Out this week

The Lowdown

The truth hurts in Tulsa

Streaming: Disney+, from Wednesday September 24

Sterlin Harjo, the guy from Oklahoma behind the wonderful Reservation Dogs, is the creator, writer, director and executive producer of this series inspired by the true-life story of historian and activist Lee Roy Chapman. Ethan Hawke (who had a cameo in the final season of Reservation Dogs) stars as self-proclaimed Tulsa “truthstorian” and citizen journalist Lee Raybon, whose obsession with the truth constantly gets him into trouble. Officially it’s a crime show but after a recent festival preview screening Harjo said “the bar for the show, tonally” was that if the audience was “laughing, and also afraid for his life, then job well done”. The show also stars Tim Blake Nelson, Jeanne Tripplehorn, and Kyle MacLachlan as members of an influential local family whose shady dealings Lee thinks he has exposed, and Peter Dinklage as his weird best friend. It’s picking up glowing reviews – on the review aggregatator site Metacritic, it’s got a metascore 87%, making it the second-highest scoring drama of 2025 after Adolescence.

Slow Horses

MI5 misfits on a mission

Streaming: Apple TV+, from Wednesday September 24

Adapted from London Rules, the fifth in Mick Herron’s Jackson Lamb series, the fifth season of the British spy series about a group of MI5 misfits sequestered into the Slough House branch office due to performance issues returns. Its story, initially anyway, is centred on Roddy Ho, the office’s resident IT whiz kid. The irritating Roddy has got himself a girlfriend suspiciously out of his league in a story involving a mass shooting and London mayoral race where Ted Lasso’s Nick Mohammed stars as the incumbent caught in the political and actual crossfire.

House of Guinness

Beer baronets

Streaming: Netflix, from September 25

Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight takes on the Dublin brewing dynasty in the 1860s as the family firm and fortune passes from one generation to another. Sir Benjamin Lee Guiness has left two of his four adult children out of his will, which has the desired effect on sibling harmony as the beer empire expands to America. The trailer, complete with a song by The National, makes it look like quite the ambitious epic. So does a cast which includes Anthony Boyle (Masters of the Air) and Louis Partridge (Pistol, Enola Holmes) as heirs Arthur and Edward Guinness, who, as politicians came up against the Irish Home Rule movement. James Norton (King & Conqueror) plays a character that might be the equivalent of Peaky Blinders’ Tommy Shelby.

Wayward

The bad place for adolescents, full series

Streaming: Netflix, full season from Thursday September 25

Mae Martin (the Bafta-nominated Feel Good) drew on a friend’s real-life experience with America’s “troubled teen” industry to create this show set in the early 2000s. Martin plays police officer Alex Dempsey, who comes up against Evelyn Wade (Toni Collette in full creepy villain mode). Wade is the lead counsellor at Tall Pines Academy, where “we use groundbreaking therapeutic techniques to solve the problem of adolescence”. It’s a thriller with laughs, Martin said in a recent interview, “kind of if you took the girls from Booksmart and put them in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. It looks wild.

I Fought the Law

Screening: Sundays from September 28, 8.30pm

Streaming: TVNZ+

She’s no stranger to portraying real people seeking British justice after terrible crimes have left them aggrieved or grieving. In I Fought the Law, Sheridan Smith plays Ann Ming, the British woman who fought for nearly 30 years to change the double-jeopardy law so that the man who confessed to killing her 22-year-old daughter Julie could be charged. Two juries had been unable to reach a verdict before he confessed. The four-part series is based on Ming’s book about her struggle, For the Love of Julie. The Teeside former nurse’s campaign involved taking on the Crown Prosecution Service, the Law Commission, prominent defence barristers, the UK government, the Lord Chancellor, the Attorney General, and two home secretaries – Jack Straw and David Blunkett. The now 80-year-old campaigner was involved in the production, reading the scripts and even performing a cameo in a line-dancing scene. “I’d love to sit and watch it again with Sheridan, just so she knows how much she has affected me with her performance,” she said recently. Smith told The Guardian that after she discovered Ming was on set for a particularly sensitive scene, “we were both bawling our eyes out”. The outlet’s reviewer praised the four-part drama as an example of Smith’s ability to portray “ordinary women in extraordinary circumstances”. l

Chad Powers

Mrs Doubtfire, but with football

Streaming: Disney+, from Tuesday September 30

A sports comedy series based on a real story – sort of. Glen Powell (Hit Man, Anyone But You) plays Russ Holliday, a former college American football star who seeks redemption from an on-field meltdown years before by entering a struggling team’s open try-out in disguise as the titular character. (“I’m gonna do a Mrs Doubtfire – but with football.”) The real story part is that the character was originally created by ESPN host Eli Manning, who donned prosthetics and a wig, called himself Chad Powers and entered Penn State’s football try-outs as part of a docuseries (the show is remarkably faithful to the look he created). Perhaps the omens are good – this is essentially how Ted Lasso came to be.

From Earlier in the Month

Black Rabbit

Brothers on the boil

Streaming: Netflix, full season from September 18

Jake Friedken (Jude Law, The Young Pope) owns the hottest restaurant in New York City. It’s a high-pressure life and it tips right over when his brother Vince (Jason Bateman, Ozark) turns up and wants back into the business – because he owes a very large sum of money to some very bad people. So now they’re in it together and it’s about to get very, very intense. The eight-part limited series was co-created by Zach Baylin (King Richard) and his wife Kate Susman and, like Ozark, was developed by Bateman’s company Aggregate Films. Bateman’s Ozark co-star Laura Linney also directs some of the episodes.

The Morning Show

Finding out what’s true

Streaming: Apple TV+, from Wednesday September 17

Part of The Morning Show’s staying power has been each season’s ability to tackle the themes and stories of the day – from #MeToo to the riot at the Capitol. Advance billing suggests that the war on truth – from deepfakes to conspiracy theories – is front and centre in season four. Then there’s the star power: John Hamm is still lurking about as tech baron Paul Marks and Jeremy Irons and William Jackson Harper (The Good Place) are among the latest arrivals to the ensemble cast. Meanwhile, Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) has to come to grips with the new reality of being a senior company executive.

Gen V

Life under Homelander

Streaming: Prime Video full season, from September 17

The second season of Gen V unfolds in the America established in season four of The Boys – a country ruled by the iron fist of Homelander. It will in turn, according to creator Erik Kripke, set up the fifth and final season of The Boys. The team is back at Godolkin in various states of disrepair and there’s a showdown brewing between the supes and humans. But a secret emerges at Godolkin that could change everything. Note that Andre Anderson isn’t part of the story because the actor who played him, Chance Perdomo, was killed in a motorcycle accident just as production of the new season was originally intended to begin.

Matchroom: The Greatest Showmen

Inside a sports empire

Streaming: Netflix, full season from September 17

If Barry and Eddie Heard didn’t exist, someone – Guy Ritchie, probably – would have to invent them. The father-son duo gleefully embraces the wide-boy image in this inside look at Matchroom, the £1 billion-sports promotion company that Barry founded with a hundred quid. The empire rests principally on three sports – boxing, snooker and darts – in which the backroom business dealings can be as tasty as anything that happens in the actual competition and Barry, as he is happy to remind everyone, wants to make sure his boy is up to the task of inheriting it. So it’s a succession drama, really. Produced by the teams behind Formula 1: Drive to Survive and At Home with the Furys, the eight-part series also features appearances from Luke Littler, Conor Benn, Katie Taylor, Antony Joshua and Ronnie O’Sullivan.

The Rumour

Suburban scuttlebutt opens a can of worms

Streaming: ThreeNow, from September 20

Rachel Shenton (All Creatures Great and Small) leads this five-part thriller as Joanna, a mother who lands in a quiet town with her son and seeks an in with the local mums by sharing gossip about a convicted child killer who may be living in the town. But the attempt to bond spirals into suspicion and paranoia. The strong cast also includes Joanne Whalley (Wolf Hall), Emily Atack (Rivals) and Samuel Anderson (Doctor Who). Adapted from Lesley Kara’s best-selling novel of the same name.

Tulsa King

Sly and Samuel together

Streaming: TVNZ+, from Saturday, September 20

Screening: TVNZ Duke, 8.30pm from Friday September 26

The Sylvester Stallone vehicle gets another big boost of star power for season three with the arrival of Samuel L Jackson as Russell Lee Washington Jr, a man with whom Stallone’s character, New York mobster Dwight “The General” Manfredi, appears to have some history. Jackson’s casting is essentially a set-up for his lead role in a forthcoming spin-off NOLA King. The show, and especially the more comedic tone of season two, hasn’t always been a hit with critics but it remains a ratings barnstormer in the US.

Mystery Road: Origin

Return of the cool indigenous detective

Streaming: ThreeNow, from September 22

Mark Coles Smith reprises his award-winning role as the younger detective Jay Swan in a second season for the prequel to Mystery Road (which, with two feature films and two other TV series, surely qualifies as a full-fledged franchise). This time, Swan and his partner Mary (Tuuli Narkle) leave the Outback vistas in favour of a leafy timber town where there is soon a crime demanding his attention. Look out for Robyn Malcolm as Simmo, the weatherbeaten local cop. Notably this season is the work of an entirely First Nations writing team.

Task

Pennsylvania crime saga

Streaming: Neon, from Monday September 8

Mark Ruffalo stars as a grizzled Philadelphia FBI agent tasked with ending a string of violent robberies. But when he identifies the unassuming family man who seems to be behind the crime wave, the moral complexity begins. The HBO series was created and written by Brad Ingelsby, the man behind the acclaimed Kate Winslet detective story Mare of Easttown (which was also set in Pennsylvania) and also stars Tom Pelphrey (Ozark), among a cast which includes quite a few British and Irish up-and-comers.

Only Murders In The Building

Taking care of the caretaker

Streaming: Disney+, three-episode debut then weekly, from Tuesday September 9

The fifth season of the hit cosy comic crime caper has Charles, Oliver and Mabel (Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez) investigating the supposedly accidental death of Lester, their Manhattan apartment building’s beloved doorman after his body is found in the building’s fountain. That leads to a web of secrets involving nouveau riche billionaires and old-school mobsters. The podcasting trio are joined by regulars Meryl Streep and Nathan Lane, while the guest-star list includes Renée Zellweger, Christoph Waltz, Téa Leoni, Keegan-Michael Key, Beanie Feldstein and Dianne Wiest.

The Girlfriend

Suspicious mum

Streaming: Prime Video, from Thursday September 11

When Laura (Robin Wright, House of Cards) meets her son Daniel’s new girlfriend Cherry (Olivia Cooke, House of the Dragon, Slow Horses), it’s meant to be a happy event. After all, Cherry really seems like “the one”. But Laura soon becomes suspicious of Cherry and her motives. Is she a manipulative chancer who wants in on Daniel’s life of wealth and privilege – or is Laura just being paranoid and possessive? Let the plot twists begin. Based on the novel of the same name by Michelle Frances and shot on location in the UK and Spain.

Aka Charlie Sheen

The bad boy explains himself

Streaming: Netflix, from Thursday September 11

After his spectacular flame-out, this documentary may or may not be Charlie Sheen’s redemption. It certainly shapes up as a revelation. In what might be the most compelling trailer of the year, Charlie Sheen, who has been sober for seven years, looks at the camera and promises, “The stuff that I plan on sharing, I had made a sacred vow to only reveal to a therapist.” Regrets, he has a few. Along with him for the ride are his friend Sean Penn, his Two and a Half Men co-star Jon Cryer, his ex-wife Brooke Mueller, his long-suffering producer Chuck Lorre – and, naturally, his drug dealer. “When Charlie said he was smoking seven-gram rocks,” the dealer shares, “He was smoking seven-gram rocks.”

Hoff Roading

The Hasselhoff experiment

Screening: Three, 7.30pm, from Thursday September 11

Streaming: ThreeNow

This celebrity road trip, in which Rhys Darby introduces David Hasselhoff to the glories of New Zealand while the two men bond, has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons since it was originally in shot in 2023. There was a collapsed production company and millions of dollars of debt. But factual TV powerhouse Perpetual Entertainment picked up the show from the wreckage and completed it. The locations are predictable – from the Sky Tower to Milford Sound – but teaming a comedian with a star who has always been aware of his own comedic persona seems like a good idea.

Top End Bub

An evolution up Darwin way

Streaming: Prime Video, from Friday September 12

American streamer Prime Video continues its big play for Australian audiences with this eight-part feelgood family drama that acts as a sequel to both the charming Northern Territory-set 2019 romcom Top End Wedding. Miranda Tapsell returns to write and star as Adelaide indigenous lawyer Lauren. Having married Ned (Gwilym Lee), she has to return to her home in the Tiwi Islands north of Darwin when the pair unexpectedly become guardians for her sister’s pre-teen daughter, Taya. “I was single when I wrote Top End Wedding,” Darwin-born Tapsell told ABC News. “And then I became pregnant while I was writing this show. So, I feel like becoming a screenwriter really has made me manifest what I wanted in my life.”

In Flight

Tea, coffee, or heroin?

Streaming: TVNZ+, from Monday September 1

Katherine Kelly (Coronation Street, Mr Bates vs the Post Office) plays a flight attendant who is offered a terrible deal she can’t refuse: agree to smuggle drugs for a criminal cartel and have her son protected in the Bulgarian jail where he has been wrongly banged up – or refuse and her son will be killed. Reviews of the six-part crime thriller are scattered with words like “tense” and “claustrophobic” and The Guardian’s Lucy Mangan concluded: “It’s brisk, it’s well made, it’s entirely harrowing. I wish you your strange, strange joy of it.” Double episodes weekly.

The Paper

More mockumentary from The Office US creators

Screening: TVNZ 2, 6.30pm, Fridays from September 5

Streaming: TVNZ+

This isn’t so much a spin-off of the American iteration of The Office as a re-run of its mockumentary premise. The fictional documentary crew that captured the profound awkwardness of life at Dunder Mifflin has a new project – a historic Midwestern newspaper where publisher Ned Sampson (Domhnall Gleeson, Ex Machina) is taking desperate measures to arrest its decline. He gathers a group of volunteer reporters who know very little about news gathering. Greg Daniels, who adapted The Office for American television, is behind this one, too, but the trailer feels more like a conventional sitcom than the original did. A big ensemble cast also includes British comedian Tim Key (The Ballad of Wallis Island) Sabrina Impacciatore (The White Lotus), Chelsea Frei (Poker Face) and Oscar Nunez, backing up his role as Oscar Martinez from The Office. Note that in celebration of the new show, TVNZ+ has all nine seasons of The Office re-available for streaming.

The Emerald Isles

Engaging docuseries about Ireland’s other islands

Screening: BBC UKTV, 7.35pm, Sundays from September 7

Actor and comedian Ardal O’Hanlon (Death in Paradise) explores the islands off the coast of Ireland from north to south and, as he puts it, “from mighty windswept cliffs, to lush, subtropical Edens”. The first of three episodes begins on Rathlin Island, population: around 150, the only home of the golden hare and the site of a 2006 archaeological discovery that upended assumptions about Ireland’s pre-Celtic history. “As a child, I was taught we were descended from the Celts,” O’Hanlon marvels. “Before them, it was just birds and fish and magical beings.” He’s a boisterous and engaging presenter and this is enjoyable television.

For pointers to other recent new shows, go to the August Viewing Guide.