August is a funny month for telly. The kids are off school, the football hasn’t properly started yet, and somehow you find yourself watching three episodes of something you swore you’d never touch. Fortunately, this year’s summer lineup is genuinely worth your time.
Leading the charge is the long-awaited return of Ted Lasso, which comes back to Apple TV+ after a two-year absence. The eternally optimistic Kansas-born coach and his beloved AFC Richmond are back, and early word suggests the writers have recaptured the warmth that made season two so special. It’s comfort viewing with proper heart, and frankly, the timing couldn’t be better.
For something altogether darker, The Shards arrives on Netflix this month. Based on Bret Easton Ellis’s semi-autobiographical novel set in 1980s Los Angeles, it’s a slow-burn thriller about a teenage boy convinced a serial killer has infiltrated his social circle. Think Stranger Things but with considerably more dread and far better outfits.
Elsewhere, House of the Dragon continues its second season run on Sky Atlantic, and the episodes have grown noticeably more confident. The dragon battles alone have been worth the subscription fee. Meanwhile, BBC One’s Kaos offers a fresh, wildly irreverent reimagining of Greek mythology, with Jeff Goldblum playing a paranoid Zeus. Yes, really. It’s as mad as it sounds, and mostly in a good way.
There’s also The Penguin on Max, a Batman spin-off centred entirely on Colin Farrell’s scene-stealing villain from The Batman. Farrell reportedly spent four hours in makeup each day for the role, and every minute of that effort shows on screen.
“We wanted to make a genuine crime drama that just happens to exist in Gotham,” the show’s creator Lauren LeFranc told Variety. “Not a superhero show. A people show.”
Rounding out the list are solid picks across drama, documentary, and comedy, with something for every kind of viewer, from the devoted binge-watcher to the person who only manages one episode before falling asleep on the sofa.
The real question, of course, is whether any of these will still be in your head come September, or whether August will once again be swallowed whole by a reality show you didn’t plan to watch but somehow saw every episode of.
