5 best new shows: quick links
5 best new shows on streaming this week
Alien: Earth (13 August) – best new show on Disney+
Out of everything on streaming this week, Alien: Earth is by far the show that’s causing the most buzz. Sitting at a fresh 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, the Alien franchise never looked better.
Starring our own Essie Davis (Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries), this sci-fi horror series builds on the original Alien franchise created by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett. And it’s actually a prequel, set two years before the events of the original 1979 film by Ridley Scott.
In the series, a space vessel called Maginot crash-lands on Earth, which prompts a young woman and a ragtag group of tactical soldiers to make an unusual discovery.
That discovery soon puts them face-to-face with the planet’s biggest threat: (you guessed it) xenomorphs.
Butterfly (13 August) – best new show on Prime Video
This six-episode series is based on the Boom! Studios graphic novel of the same name, originally created by Arash Amel and Marguerite Bennett.
Butterfly stars Daniel Dae Kim as David Jung, a former US intelligence operative living in South Korea whose past resurfaces to threaten his life and family. He’s joined by Reina Hardesty as Rebecca, Louis Landau as Oliver, and Piper Perabo (who previously starred with Dae-Kim in the 2005 horror film The Cave) as Juno.
It’s got spies, it’s got guns, it’s got Daniel Dae Kim. What more do you need?
Playing Gracie Darling (14 August) – best new show on Paramount+
This new Australian series on Paramount+ is a must-watch. Here’s why (from the review by Anthony Morris):
‘Australian television loves a good mystery. What they don’t seem to love quite so much is a good spooky mystery, which is what separates Playing Gracie Darling from the pack. Yes, it’s another small-town mystery where a dark and deadly past haunts the present – only this time, there’s a strong sense that the haunting part is literal.
Back in 1997, a group of teens went out to a cabin in the woods to hold a séance, and even if you’ve never seen a horror movie in your life you know this is not going to end well. ‘We open ourselves to the spirit world and command evil to stay outside the circle,’ says the host of the séance, Gracie Darling (Kristina Bogic). Yeah, good luck with that.’ Read the full review.
The Rainmaker (16 August) – best new show on Stan
You may know The Rainmaker as either the popular John Grisham novel, or the less-popular 1997 movie of the same name starring Matt Damon.
The legal drama centres on law graduate Randy Baylor, who takes on a fraudulent insurance company in a case worth millions of dollars.
Now adapted for TV, The Rainmaker series gives the story more room to breathe, which almost certainly means more depth to its characters and narrative.
Plus, the involvement of Blumhouse, the production house known for The Black Phone, Happy Death Day, and The Purge, suggests that the show might lean into thriller/horror aspects.
Guy Mont Spelling Bee NZ S2 (16 August) – best new show on ABC iView
This little gem of a reality show made the jump from YouTube to national broadcaster a few years ago and is continuing to thrive. Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont Spelling Bee NZ is available to watch (or re-watch) this week on ABC, and we highly recommend it for some easy laughs.
The show is loosely based on an actual school spelling bee: in each episode, four comedians compete to spell words or names in rounds that are ‘designed to be infuriating’ to take part in and entertaining to watch’. The winner competes again the following week, and the loser must wear a dunce cap.
