We check out the best new shows streaming this month.
Better Things
This comedy about a solo mum raising her three daughters in LA is one of the, ahem, better things you can watch. The show offers a frank, uncompromising and all too real look at modern parenting. Which would be, ya know, completely unbearable if it wasn't so damn funny. The first season is available to catch up on now and the new season kicks off next Friday.
Blindspot
Tattoos are often symbolic of a person's journey through life, offering the inked one warm fuzzy memories of specific periods in their life. That idea is pushed to the extreme in this crime drama, which returns for its third season on Sunday, as the tattoos that cover the body of the mysterious Jane Doe are the only clues as to who she is, what happened to her and how she managed to end up completely naked inside a travel bag in Time Square.
Search Party
If you've been looking for something disturbingly funny to watch, well, this is it. It's a dark, dark comedy about an unlikeable group of 20-something pals who band together to try and find an old high school acquaintance who has gone missing. Critics found the first season to be a winner, it holds a perfect 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, and Lightbox are express viewing the second from Monday, 20.
The Girlfriend Experience
The new season of this series about the world of high end escorts is experimenting with something a little more daring this season... Instead of focusing on just one experience the dark thriller will follow two separate, distinctive storylines that will run parallel with each other. Each week both get their own episode. It's a bold move, so let's hope there's a happy ending and they pull it off. The first of these double episodes will be available from Wednesday.
Legion
Legion differs from all the other superhero shows currently streaming in two big ways; firstly the lead mutant, Haller, is in a psychiatric hospital because of his psychological problems and secondly, it stars Aubrey Plaza, who we'd watch in anything. The superhero thriller has received plenty of critical acclaim for the way it explores mental health issues and the effects on both the characters and the way their narration messes with the minds of the audience. The first season begins next Saturday.
Good Behaviour
After getting out of prison early for the reasons in the title, an ex-thief, con artist and reformed druggie sets about regaining custody of her 10-year-old son. A restraining order put in place by her mother, who is raising the boy, however makes this extremely difficult. Naturally she gets involved with a hitman and things escalate from there. Families, eh? Express viewing begins Tuesday 14.
Alias Grace
If the disturbing future of The Handmaid's Tale left you pining for the happier past, sorry, you'll find no solace in Alias Grace. This series, also based on a Margaret Atwood novel, is a troubling piece of historical fiction that follows Grace, a young domestic servant convicted for her part in a gruesome double murder. After 30 years hard time she's released but something about her ever-changing account doesn't add up. Did she? Didn't she? Dunno...
The Sinner
Ever had one of those days when nothing goes right? You sleep through your alarm, can't find a park, are late to work, murder someone, get stuck in traffic on the way hom... wait, what? Murder someone? Yup. That's the premise of this eight-part drama about a young mother who can't recall killing someone in broad daylight - or offer any motive for doing so. Less a whodunit and more of a whyshedunit, the early buzz on this is "killing it".
Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond - Featuring A Very Special, Contractually Obligated Mention of Tony Clifton
Most of Jim Carrey's bizarro behaviour can be tracked back to his work on the acclaimed bio-pic Man on the Moon, where he portrayed avant-comic Andy Kaufman. Carrey took method acting to the extreme, living life as Kaufman and losing all sense of Jim Carrey. This doco, pulled from over 100 hours of behind the scenes footage, shows one man's trip into another man's madness and has Carrey recounting events that still impact on him today.
GameFace
This fresh Brit comedy follows a young actress as she crashes through life. With questionable advice coming from her life coach - and, bizarrely, her driving instructor - GameFace shows the funny side of failure. After all, sometime you just got to laugh, right?
Acceptable Risk
Far from a gamble, this contemporary Irish thriller seems a safe bet. With an Emmy-award winning writer behind it, this procedural investigates the fatal shooting of a popular businessman, and husband, whose wife may not be as innocent as she seems.
Wilde Ride
This new local family adventure series sounds a bit like a cross between Terry Teo and Outrageous Fortune. It's about a privileged young girl who is orphaned and then adopted by her Westie relatives. With no room for her beloved horses she now finds herself on the back of a dirt bike. This NZ on Air funded series is debuting OnDemand first and will hit telly screens in the new year. So get ahead of the pack and check it out now.
OPINION: The syllabus covers everything from marketing choices to the singer's fandom.