From controversial comic Matt Rife’s new crowdwork special to Vince Vaughn’s new crime caper Bad Monkey, we round up our top 10 shows to watch this week
1. Cobra – Sunday, August 11, WTVS | Season Premiere
Season three of this U.K. political drama turns up the heat. Prime Minister Sutherland can at least breathe a sigh of relief on the personal front, as his daughter has made it out of the sinkhole. But on the professional/international front, he’s got a missing princess to track down.
2. Industry – Sunday, August 11, HBO Canada | Season Premiere
With the recent end of Succession, HBO finds itself short one critically adored, Emmy-magnet drama. Of course, the Home Box Office channel always has plenty of irons in the development fire, but perhaps Succession’s natural successor is a show that’s already airing — and also set in the mercurial world of big business, no less.
Taking place on the cutthroat trading floor at one of London’s top investment banks, Industry debuted in 2020, following an array of young bankers looking to get their foot in the door at Pierpoint & Co. — even if it kills them. Much like Succession, the show opened to a modest response, but gained steam in season two. Can this third season take the series to the next, zeitgeist-grabbing level?
Well, that’s always tough to predict, but there should be at least a few more eyeballs trained on the show this year thanks to the arrival of two stars from the HBO hits of yesteryear.
Game of Thrones’ Kit Harington (pictured above) joins the cast as Sir Henry Muck, a green-tech entrepreneur whose company is about to go public, making him a major priority for Eric, Robert and Yasmin, as Pierpoint looks to pivot toward ethical investing. And indeed, based on sneak peeks of the new season, it seems as though there’s a little more than business going on between Henry and Yasmin.
Meanwhile, Harper, having been outed for her lack of credentials and kicked to the curb last season, seeks to “get back into the addictive thrill of finance” — and, just maybe, exact a little revenge on certain former co-workers in the process; cue an unlikely partnership with hedge fund FutureDawn and its savvy portfolio manager Petra Koenig, played by the season’s other big guest star: Canada’s own Sarah Goldberg, Emmy-nominated star of HBO’s Barry. To watch the trailer, click here.
3. Houses of Horror: Secrets of College Greek Life – Monday, August 12, A&E | Series Premiere
This harrowing series delves into the world of campus Greek, exposing how hazing, sexual assault, drug use and systemic racism are able to persist within groups built on exclusivity, secrecy and power.
4. Matt Rife: Lucid – A Crowd Work Special – Tuesday, August 13, Netflix
The controversial young standup takes a novel approach in this special, engaging in a full hour of bantering and bickering with his audience — addressing the “haters” head-on. As Mr. Rife tells the crowd: “I want you guys to be aware you are equally as at fault for how this goes as I am.”
5. Fishing for History – Wednesday, August 14, Super Channel Fuse | Series Premiere
After discovering magnet fishing via YouTube videos, commercial fishermen Mike Lenton and Justin Gerbrandt take off across North America to dunk their magnets in search of hidden underwater artifacts. This new series chronicles their adventures along the way.
6. Bad Monkey – Wednesday, August 14, Apple TV+ | Series Premiere
Ever since his breakout role in 1996’s Swingers, Vince Vaughn has demonstrated a deftness for both drama and comedy, with the latter recently on display in his recurring Curb Your Enthusiasm role as Freddy Funkhauser.
Vaughn’s comedic side is at the forefront of his latest project, Apple TV+ series Bad Monkey. Based on the crime novel by Carl Hiaasen, Vaughn stars as Andrew Yancy, a disgraced former police detective who’s been demoted to restaurant inspector in the Florida Keys.
When a severed arm is discovered during a fishing expedition, Yancy teams up with a Miami medical examiner (Natalie Martinez) to investigate a dark and corrupt scheme involving a shady couple (Rob Delaney and Meredith Hagner), an earnest young fisherman (Ronald Peet), a sketchy “Dragon Queen” (Jodie Turner-Smith) and a mischievous monkey named Driggs.
The show was created by Bill Lawrence, whose television credits include such beloved hits as Scrubs, Cougar Town, Ted Lasso and Shrinking, and fans of those series will find plenty to enjoy in this hilarious blend of mystery and comedy. To watch the trailer, click here.
7. Jackpot! – Thursday, August 15, Prime Video
Helmer of such big-screen hits as Bridesmaids and such small-screen hits as The Office, director Paul Feig brings his deft comedic touch to Prime Video’s latest star-studded original film.
Opening on Los Angeles circa 2030, Crazy Rich Asians’ Awkwafina plays Katie, a struggling actress whose life suddenly starts looking up after she wins the lottery. Alas, unbeknownst to her, California law states that every single person who bought a losing ticket for that week’s draw has until the sun sets to kill the winner and claim their prize.
Luckily (or perhaps not so much) for Katie, she’s got Noel (John Cena) — an “amateur lottery protection agent” who’s on hand to serve as her bodyguard. The deal is, if he keeps her alive, he claims part of the jackpot.
It’s the sort of high-concept action-comedy romp that Feig showed a knack for in 2015 Melissa McCarthy vehicle Spy — and again it’s a tricky tonal balancing act. As Feig told website The Upcoming prior to Jackpot!’s release, he was aiming to make a “fun, silly, but also emotional story about somebody in over their head. Myself and Awkwafina were both on the same page. We both wanted to make sure it felt real and grounded . . .”
Added Awkwafina: “There’s a lot of things at play and messages which go beyond the broad action-comedy world.”
8. Emily in Paris – Thursday, August 15, Netflix | Season Premiere
Less a show than a sensation, Sex and the City creator Darren Star’s bubbly dramedy about a U.S. marketing whiz making her way through life and love in the City of Light returns for season four. That is, of course, following a season-three finale wherein Camille and Gabriel’s wedding was interrupted when the bride couldn’t hold her peace, calling it all off because she knew Gabe and Emily were in love. (This wasn’t spectacular news for Emily’s current boyfriend Alfie.) Further soaping up the proceedings, it was revealed Camille is pregnant with Gabriel’s baby.
So, what does the new year have in store? Well, aside from a very tricky love square, we’ll get to see Paris in winter for the first time, travel to a few exotic locales like Rome, and marvel at some bold new fashion statements from our leading lady. As costume designer Marylin Fitoussi told Tudum: “Emily is really coming into her own, asserting herself, becoming much stronger with a style that is reinterpreting Parisian fashion codes. And our motto was obviously to have fun, but to take maximum risks.” To watch the trailer, click here.
9. Rick and Morty: The Anime – Thursday, August 15, Adult Swim | Series Premiere
In December of 2013, an adults-only cartoon called Rick and Morty took the television world by storm. And, indeed, “storm” is an apt word for it on multiple fronts — because much as the R-rated adventures of a mad scientist and his hapless grandson was embraced by fans and critics alike, behind the scenes things have been downright stormy throughout the show’s run. From a notoriously fraught writing and production process that has caused multiple lengthy delays between seasons to toxic behaviour within the fan community to rumoured in-fighting between co-creators Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon to, finally, Roiland’s dismissal from the series amidst misconduct allegations . . . well, the path has been a bumpy one.
Yet for Rick and Morty, the good still manages to outweigh the bad and the ugly. The show’s mix of absurdity, profundity and boundless creativity remains unlike anything else on TV, and there are still at least three more seasons on the docket following Adult Swim’s massive 70-episode renewal back in May of 2018. Now, we’re also getting a spinoff — or perhaps more accurately, a remake of sorts?
Based on a collection of viral-hit short films aired on Adult Swim and its digital platforms, this new series, helmed by Takashi Sano, reimagines the saga of Rick, Morty and the Smith fam in the distinctive, psychedelic style of Japanese anime. The basic premise remains the same: an alcoholic inventor and his progeny get up to debaucherous adventures in outer-space and alternate dimensions while also dealing with domestic drama in the ’burbs. But the specific storylines are fresh. On that note, across these 10 episodes: “Rick relaxes in a pseudo-world between multiverses, Summer helps Space Beth fight the evil Galactic Federation and Morty falls in love with a mysterious girl who happens to be an atemporal being.”
10. The Union – Friday, August 16, Netflix
This past December, Mark Wahlberg led a lighthearted action pic called The Family Plan for Apple TV+, about an average suburban dad whose wife and kids are stunned to learn was once a secret agent.
Here, the Oscar nominee is treading in similar conceptual territory — except the film is on Netflix and his character is the one that’s in for a rude awakening. He plays Mike, a New Jersey construction worker who is pleasantly surprised when his old high school flame Roxanne (Oscar-winner Halle Berry) saunters back into his life one night. As they reconnect and things start to get physical, Roxanne slips our unwitting hero a mickey. When he wakes up, they’re both in Europe, and Roxy has quite the bombshell: she’s an elite member of a secret agency called The Union, made up of working-class spies who handle the dirty work the FBI and CIA can’t. What’s more, she wants his help. A mysterious cabal has stolen their list of operatives — effectively busting the Union better than a Pinkerton ever could. In need of a trustworthy new recruit who’s not on the enemy’s radar, Roxanne trains Mike to become a blue collar James Bond.