Catch the new season of National Treasures, a reimagining of Prince Andrew's disastrous 2019 BBC interview, and a gritty new fantasy crime drama with Colin Farrell this week. Photo / The Spinoff
Catch the new season of National Treasures, a reimagining of Prince Andrew's disastrous 2019 BBC interview, and a gritty new fantasy crime drama with Colin Farrell this week. Photo / The Spinoff
We round up everything coming to streaming services this week, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, ThreeNow, Neon and TVNZ+.
If you love local history: National Treasures (TVNZ+, September 17)
The fascinating local series that celebrates the everyday taonga of our world is back for a second season. Scotty and Stacey Morrison are joined by Oscar Kightley (all national treasures in their own right) and a team of experts as they reveal the intriguing and often emotional stories behind a variety of unique historical objects. This season’s taonga include cheese rolls, war medals and… Thingee?
“It’s impossible to come away from an episode of National Treasures without looking at every object in your house in a more sentimental light,” Alex Lodge wrote for The Spinoff during season one. “The afterglow leaves us as an audience considering our own role as kaitiaki of treasures and stories. This is the lasting impression of National Treasures … it reminds us to not only look back, but also to look around at the present moment and celebrate the living.”
If you love a tense British thriller: Nightsleeper (ThreeNow, September 16)
This BBC thriller drops on ThreeNow just days after it screens in the UK, and rest assured, it’s about to take us on one heck of a ride. When the overnight train from Glasgow to London is hacked, the passengers are trapped on board, including police officer Joe (Peaky Blinders’ Joe Cole). As the train hurtles towards impending disaster, Joe must make contact with a cyber security director and uncover the passengers on board who are helping the hijackers. Expect a nail-biting (if not slightly formulaic) thriller.
If you love the Bird of the Year: The Penguin (Neon, September 20)
The Penguin is the next chapter in The Batman saga, but you don’t need to be a DC Comics fan to enjoy this dark and gritty HBO drama. Colin Farrell is unrecognisable here as Batman baddie Oswald “The Penguin” Cobb in a series that explores his character’s rise to power in the Gotham City criminal underworld. The early reviews look good, with Variety calling it a “mesmerising crime drama that moves beyond Batman” while Collider reckons it’s “The Sopranos with supervillains”.
If you love royal scandals: A Very Royal Scandal (Prime Video, September 19)
I’m not sure we needed two dramas in six months about Prince Andrew’s Newsnight interview, but here we are with A Very Royal Scandal. Much like Netflix’s Scoop, A Very Royal Scandal revisits the story of how a BBC news team secured an interview with the Queen’s second son in 2019 to discuss his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. This time, Michael Sheen takes on the royal role, while Ruth Wilson channels the intensely focused BBC journalist Emily Maitlis. Maitlis served as executive producer on the series, which promises to “demonstrate the power of journalism through a pivotal moment in British history”.
If you like twisted reality television experiments: The Contestant (Disney+, September 20)
Earlier this year Polygon called The Contestant, a documentary about a bonkers 1998 Japanese reality show in which a man was left alone in a room for a year and forced to survive only off magazine competition winnings, the most twisted thing you’ll see this year. It comes out on Thursday, so in the meantime, you can listen to This American Life delving into the fascinating saga back in 2014. Must watch for fans of reality TV.
