Spending some time inside to beat the summer heat? Why not kick back with a new show? Once you’ve binged returning favourites like The Rings of Power (on Prime Video), the fourth and final season of Canadian-filmed The Umbrella Academy, and the fashions of everyone’s Netflix guilty pleasure Emily in Paris (the next best thing to Celine Dion in Paris!), check out a riveting supernatural Nordic noir, Jeff Goldblum as Zeus, a star-studded animated Batman and a bracing British menopause comedy.
The Change
Imagine Kristin Scott Thomas’s bracing Fleabag bar monologue about menopause, but spread out over six hilarious episodes, and you have some idea of British stand-up comedian Bridget Christie, 52, who wrote and stars in this critically-acclaimed menopause dramedy. In this coming-of-middle-age story, Triumph motorcycle-riding Linda (Christie) is a mother of two very much dismayed to discover, on her 50th birthday, that she’s going through the change of life. Her husband Steve (Omid Djalili, 58) remains clueless and her kids openly mock her, so she goes on an adventure to shake things up. With commentary on coming to terms with aging and the attitude of freedom it brings, the series is by turns a gloriously tart and heartfelt story of self-discovery.
Where to Watch: Streaming on BritBox starting Aug. 1 (6 episodes)
Batman: Caped Crusader
Gotham goes dark – and things get creepy weird – when reimagined by executive producers J.J. Abrams, Matt Reeves and Bruce Timm (the latter being the creator of arguably the definitive 1990s Batman: The Animated Series). It’s a period piece rendered in a throwback 1940s art style that nods to Batman’s early DC run, riffing on the origin story but sending Bruce Wayne (Hamish Linklater, 48) to long-overdue therapy. Corrupt police, mob bosses and both well- and lesser-known villains are tweaked just so: Minnie Driver, 54, is a gender reversal of The Penguin, for instance, Catwoman is Christina Ricci, 44, and Dame Maggie Smith’s son Toby Stephens, 55, voices peculiar criminal Gentleman Ghost.
Where to Watch: Streaming on Prime Video starting Aug. 1 (10 episodes)
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder
Based on the New York Times YA bestseller, this BBC-commissioned mystery is an hybrid of Veronica Mars and Nancy Drew. Wednesday’s Emma Myers is true crime enthusiast Pip Fitz-Amobi, a clever high school student (think: a teenage Jane Marple) who doubts the person blamed for the murder of a popular student was the right suspect. Pip’s mother, the compelling Anna Maxwell Martin, 47, of Line of Duty and The Bletchley Circle, just wishes she’d stop sleuthing. And if, like many, you were charmed by the goofy charisma of My Lady Jane’s unlikely May/December paramour Lord Stanley Dudley (Henry Ashton in a breakout role), this modest thriller will give you a fix. It’s a just-murdery-enough comfort watch and perfect cross-over fare for family cottage viewing.
Where to Watch: Streaming on Netflix starting Aug. 1 (6 episodes)
Bad Monkey
The only issue with Vince Vaughn, 54, playing Andrew Yancy, really, is what took so long. Casting him as the former Miami PD detective is inspired. The highly anticipated comedy (from award-winning Ted Lasso and Shrinking producer Bill Lawrence) is based on Carl Hiaasen’s bestseller – a wickedly funny misadventure through the real estate, greed, corruption and humidity of the Florida Keys, where Yancy reluctantly toils as a restaurant health inspector. The cast of memorably quirky locals features Rob Delaney (47, Catastrophe), Michelle Monaghan, 48, and rising British actress Jodie Turner-Smith, 37.
Where to Watch: Streaming on AppleTV+ starting Aug. 14 (10 episodes)
The Tyrant
Filmmaker Park Hoon-jung (New World) runs this original K-drama, an action spy miniseries about the threat posed by a cutting-edge human virus. A former agent turned hitman working at – what else – a shadowy agency, and a secret deal between U.S. intelligence and its Korean counterpart spur a race to locate the MacGuffin, lest the bioweapon fall in the wrong hands. Espionage, cold-blooded mercenaries and a thirst for vengeance, in a gorgeously filmed action package should fill the John Wick-shaped hole in the summer offerings.
Where to Watch: Streaming on Disney+ starting Aug. 14 (4 episodes)
Only Murders in the Building
Since they investigate a fresh body every season, this season is technically “new.” (Fight me.) One of the delights of this droll three-hander between Martin Short, 74, Steve Martin, 78, and Selena Gomez, 32, is the rotating roster of guests. Gen X icon Matthew Broderick’s earnestly over-the-top version of himself was a highlight last season; this year SNL alum Molly Shannon, 59, Richard Kind, 67 and Kumail Nanjiani, 46, are on the call sheet. Scene-stealing Oscar queen Meryl Streep, 75, is also back (sure to fuel more sweet rumours of a close relationship with Short). The metafictional romp’s latest case is the murder of Charles’s stunt double Sazz (Jane Lynch, 64), taking the amateur trio to Hollywood to drop in on a screen adaptation of their hit podcast — Eva Longoria, Eugene Levy and Zach Galifianakis play their counterparts, naturally.
Where to Watch: Streaming on Disney+ starting Aug. 27 (8 episodes)
Kaos
This new fantasy comedy series stars Jeff Goldblum, 71, as cruel and all-powerful king of the gods. The humour is inky-dark, following Zeus as he becomes increasingly insecure and paranoid that his downfall is imminent. Beloved for Jurassic Park and lately seen as the ruthless Grandmaster in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the character actor (and various other Gods behaving badly) occupies a banal contemporary setting, lending friction to the scheming and giving the outsize nature of their powers an incongruous contrast. Instagram’s favourite Italophile (and longtime Madonna BFF) Debi Mazar, 60, features as Medusa while the great Janet McTeer, 62, appears as Zeus’s foil Hera, Queen of the Gods. It’s an entertaining way to bone up on Greek mythology.
Where to Watch: Streaming on Netflix starting Aug. 29 (8 episodes)
Veronika
Nordic stars Alexandra Rapaport, 52, and Tobias Santelmann (43, of Netflix’s upcoming Harry Hole series) lead this psychological thriller helmed by Jonas Alexander Arnby (who directed several War of the Worlds episodes). Police officer Veronika (Rapaport, 52) is juggling family and addiction and having visions of unsolved crimes. Whether the people haunting her are real or a figment of her addled mind cause her (and the audience) to second-guess just how damaged she is, and by what. Is there anything better than a twisty Nordic noir on a sunny day?
Where to Watch: Streaming on Viaplay starting Aug. 20 (8 episodes)
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