The Season

In this gossipy soap about Hong Kong’s high-society summer boating season, Toby Stephens (son of the late Maggie Smith) and Karena Lam (three-time winner of the Golden Horse Awards, the Chinese-language equivalent to the Oscars) are Christopher and Fiona Hext, the elite’s reigning couple. Jessie Mei Li stars as ingenue Cola, who’s dropped in for the summer to disrupt everyone’s relationships. Super yachts, bankers, lawyers, socialites – and grieving widows with crocodile tears – all in fabulous fashions. An homage to the world of Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians – and not just because that movie’s Chris Pang (who played Colin Khoo), is The Season’s wealthy scion, Andrew Fung.

Where to Watch: Streaming on Disney+ starting Sept. 2 (6 episodes)

Agatha Christie’s Tommy & Tuppence

The debonair detecting duo Christie created in 1922 have inspired a century of bantering copycats (from The Thin Man’s Nick and Nora Charles to Hart to Hart). Made by Britbox with BBC Studios, this new adaptation of the mysteries eschews the usual period setting and, refreshingly, also showcases the author’s distinctly dry wit and underrated sense of humour. The romantic question of will they or won’t they may hover as the confident Tuppence (Antonia Thomas) and bookish Tommy (Josh Dylan) work their cases, but they’ll figure it all out – eventually. Thesp Imelda Staunton (The Crown) steals the show as Tommy’s Aunt Ada, the retired detective who mentors them. The reboot premieres on the Queen of Crime’s birthday and anchors a full slate of Christie programming, past and present.

Where to Watch: Streaming on BritBox starting Sept. 15 (6 episodes)

Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story

Ella Beatty (daughter of Warren Beatty and Annette Bening) may currently be filming Sarah Polley’s The Bell Jar adaptation in Toronto but this month you can see her take on the titular role in this latest instalment of the Monsters series, Ryan Murphy’s exploration of sociopaths. After profiling Jeffrey Dahmer and the Menendez brothers, Murphy is turning to female rage – and where better to start than with the original grisly axe murderess Lizzie Borden, who was famously acquitted for killing her father and stepmother in 1892 New England. Billie Lourd, Sarah Paulson, Charlie Hunnam and Rebecca Hall also star, while Henry Winkler’s son, Max, directs some of the episodes.

Where to Watch: Streaming on Netflix starting Sept. 17 (8 episodes)

Youth

A new series from Sharon Horgan, the Emmy-nominated creator of Bad Sisters, is something to celebrate. Here, she leaves behind the sibling dynamics and Irish seaside town, to tell the story of a 50-year-old London literary agent who believes she’s staring down the barrel-end of her sexual viability. Horgan’s empty-nesting divorcée tries to shrug it off with clubbing, apps and drunken no-strings sexting, all the while giving the hijinks of middle-aged insecurity hilarity and heart. 

Where to Watch: Streaming on Crave starting Sept. 20 (8 episodes)

American Hostage

Entertainment with “American” in the title often turns out to be blistering critiques of the country’s broken framework. This new anthology series stays true to form: In 1977, Tony Kiritsis kidnapped his mortgage broker, then called popular local Indianapolis radio personality Fred Heckman (Jon Hamm) to air his grievances and demands. The true crime story of the hostage standoff has inspired an acclaimed scripted podcast (where Hamm voiced the same role) as well as a 2025 feature film, Dead Man’s Wire (starring Bill Skarsgård and Colman Domingo) – and now this taut thriller. Giovanni Ribisi is the desperate man in financial straits, with Mireille Enos (The Killing) as Heckman’s formidable wife Barbara.

Where to Watch: Streaming on Crave starting Sept. 20 (8 episodes)

Brothers

Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson are together again at last – but it’s no True Detectives reunion. Playing fictionalized versions of themselves, the longtime buddies hole up at McConaughey’s Texas ranch, teasing out the long-held theory that they’re related. (It seems Ma Mac – played here by Holland Taylor – may have had a dalliance with Harrelson’s pa.) The absurdist meta-comedy concept – with other actors playing real-life members of Woody and Matthew’s families – puts their kinship to the test. This headscratcher from the teams behind Schitt’s Creek and Lessons in Chemistry has to be filed under: So Crazy It Just Might Work.

Where to Watch: Streaming on AppleTV starting Sept. 23 (8 episodes)

Slo Pitch

Japanese pitching legend Ayami Sato made history as the first woman to pitch in Canadian men’s pro baseball, and her cameo lends buzz to this new original comedy series about the Brovaris, a last-place Mississauga, Ont., beer league team. Not that the sapphic softball series needs any: it’s co-produced by Elliot Page, stars Schitt’s Creek alum Emily Hampshire and Frasier’s Jess Salgueiro, and during its webseries origins, was likened to cult favourite Letterkenny. Women’s sports are in the spotlight (as Ted Lasso’s fourth season already shows) – and add to that team dysfunction and queer joy. It’s a winning combination.

Where to Watch: Streaming on Crave starting Sept. 25 (10 episodes)

Briefly Noted

The ’90s are back! Thirty years after audiences first met him, Tommy Davidson revives his 1990s talk show host character from Martin in spinoff workplace comedy The Varnell Hill Show (Sept. 1, Paramount+), with occasional special appearances by Martin Lawrence. There’s also a stylish next-gen of the fashionable Gen X coming-of-age sitcom, A Different World. Maleah Joi Moon plays the daughter of Whitley and Duane’s Jasmine Guy and Kadeem Hardison, now attending HBCU Hillman College herself. (Sept. 24 on Netflix). Canadian actor Jason Priestley’s been entertaining us since the ’90s, and now he’s relocating his husband-and-wife procedural to a sleepy – or maybe not-so-sleepy – Victoria, B.C., in Private Eyes West Coast (Sept. 30, Global/StackTV). Speaking of P.I.s, Neagley (Sept. 16, Prime) is the highly anticipated spinoff of Reacher, starring Maria Sten as Frances Neagley, a former U.S. Army master sergeant and protégé and confidante of our favourite hulking, nomadic vigilante. Retired from the military, she’s hanging a shingle in Chicago. And if you like your action and familial drama served up network TV-style, Line of Fire (Sept. 21, CityTV) hits both marks following the fictional Hollingsworth clan, who are all law enforcement agents (of varying rank). Interesting note: It’s produced by Today show co-host and former first daughter, Jenna Bush Hager.

Returning Favourites

Comedian Bruce McCulloch and Inuk singer-songwriter Elisapie are guest stars in the return of Canadian Screen Award-winning North of North (Sept. 1, APTN/CBC Gem), and it’s the final season of Son of a Critch (Sept. 8, CBC). The next chapter of Guy Ritchie’s tweedy aristocratic drug syndicate series The Gentlemen may have gotten caught up in the Meghan Markle return-to-acting rumour mill, but with or without the Duchess of Sussex, we’ll be tuning in to see what Eddie Horniman (Theo James) and ruthless rival Susie Glass (Kaya Scodelario) are wearing when Season 2 drops Sept. 3 on Netflix. Gary Oldman’s belching, farting misanthrope Jackson Lamb tries to protect his ragtag misfit spies from a kill list in Season six of Slow Horses (Sept. 16, AppleTV+). And viewers will be tuning in to the second helping of MobLand (Sept. 18, Paramount+) for the twisty betrayals of Helen Mirren’s and Pierce Brosnan’s fierce Irish crime family – and to see if the behind-the-scenes creative differences that spurred industry gossip about co-star Tom Hardy being fired are palpable onscreen.