Dysfunctional families, found or forged by blood, seem to be a big theme of September’s most exciting releases on your streaming services. They take the form of covens, stinky spy workplaces, mythical hierarchies of related deities, teams put together for heists, and mum-and-pop medical services squabbling as they arrive at emergencies.
With plenty of stuff worth gathering your own quirky family to watch, Eliza Janssen’s picked the top 10 most notable shows landing in September. Add these titles to your watchlist and get notified when they’re ready to stream!
Agatha All Along
Agatha All Along: Season 1
Kathryn Hahn is rebuilding her coven, and we absolutely want to be part of it. Since being trapped in a dull New Jersey town at the end of MCU series WandaVision, Hahn’s manipulative witch Agatha Harkness has been able to escape with the help of some new familiars and rising witches who want a taste of her dark magic. The cast is delicious, featuring Sasheer Zamata, Patti Lupone as a “450-year-old Sicilian witch” and Aubrey Plaza as “a warrior witch.” The spin-off has changed titles a few times, with “Agatha: The Lying Witch with the Great Wardrobe” jokingly considered at one point…it’s a mouthful, but gives you an idea of the chaos we’re in for.
Billionaire Island
Salmon tastes great in a sushi roll, or fried up with tomatoes and a little balsamic—but revenge is a dish best served cold in this Norwegian business drama. From the creators of Lilyhammer, the show pits two prosperous fishing families against one another, these sworn enemies picking at old wounds and forming fresh new vendettas as they battle to be the biggest fish in the profit pond. It sounds like a fairly locally-grounded story, but hopefully with enough surprising and funny turns to feel universally relatable.
Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist
Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist
Based on a true crime story, this limited series features Black Hollywood’s cream of the crop: Taraji P. Henson, Sam Jackon, Don Cheadle (who’s pretty used to this sort of heist action), Terrence Howard, and Kevin Hart as our main character “Chicken Man.” The setting is buzzy, too, taking place on the night of Muhammad Ali’s doomed 1970 comeback fight. The whole shebang is based on a 2020 podcast that illuminated one armed robbery’s impact on Atlanta, transforming the town into the “Black Mecca.” We’re hoping for a retro funk soundtrack as Hart explains an impossibly elaborate plan to his fellow schemers.
Midnight Family
Midnight Family: Season 1
A rare case of a doco-to-TV-series adaptation, this Mexican drama chases after a hard-working medical student who moonlights as a paramedic in her family’s private ambulance service. We’re tired just thinking about it, frankly. A seat-of-your-pants tour of Mexico City, the show should benefit hugely from its non-fictional source material: a 2019 documentary that captured the binary between compassion and commercial need. Here, we’ll see the Tamayo family responding to emergencies around the clock, and racing other private ambulances to earn the money they need to keep their own unit running.
The Penguin
The Penguin: Miniseries
We’ve been waiting to see this spin-off to 2022’s The Batman for ages, with the first trailer dropping almost a year ago. Can a near-unrecognisable Colin Farrell get us hooked on Gotham’s sordid underbelly again? Pitched as a gritty gangland drama, the show follows Farrell as rising mobster Oz Cobb, keenly usurping the crown from fallen crime boss Carmine Falcone. Thing is, the dead guy’s daughter (the magnetic Christina Milioti) happens to be a psychopathic serial killer fresh outta Arkham, and she’s not going to give up her crooked inheritance without a fight.
The Perfect Couple
The Perfect Couple: Season 1
Nicole Kidman has starred in a few different streaming series now (like Nine Perfect Strangers, Big Little Lies, and The Undoing) but this new one for Netflix might be the most Kidman show yet. It borrows the DNA of all those previous efforts, casting Kidman as the matriarch of a wealthy Nantucket family. Things are tense enough when she gives her soon-to-be daughter-in-law (Eve Hewson) a frosty reception, but the discovery of a body on the beach turns uncomfortable wedding prep into a nightmarish whodunnit. Liev Schrieber, Dakota Fanning, and Meghann Fahy round out the cast—and the list of suspects.
Slow Horses: Season 4
Slow Horses: Season 4
Already renewed for a fifth season that’ll drop in January, Apple TV+’s darkly funny espionage drama stinks up our screen with each new instalment—thanks to Gary Oldman’s pungent turn as Jackson Lamb, the head of Slough House. It’s where MI5 spies go to die an embarrassing, desk-bound death, once they’ve bungled a job badly enough. This latest chapter heats things up with the casting of Hugo Weaving as a fresh obstacle for the team. Each season is based on a novel from Mick Herron’s Slough House series, with season four tackling “Spook Street.”
Tulsa King: Season 2
Often a hero, sometimes a criminal: always a King. The legendary Sylvester Stallone returns to our screens as a Mafio capo sent to establish a new operation in Ohio, of all places, in this series created by dad TV juggernaut Taylor Sheridan. In his feature on the first season, Luke Buckmaster commended Sly on his enduring stature as a leading man: “now in his mid-70s, with the kind of gravitas only time can impart, Stallone is one of those actors who feels like a relic from a bygone era, washed up on the shores of modern existence.”
It’s a flattering role for Stallone, his first time leading a streaming series. He wields a lot of influence, and even has a romantic arc with the government agent hot on his trail, who slapped a pair of handcuffs on him in the season one finale. Kinky!
Twilight of the Gods
Twilight of the Gods: Season 1
Developed as part of Zack Snyder’s big deal with Netflix, this series reanimates the epic characters and fables of Norse mythology—plonking Snyder firmly in his gods-and-monsters, comic-book-inspired action wheelhouse. The voice cast is pretty flash, featuring John Noble as Odin, plus the recognisable timbres of Rahul Kohli, Peter Stormare, Jamie Chung and Lauren Cohan. And Hans Zimmer is behind the show’s score, presumably a soundscape of majestic battle hymns and a lot of clanging metal.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon - The Book of Carol
Poor Dazza: cursed to wander the earth post-zombie-apocalypse, scouring France in the first season of his own Walking Dead spin-off to find new allies and perhaps a way back to the good ol’ US of A. At least he’s not so alone anymore, joined by Melissa McBride’s Carol in the season one finale. Together they’ll turn zombies into a greenish-red paste and stop by Spain, making their survival saga into somewhat of a Euro gap year. There are, frankly, far too many spin-offs and sequels to AMC’s unkillable zombie property, but following Norman Reedus and McBride’s fan fave characters is a safe bet for bleak and bloodthirsty entertainment.
