
Post-partum complications
Screening: Three, 7.55pm, Thursdays from August 22
Streaming: ThreeNow
Nat (Madeleine Sami) and Steph (Antonia Prebble) have had their unplanned babies, but things aren’t getting any less complicated, what with their mutual sperm-donor Johnny (Dominic Ona Ariki) falling in love with their housemate Lily (Kura Forrester). And they’re all living under the same roof. The second season of Chris Parker and Alice Snedden’s show tilts back and forth between absurd comedy and emotional drama – and that’s just the first five minutes.
Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont Spelling Bee
When sorry isn’t the hardest word
Screening: Three, 7.00pm, Thursdays from August 22
Streaming: ThreeNow
Guy Montgomery is now hosting two different versions of his spelling bee show on both sides of the Tasman while taking the stage version to this month’s Edinburgh Fringe. The NZ second season’s guests attempting to prove they can live without autocorrect are Rose Matafeo, Tom Sainsbury, Pax Assadi, Jaquie Brown, Eli Matthewson, and Justine Smith. For more on Montgomery and the show, go here.
Conan O’Brien Must Go
Host hits the road
Screening: SoHo, 9.30pm, Thursday August 22
Streaming: Neon
A celebrity travelogue with the twist that former late-night talk-show host Conan O’Brien goes visiting fans of his podcast, Conan O’Brien Needs a Fan. Who, it turns out, are spread as far afield as Norway, Thailand, Argentina and Ireland. O’Brien’s long-time producer-turned-radio-buddy Jordan Schlansky is travelling companion and foil for his sometimes gleefully stupid humour. If that’s your taste in laughs, HBO has already confirmed there will be six more episodes.
RECOMMENDED
Pachinko
The epic unfolds
Streaming: Apple TV+, from Thursday August 22
The first season of Pachinko, based on Min Jin Lee’s epic novel of the same name, was showered with awards and critical praise in 2022. This second season of eight one-hour episodes continues its multiple storylines. “In Osaka in 1945, where Sunja is forced to make dangerous decisions for her family’s survival during World War II, and in Tokyo in 1989, which finds Solomon exploring new, humble beginnings.” Showrunner Soo Hugh recently told Deadline that the story will continue to explore the themes established in the book but will depart from its plot.
Mr Throwback
The basketball star plays himself
Streaming: TVNZ+, from Friday August 23
NBA legend Stephen Curry executive-produces and stars in this mockumentary in which his former schoolboy team-mate, Danny Grossman (Adam Pally, Californication), seeks him out to rekindle their friendship – and, Grossman hopes, get his messy, faltering life back on track. The documentary crew following Curry likes the redemption story, so he’s in the frame. But what next? Judging by the trailer, Curry has presence on camera as well as on court.
Lost Boys & Fairies
A gay adoption drama, sprinkled with glitter
Screening: Rialto, 8.30pm, Sunday August 25
Gabriel and Andy are a same-sex couple who decide to adopt a child – but the process soon highlights their very different places in life. Gabe, a singer in a queer nightclub, hasn’t processed his own complex history; Andy is a very stable accountant. The creator of this three-part drama, Welsh playwright Daf James, drew on his own experience of gay adoption and has described it as “a drama with songs … there’s also a lot of magic realism in it”. It was hailed by the Guardian’s reviewer for its “huge heart and clear eye on melodrama”, with insights on language (quite a bit of Welsh is spoken) and the adoption process itself. Fetch a box of tissues before sitting down.
Only Murders in the Building
Guests-a-go-go
Streaming: Disney+, Tuesday August 27
The fourth round of Only Murders in the Building is being described as its “starriest season yet”. Meryl Streep backs up her guest appearance in season three and will be joined by Eugene Levy, Eva Longoria, Zach Galifianakis, Molly Shannon, Kumail Nanjiani and Melissa McCarthy. The core sleuthing trio, Charles (Steve Martin), Oliver (Martin Short) and Mabel (Selena Gomez), must try to get to the bottom of Zazz’s murder in the season-three cliffhanger – was she actually the intended victim, or is someone still out to get Charles?
The Twelve
A very complicated courtroom
Streaming: TVNZ+, Wednesday August 28
The formula remains for season two of Aussie courtroom drama The Twelve, but the setting has moved from the city to a tight-knit rural township in Western Australia. When respected town matriarch Bernice Price (Kris McQuade) is found dead at the bottom of her farm’s pump well, two ex-lovers stand accused of her murder. Sam Neill returns as criminal barrister Brett Colby, who flies into town and has to get a grip on a complex situation. “There’s plenty of punch in this fired-up return,” Screenhub declared in a review last month.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
On the warpath
Streaming: Prime Video, from August 29
The second season of the now UK-made epic fantasy series set in JRR Tolkien’s Middle-earth centuries before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings arrives with a trailer suggesting it’s upped the action quotient among other things. There’s a big Orcs-vs-Elves battle on the cards and hints of what Dark Lord Sauron (Charlie Vickers) – who had been hiding in plain sight in season one before revealing himself and taking on a new disguise – is up to with elven ring-maker Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards). Among the new faces in the new series is Irish actor and Games of Thrones veteran Ciarán Hinds as an unnamed wizard, and Brit Rory Kinnear as the enigmatic Tolkien character Tom Bombadil, who also appears in The Lord of the Rings but was left out of the movies. The season launches with the first three episodes then the remaining five weekly.
Kaos
The gods are crazy
Streaming: Netflix, Thursday August 29
Jeff Goldblum is Zeus, king of the Greek gods – and although he wears a tracksuit, he didn’t come to play. But he has issues and comes to believe his fall is approaching. His wife, Hera (Janet McTeer), wonders about staging an intervention and his son, Dionysus (Nabhaan Rizwan), is just trouble. Cliff Curtis turns up as Poseidon (all that swimming in the Avatar sequel might have helped) and David Thewlis is an overworked Hades. The whole family’s a mess, basically. Writer Charlie Covell told Tudum recently that while viewers won’t need to know Greek mythology to get into the show, there are plenty of Easter eggs for those who do: “It’s a funny show. I want viewers to feel like, ‘I’m going to have a good time!’”
Terminator Zero
Catching the red-eye to Tokyo
Streaming: Netflix from August 29
The latest iteration of the Terminator franchise is animated. It’s set in Japan in a world adjacent to the first two films and has a Japanese anime studio behind it. It seems when in 1997 the AI known as Skynet became self-aware and attacked humanity, Japan had its own AI answer to Skynet coming online which might be able to save it. Only a cyber-assassin from the future with the voice of Timothy Olyphant arrives to knock off its inventor. The eight episodes begin on August 29, which in Terminator lore, is, of course, Judgement Day.
Hannah Einbinder: Everything Must Go
Hacks star slays on a real stage
Screening: SoHo, 9.30pm, Friday August 30
Streaming: Neon
Hannah Einbinder made her breakthrough playing a comedy writer in Hacks but she is also a stand-up comic. In this special from El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles, she packs in queer life, climate change, ADHD and smoking weed. The reviews have been glowing: Decider called it “spellbinding” and praised her “magnetic stage presence”, and Paste magazine hailed her gift for physical comedy, declaring that she more than delivers on the reputation she established in Hacks.
Wild Cards
Odd-couple cop show
Screening: Three, 8pm, Friday August 30
Streaming: ThreeNow
Cole Ellis (Giacomo Gianniotti, Grey’s Anatomy) is a demoted Canadian harbour cop who has to book Max (Vanessa Morgan, My Babysitter’s a Vampire), a clever, charismatic con woman. After she solves a crime that has defeated the rest of the force, the pair are ordered to start working together on other cases. They both have an interest in making the unusual situation work – if they do, he gets his old job back and she has her charges dropped. Reviewers have generally applauded the injection of some laughs into the police procedural format. Collider gave particular praise to the chemistry between the two leads.
Emily in Paris
Life is complicated
Streaming: Netflix, from Thursday August 15
It’s the fourth season for the fluffy comedy, which has done Olympic-like things for tourism in the French capital. It features Emily (Lily Collins), an American communications and social media whiz kid who gets a job in a Parisian marketing firm and a glamorous, if sometimes romantically rocky, life to go with it. Things haven’t really calmed down for her after all hell broke loose at the wedding in the season three finale. Is it Alfie she really loves, or Gabriel? It’s tricky, given the two chaps are now in business with each other. But perhaps she should forge a new direction. Meanwhile, Sylvie has a work drama to deal with and Mindy and the band get ready for Eurovision.
The Marlow Murder Club
Ladies on the case
Screening: TVNZ 1, 8.30pm, from Sunday August 18
Streaming: TVNZ+
Death in Paradise creator Robert Thorogood adapts his own novel into 2 two-hour TV episodes. Samantha Bond (Downton Abbey) stars as retired archaeologist Judith Potts, who finds herself tracking down a serial killer – with the help of two new friends, dog-walker Suzie (Jo Martin, Doctor Who) and vicar’s wife Becks (Cara Horgan, The Sandman) – in the pretty Buckinghamshire town of Marlow. But first, they have to convince the local police there has even been a murder. Pretty much every review has deployed the word “cosy”, so you know what you’re getting. Two more seasons have already been commissioned, and Lucia Haynes (Vera) and Julia Gilbert (Midsomer Murders) are to write new stories featuring the same characters.
RECOMMENDED
WHEEL BLACKS: BODIES ON THE LINE
Crunch time
Screening: Sky Open, 8.30pm, Sunday, August 18; Sky Sport 1, Monday, August 19, 8.30pm
Streaming: Neon, from August 19
New Zealand’s wheelchair rugby team, the Wheel Blacks, once enjoyed the same kind of reputation as the All Blacks, but their Paralympic gold was 20 years ago and since then teams with better resources have pulled ahead and the sport has struggled locally. This film follows their journey to rebuild and qualify for the 2024 Paralympics. Ultimately, they didn’t quite get there, but this great-looking three-part documentary still has much to offer as a window on this physically uncompromising sport. Notably, it’s the first work from Sweet Productions, the company formed by director Robyn Paterson (Down for Love) and producer-editor Jai Waite – who was a member of the gold medal-winning 2004 team.
OCEANXPLORERS
Deep destinations
Streaming: Disney+, Monday August 19
Oscar-winning director James Cameron has long been a real-life player in the world of undersea exploration and in this National Geographic production, he renews alliance with the OceanX initiative and the BBC Studios Natural History Unit to present “the most ambitious ocean adventure ever filmed”. The six-part series follows the voyages of OceanX’s current research vehicle OceanXplorer, from the deep Atlantic waters around the Azores to the warmth of the Caribbean and the Arctic shores of Norway. There’s a little bit of us in the mix: the team’s Puerto Rican shark expert, Melissa Cristina Márquez, earned her master’s in marine biology at Victoria University of Wellington.
DI Ray
Bullets over Birmingham
Streaming: Acorn TV, from Monday August 19
The second season of the British police procedural starring Parminder Nagra as Detective Inspector Rachita Ray picks up two months after the events of the first. Back from suspension, Ray returns to homicide to investigate the brutal shooting of a young nurse and the head of a notorious crime syndicate outside a Birmingham hospital. The killings have sent shockwaves throughout the city and point to a gangland turf war. But Ray finds evidence that suggests it’s more complicated.
Critical Incident
Nuanced Aussie crime drama
Streaming: TVNZ+ from Tuesday August 20
When Senior Constable “Zil” Ahmed (Akshay Khanna) pursues a teenage suspect in Western Sydney, things spin out of control and a bystander is critically injured. Zil discovers the teenager isn’t the perpetrator – but comes under pressure to get a conviction out of it, anyway. The cast includes Kiwis Simone Kessell as a detective investigating the senior constable and Erik Thomson as the area’s police commanding officer. It’s created by Sarah Bassiuoni, who, in her own words, “walked away” from a career as a human rights lawyer before going into television. She has said the six-part series is “aimed at showing the faulty wiring of the system in a compelling and emotionally enthralling way”.
The Umbrella Academy
The end of the world as we know it, again
Streaming: Netflix, from Thursday August 8
It’s the fourth and final season, the timeline has been reset since the dramatic conclusion of season three, and the Hargreeves have apparently spent some time learning to live without their powers. But they regain their powers (we can tell you this because it’s in the trailer) and must convene one last time to prevent the end of the world, again. To complicate matters, their father, Reginald, turns out to be not only alive, but also in charge of a nefarious business empire – and there’s a new organisation called The Keepers to contend with. There’s a lot to do and they don’t have much time – there are but six episodes in the season to wrap everything up.
The Mallorca Files
Island life
Streaming: Prime Video, from Thursday August 8
It’s been three years since season two, and the show is now produced for Prime Video, not the BBC, but Miranda Blake (Elen Rhys, Consent) and her German policing partner Max Winter (Julian Looman, The Ibiza Affair) are back like chalk and cheese. According to advance publicity, they’ll be tasked with cracking “an array of high-stakes adventures, treasure hunts, arson, kidnappings and murders”. They’ll be joined by guest stars including Enrique Arce (Money Heist), Philippe Brenninkmeyer (Mad Men), Charlie Higson (The Fast Show), Michael Jibson (Bodies), David Mora (Memento Mori), and Elena Saurel (Buffering).
Douglas is Cancelled
The modern fall from grace
Screening: Three, 8.40pm, Sunday August 11
Streaming: ThreeNow
Douglas Bellowes (Hugh Bonneville) is a respected news presenter, part of a media power couple with his newspaper editor wife Sheila (Alex Kingston) – until the day he tells a sexist joke at a wedding, and it all starts to unravel. As in tune with the headlines as the set-up might seem, writer Steven Moffat swears it ain’t so, pointing out in a recent Guardian interview that faces on the telly have been falling from grace for decades, “but we didn’t have the word ‘cancelled’ for it”. Moffat isn’t the only Doctor Who alumnus involved – Karen Gillan (previously seen as the doctor’s companion Amy Pond) plays Bellowes’ charming-but-lethal co-presenter. Reviews have been mixed, but critics generally agree that Moffat’s script fairly fizzes across the four episodes.
Elvira
Dark Danish comedy about an accidental detective
Screening: Rialto, 8.30pm, Tuesdays from August 13
Streaming: SkyGo
Sit down, vintage horror comic fans, this isn’t the Elvira you’re looking for. Sara Klein plays 35-year-old Dane Elvira Gregersen, whose loser life spins out dramatically when she goes from minding the reception desk at a Copenhagen brothel to solving crimes. The black comedy is adapted from Anne-Sophie Lunding-Sørensen’s novel Happy Ending, and the author says the story grew out of her desire to “create a true anti-heroine who isn’t sassy and sexy, but rather is everything we are not allowed to be: fat, wicked and on welfare”.
Industry
Monstrous times in the money game
Screening: SoHo, 8.30pm, Tuesdays from August 13
Streaming: Neon
The amped-up London finance industry drama reaches its third season, and its bright young people are still being absolutely terrible to each other. The trailer offers some clues to where it’s headed – notably when Harper, no longer with Pierpont, pitches her former employer to some new friends as “the short of the century”. Meanwhile, Pierpont takes a punt on ethical investing, and an embezzlement scandal is threatening to get out of control. Game of Thrones star Kit Harington joins the cast as CEO of a green tech energy company.
Bad Monkey
Only in Florida
Streaming: Apple TV+ from Wednesday August 14
Andrew Yancy (Vince Vaughn, Curb Your Enthusiasm, True Detective) is a former Miami cop now reduced to working as a health inspector. But things look up when he stumbles across a case involving a human arm fished up by some tourists and figures finding who it was attached this might get him his old job back. The 10-part series is executive-produced by Bill Lawrence (Ted Lasso, Shrinking) and based on the 2013 novel of the same name by Florida comedic crime writer Carl Hiaasen, whose back catalogue has few screen adaptations. It’s shaping up like the TV comedy version of the internet’s “Florida Man” meme.
Prosper
Sleek megachurch drama
Streaming: TVNZ+ from Wednesday July 31
Cal Quinn (Richard Roxburgh) and his wife Abi (Rebecca Gibney) run U Star, one of Australia’s most powerful evangelical megachurches. The productions are big and the money is rolling in – but is Cal about to ruin everything with an impulsive decision to open a branch of their church in Los Angeles? And do some of U Star’s powerbrokers actually want him to fail? The thriller-style series appears to be inspired by the scandal-ridden story of Hillsong church, at least to the extent that New Zealand’s own megachurch drama Testify was modelled on Destiny Church. But Gibney said recently that Prosper doesn’t try to demonise the church leaders. “We are not showing these people as being evil. We’re just showing that they are corruptible … but everyone is tempted.”
Women in Blue
The forgotten story of Mexico’s first policewomen
Streaming: Apple TV+ from Wednesday July 31
An “inspired by true events”, eight-part Spanish-language drama about women who join Mexico’s first female police force in 1970, and soon discover that their new squad is not much more than a publicity stunt to distract the media and the public from a brutal serial killer. Their uniforms are distinctly baby blue, but they’re not leaving it at that. The women secretly embark on their own investigation to bring the killer to justice. Bárbara Mori, who plays Maria, the leader of the team, said in a recent interview that even the Mexican public knew little of the original true story of “Las Azules” and their struggle with the patriarchs on their own team. But she adds, “It’s more relevant than ever now, in 2024. We still have a lot of things to reflect on, and to change.”
Travel Man
Mild country
Screening: TVNZ 1, 8.05pm, Monday August 5
Streaming: TVNZ+
The 12th season of Travel Man, and the third with Joe Lycett in charge, opens with a 48-hour trip to Trieste in Italy with Alan Davies on board. Their mild adventures include a venture across the border into Slovenia, where they visit a stud farm and unleash a volley of fart jokes and horse puns. In subsequent episodes, Lycett and US comic Desiree Burch visit Lapland and have a go at ice-fishing, podcaster Adam Buxton tags along to Prague, and The Guilty Feminist co-host Jessica Fostekew is Lycett’s companion on a trip to the more congenial climate of Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. It’s all as likeable as ever.
RECOMENDED
Taskmaster NZ
Comedians with jobs
Screening: TVNZ 2, 7.30pm, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, from August 6
Jeremy Wells and his always amenable assistant Paul Williams return with 10 episodes and a new group of comedic contenders. This season features Bake Off host Hayley Sproull, comic veteran and alternative sports commentator Ben Hurley, 2023 Billy T winner Abby Howells, Laughing Samoan Tofiga Fepulea’I (though he’s not in the studio section), and everywhere-man Thomas Sainsbury. This season’s tasks include celebrating a football goal and taking an order from a mannequin. It’s the fifth season for the local variant of the Taskmaster format and Wells recently declared that “both Frankie Valli and the Gregorian Calendar only have four seasons, so it feels good to get to five.”
Jamie Cooks The Mediterranean
Local favourites
Screening: TVNZ 1, 8.30pm, Wednesdays, from August 7
Streaming: TVNZ+
Chaps, here’s an idea: how about we send Jamie Oliver to the Mediterranean to meet the locals and have a proper good time cooking their food? Yes, it’s familiar territory, in both a thematic and geographical sense, but the four-part show does break Oliver out of the food-on-a-budget run of recent years. They start in Thessaloniki, the culinary capital of Greece, and from there it’s crispy prawn parcels with harissa in Tunisia, pork and peppers in Spain and a French-style courgette, goats’ cheese and tapenade tart. There’s lots of lovely scenery in the background.
Lagerfeld: Ambitions
The path of an icon
Screening: Rialto, 8.30pm, from Wednesday August 7
Streaming: SkyGo
Clearly, just enough time has elapsed since Karl Lagerfeld’s death in Paris in 2019 for 2024 to be the fashion titan’s year. Coming on the heels of The Hunt for Karl Lagerfeld’s Millions (Prime Video) and the biographical drama Becoming Karl Lagerfeld (Disney+), this four-part documentary was produced in France for Canal Plus. The first episode looks at Lagerfeld’s childhood in Nazi Germany, where his mother kindles his passion for fashion by taking him to a catwalk show and sets him on the path to his arrival in Paris in 1952, at the age of 19 (or, if the man himself is to be believed, which he isn’t, 14). There, he meets and befriends another teenager on the road to glory, Yves Saint Laurent.
See our guide to other recent new shows in the July, June, May, and April and viewing guides
