Chief Of War

Once were warriors

Streaming: Apple TV+, from August 1

Jason Momoa and his screenwriter-producer partner Thomas Pa ‘a Sibbett have put his stardom and their shared Hawaiian ancestry to use in the creation of this historic epic about inter-tribal warfare in the islands and the effect of the arrival of Europeans on the conflicts in the late 18th century. Much of Chief of War was shot in NZ last year. Kiwis are prominent in the cast – Temuera Morrison, Cliff Curtis and Te Kohe Tuhaka are all warrior royalty based on historic figures. So is Momoa as Kaʻiana, a noble who travelled around the Pacific on European ships. The series is in subtitled native Hawaiian, eventually switching to English dialogue. Morrison, starred as Momoa’s father in the Aquaman movies and by the looks of the first episode, where Kaʻiana actually jumps upon a large shark, there’s some traces of superhero in his ancient warrior. But the closest comparison this show may be is Shōgun, only without the white guy as the hero.

Dexter: Original Sin

The killer as a young man

Streaming: Neon, from August 1

Bear with us here, because its complicated. This isn’t Dexter: Resurrection, the show that follows Dexter: New Blood in the Dexter revival – and is already available on Neon. It’s a Dexter prequel that screened in the US last year. Got it? Anyway, it’s 1991 and student Dexter (Patrick Gibson) is developing homicidal urges. Under the guidance of his extremely understanding father (Christian Slater), he resolves that he will only kill other murderers, while trying not to be caught himself. Of note: the original Dexter, Michael C. Hall, returns as the voice of the young man’s inner monologue – and Buffy star Sarah Michelle Gellar is part of the cast too. Ten hour-long episodes ready to binge.

Twisted Metal

Race for the prize

Streaming: TVNZ+, from August 1

More anarchy after the apocalypse for the second season of the riotous video game adaptation. Anthony Mackie returns as amnesiac milkman John Doe, who has pieced together a little more about the weird world he finds himself in. The main event is a bizarre demolition derby overseen by the ringmaster Calypso (Anthony Carrigan), who has promised to grant the victor their deepest wish. We apparently have to wait until the second half of the 12-episode season for the derby to begin, but there’s enough in the trailer to show why the show won an Emmy nomination for stunt coordination. Triple premiere episode, followed by double episodes every week.

Platonic

Still trying to be friends

Streaming: Apple TV+, from Wednesday August 6

Longtime best friends and inadvertent chaos agents Will and Sylvia (Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne) restored and renewed their friendship in season one – but now it’s threatened by Will’s new romantic relationship. Their solution is to lean in and act like normal adults along with their partners. It doesn’t go smoothly. Expect the same snappy writing (from Rogen) and physical comedy that won Platonic so much critical praise first time around. Two episodes first up, then a new episode weekly.

The Assassin

When Mum is a killer

Streaming: ThreeNow, from August 3

Keeley Hawes has played a cop (Line of Duty), a spy (Spooks) and a politician whose life is threatened (Bodyguard) in the course of a stellar career. Here, she has a turn as a retired assassin. “I used to do bad things, for money,” she tells her estranged son Edward (Freddie Highmore, Bates Motel) after unexpectedly having to, you know, kill someone. Their reunion on a Greek island is already awkward. Then events spiral and they’re forced to go on the run, dysfunctional relationship and all. The cast also includes Gina Gershon and New Zealand actor Alan Dale. The Guardian praised the six-part limited series for bringing not only action but wit to a familiar trope.

Here We Go

Still daft, still funny

Streaming: TVNZ+

An enticing list of guest stars is lined up for this third season of comic misadventure with the Jessop family, including Jane Horrocks (Absolutely Fabulous), Robert Glenister (Sherwood) and Jamali Maddix (Hate Thy Neighbour). In the first episode, the clan is persuaded to dress up and take part in a live-action role-play festival, where things, of course, go awry. Full season.

Wednesday

More high-school horrors

Streaming: Netflix, from Wednesday August 6

A second season of the Tim Burton-produced Addams Family spin-off. Deadpan daughter Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) is back prowling the halls of Nevermore Academy – where a new mystery is brewing. But what you really want to know is that Joanna Lumley turns up to guest star as Grandmama Hester Frump, along with Steve Buscemi, Billie Piper, Lady Gaga, Thandiwe Newton and Christopher Lloyd.

Necaxa

Stars and their football teams

Streaming: Disney+, from Friday August 6

Eva Longoria produces and appears in this docuseries about the storied, and sometimes troubled, Mexican football club Club Necaxa. That means working with actors Rob Mac and Ryan Reynolds, who spun their purchase of the struggling Welsh football club Wrexham AFC into a docuseries – and are now investors in Necaxa. Longoria herself is a shareholder in the LA women’s team Angels FC. The advance publicity indicates much will be made of language barriers and culture clashes.

Outlander: Blood Of My Blood

More Highland flings

Streaming: Neon, from August 9

Screening: Vibe, 10.15pm, Thursdays from August 14

Outlander, the time-travelling historic fantasy romance based on the novels of Diana Gabaldon, is heading to its eighth and final season next year. But there are more adventures stretching between 20th-century world wars and 18th-century Highland clans in the prequel spin-off Blood of My Blood. The show features both parents of Outlander lead couple Jamie and Claire Fraser (née Beauchamp). It seems Claire, ­the World War II military nurse who went back ­200 years, isn’t the first-time traveller in her family. Her English parents, played by Hermione Corfield and Jeremy Irvine, who meet during WWI, also head back in time after getting waylaid in Scotland in a very similar fashion to ­how their daughter will in decades to come. Meanwhile, back in the 1700s, the story also follows how Jamie’s parents, Brian Fraser (Jamie Roy) and Ellen MacKenzie (Harriet Slater), fight to be together in the face of a deadly Fraser-MacKenzie feud, clan politics and a Jacobite revolt.

Reunion

Other languages

Streaming: TVNZ+, from Sunday August 10

Daniel Brennan is an alienated man. He has emerged from spending 10 years in prison for murdering his childhood friend to find himself still shunned by the deaf community that has provided his identity – and yet he is driven to try to explain the background to his terrible crime. Brennan is played by deaf actor Matthew Gurney and the bilingual script (that is, English and British Sign Language) is the work of William Mager, who is also deaf. Critics have heaped praise on both Gurney’s intense performance and the way Reunion takes a somewhat familiar premise and explores it from a wholly original perspective. It’s the creation of Warp Films, the company behind Adolescence, and also stars Rose Ayling-Ellis from Code of Silence, the recent crime thriller about a deaf woman whose lip-reading skills make her a police-surveillance asset.

The Family Next Door

Mysteries of the cul-de-sac

Streaming: ThreeNow, from Monday August 11

A “female forward” suburban mystery drama adapted from the book of the same name by Australian author Sally Hepworth. Teresa Palmer (The Last Anniversary) leads an ensemble cast as the enigmatic Isabelle, who arrives in a seaside Melbourne cul-de-sac and begins to unnerve the neighbours with her obsession about solving a mystery. It turns out the neighbouring families have reasons to be wary of anyone poking through their secrets – but who exactly is Isabelle to be asking?

Truelove

Take me out

Screening: Rialto, from Tuesday August 12

A thriller wrapped in a story addressing death with dignity and assisted dying – that’s this acclaimed six-part British series about a group of old friends in their 70s who make a drunken pact at a wake to help each other shuffle off, should the indignity and illnesses of old age become too much to bear. After all, retired top cop Phil (Lindsay Duncan) and former SAS soldier Ken (Clarke Peters) have the skills to take someone out, then thwart any investigation. But when Tom (Karl Johnson) calls them on it, they find they have a keen young detective on their tail.

Alien: Earth

Terror firma

Streaming: Disney+ from August 13, two-episode debut

Not counting the two Alien vs Predator films, there has now been seven Alien movies since the first in 1979. This eight-episode television extension of the sci-fi franchise, which painted a very bleak picture of humankind’s future in space paints a very bleak picture of humankind’s future here on Earth. It’s set in 2120, a few years before Sigourney’s Ripley was the only survivor of the spaceship Nostromo after a close encounter with an ET that was as lethal to people in its larval stage as it was all grown up into a creature with very big teeth and acid blood. In this, those creatures have been brought back to earth by another spaceship, its crash-landing causing a stand-off between two of the megacorporations that run the world. The only way for one of them to deal with the nasties is to bring in the new breed of synthetic humans led by Wendy (Sydney Chandler) whose young, super-strong big brained “Lost Boys” squad also includes New Zealand actress Erana James.

To what see else is new to view, see our July viewing guide.