(NOTE: All premiere dates remain subject to sudden change as the writers’ and actors’ strikes continue. In the meantime, enjoy all the sports and South Korean shows!)
Premieres Wednesday:
FC Barcelona: A New Era — Five documentary episodes detail the beloved football club’s return to greatness under team legend Xavi Hernández. The climax is certain to be their January 2023 victory over Real Madrid, which was an even bigger feather in their cap than beating Hypothetical Madrid. (Prime Video)
I Am Groot Season 2 — Everybody’s favorite arboreal scamp explores the mysteries of the cosmos in a quintet of all-new shorts. Can’t wait to see him team up with the galaxy’s top botanical rapper, Neil Da Grass. (Disney+)
Infamy — It’s The Jazz Singer Polish-style, as a teenage girl goes against her parents’ wishes to pursue a career in hip-hop. She just couldn’t resist the siren call of that classic 2Pac track, “Still on Pierogies.” (Netflix)
Never Let Him Go — ABC Studios presents a docuseries that traces the death of Scott Johnson, an American mathematician whose corpse was found in 1988 near an Australian cliff. Hope it wasn’t Cliff from AC/DC, because he’s always seemed such a decent sort. (Hulu)
One Shot: Overtime Elite — Six documentary episodes shine a light on some of the most promising names in basketball. As opposed to the ones you already know, like “Voit” and shit. (Prime Video)
Predators — Get up close and personal with polar bears, cheetahs and other mighty killers of the animal kingdom, in a docuseries narrated by Tom Hardy. If you want to know which homo sapiens to avoid, consult Ed Hardy. (Netflix)
Reporting for Duty — This Brazilian comedy series depicts the wacky goings-on at a police precinct in Rio. Gosh, how do cops even find anything to do there? (Netflix)
Scouts Honor: The Secret Files of the Boy Scouts of America — Insiders blow the lid off some of the most harrowing cases of sexual abuse in the annals of scouting. But you just knew there was something fishy when they started offering that merit badge in Catholicism. (Netflix)
Tahir’s House — A Saudi family brainstorms every idea they can come up with to upgrade their failing fish shop into something more upscale and profitable. Here come the $15 hot dogs! (Netflix)
Premieres Thursday:
Dear Child — A novel by East German-born Romy Hausman is the source material for a miniseries that follows the aftermath of a woman’s escape from 13 years of captivity. Not surprisingly, the first thing she asks is if David Hasselhoff still has a career. (Netflix)
Gamera Rebirth — Six animated episodes further the mythos of the world’s most famous flaming turtle. (Unless those rumors about Mitch McConnell are true.) (Netflix)
Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 4 — Fresh from their crossover with Strange New Worlds, the crew of the Cerritos are ready for a season of encounters with “new and classic aliens.” OK, two things here: We don’t call them “aliens” anymore, we call them “undocumented life forms”; and I hardly think Melania qualifies as “classic.” (Paramount+)
Top Boy — The British crime drama’s final season (third on Netflix, fifth overall) will reveal who wins the intense turf war for control of London’s Summerhouse estate. Makes you long for Downton Abbey, because all they did there was bon mot you to death. (Netflix)
Virgin River — As if they don’t have enough drama to contend with in their personal lives as Part 1 of Season 5 commences, our cast of intrepid Californians are also staring down the barrel of a rampaging wildfire. I like to picture somebody in the writers’ room exclaiming “Let’s hit ’em with an earthquake and a hurricane at the same time!” and then getting laughed off the lot. (Netflix)
Premieres Friday:
All or Nothing: The National Team in Qatar — Tag along with the German soccer team on their trip to the 2022 World Cup. No, they didn’t win, but they did go out honorably by protesting FIFA’s ban on rainbow armbands. So just to review, we now hate it when the Germans lose and we wish they could wear more armbands. Got it. (Prime Video)
Blood Flower — Coming to us from Malaysia by way of Fantastic Fest, this horror flick focuses on a teen exorcist who has to put his powers to the test in order to protect his loved ones from a malign entity. All together now: “The power of the 9.1 percent of us who believe in Christ compels you!” (Shudder)
Burning Body — Scandal erupts in Barcelona after the burned corpse of a police officer is found inside a car. Who could the culprit be, and what web of sexual intrigue and betrayal might it expose? Come on, muchachos, you’ve already got an incinerated cop. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. (Netflix)
The Changeling — Lakeith Stanfield executive-produced and stars in this miniseries adaptation of the bestseller about a man searching for his wife and child in an “alternate New York City.” In the real one, Mayor Adams would just point you toward the Roosevelt Hotel and then ask you for a campaign contribution. (Apple TV+)
Sitting in Bars With Cake — A pair of 20-something BFFs living in Los Angeles make it their habit to bake cakes at home and bring them into bars to make new friends. It works like a charm, but only because L.A. doesn’t have a Publix bakery. (Prime Video)
Rosa Peral’s Tapes — For the first time, Spanish murderess Peral speaks from prison, discussing her conviction for killing her boyfriend with the help of her ex (with whom she was still sleeping at the time). Given that all three were cops, the first question should be “Do you regret living in a country where the police can be prosecuted for something so relatively minor?” (Netflix)
Self-Reliance — A cash-strapped sad sack agrees to be hunted like prey for $1 million in a comedy thriller from writer/director/star Jake Johnson. Listen, for a cool mil, you can hunt me from here to Lake City, gut me with a katana and mount me like a striped bass. And that’s just the first date! (Hulu)
Selling the OC — The Oppenheim Group adds a new real-estate agent in Season 2, just in time to land its first billion-dollar listing. Right now, The Former Guy is starting to think he charged Junior too little for MAGA-Lardo. (Netflix)
Spy Ops — Special agents from here and abroad tell tales of some of their most daring clandestine operations. Hey, remember when we thought these spooks were the bad guys? Ah, the follies of youth. (Netflix)
A Time Called You — More sci-fi-tinged romance from South Korea, with a woman who’s mourning the loss of her boyfriend transported back in time to start over as a teenager. Hopefully not one of those teenagers who bullies her boyfriend into suicide, although that would be a heck of a bookend. (Netflix)
Premieres Tuesday:
Football Must Go On — If you’re the kind of sports fan this doc is catering to, you know that the horrors of the war in Ukraine couldn’t dim the enthusiasm of one of the country’s greatest soccer teams, Shakhtar Donetsk. If you’re anybody else, you think that’s a character on Ahsoka. (Paramount+)
Kelce — Revisit 2022 with Philadelphia Eagles team captain Jason Kelce, as he decides whether to cap a year of personal and professional accomplishment by retiring. Will he succumb to the lure of the BarcaLounger, or will the money be too good? (NARRATOR: The money was too good.) (Prime Video)
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This article appears in Sep 6-12, 2023.