The best new TV shows to stream in October

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This month brings plenty of promising new shows – including a limited series where one of my favourite “that guy” performers, Michael Chernus (Patriot, Severance), graduates to top billing. He stars as the serial killer John Wayne Gacy in Binge’s true-crime drama Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy. Netflix also has a new serial-killer offering in Monster: The Ed Gein Story. But if you’re looking for something lighter, try HBO Max’s The Chair Company. This black comedy may well show us a new side of comic genius Tim Robinson (I Think You Should Leave).

Netflix

My top Netflix recommendation is Monster: The Ed Gein Story (October 3).

Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s anthology drama about infamous American crimes has been a huge success for Netflix, whether covering a grisly serial killer (The Jeffrey Dahmer Story) or a pair of parricidal Beverly Hills brothers (Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story). The new season swings back to the former’s unabated horror, telling the story of the odd-job man who upended America’s staid veneer in the 1950s after he was arrested as a serial killer and corpse snatcher. Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy) plays the titular killer, with Laurie Metcalf (Lady Bird) as his mother. Murphy’s love of old Hollywood also features, exploring the connection between Gein’s crimes and Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 slasher classic Psycho with Tom Hollander (The White Lotus) as the fascinated British filmmaker.

Also on Netflix: Kathryn Bigelow makes one brilliant film a decade about the institutional might of America buckling, and the individuals trying to navigate the failure. There was The Hurt Locker in 2008, for which she won best picture and best director at the Academy Awards, Zero Dark Thirty in 2013, and now A House of Dynamite (October 24). This Defcon One thriller follows the various levels of America’s response to a nuclear missile being launched from somewhere in Asia and heading for the city of Chicago – Rebecca Ferguson (Silo) plays a control room military officer, Idris Elba (Hijack) the president of the United States. The reviews out of the Venice Film Festival were unanimous in their praise.

The expatriate Australian theatre director and filmmaker Simon Stone follows up his 2021 Netflix original, The Dig, with the psychological thriller The Woman in Cabin 10 (October 16). Keira Knightley (Black Doves) plays Laura Blacklock, a journalist covering the charity voyage of a luxury yacht who is convinced she heard and then saw a woman being thrown overboard from the neighbouring cabin. When the captain and crew insist no one is missing, Laura struggles to hold on to the truth as the wealthy and famous onboard turn on her. Guy Pearce (Mare of Easttown) and Hannah Waddingham (Ted Lasso) lead the disbelievers.

September highlights: Exceptional turns from Jude Law and Jason Bateman elevated the thriller Black Rabbit, Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight set up shop in 19th century Dublin with House of Guinness, and Wayward found the cult horror lurking in wellness regimes.

Apple TV+

Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson in Down Cemetery Road.

My top Apple TV+ recommendation is Down Cemetery Road (October 29).

Bless Mick Herron’s productivity. The British novelist’s ongoing espionage series Slough House has already yielded five seasons of Apple TV+’s showcase success Slow Horses, but it turns out Herron has previously also written four novels about Oxford private investigator Zoe Boehm. Now those novels are getting a top-notch adaptation. To match Gary Oldman atop Slow Horses, Down Cemetery Road has secured the iconic Emma Thompson (Howards End) as the sardonic Zoe, with Ruth Wilson (The Affair) as the disaffected client who hires her when a local girl goes missing. Slow Horses writer Morwenna Banks serves as creator, with the plot drawing the two women into a complex conspiracy.

Also on Apple TV+: A muscular mix of Con Air and 24, The Last Frontier (October 10) is a conspiratorial thriller about a US Marshal, Frank Remnick (Jason Clarke), whose sedate Alaskan home town is suddenly threatened when a prison transport crash-lands and scores of high-security inmates – and worse – are set free in the icy landscape. Frank is caught between desperate killers and the CIA, which is extremely keen to apprehend a particular prisoner but are offering zero explanation why. The show was co-created by Jon Bokenkamp, who gave James Spader a star turn lasting 10 seasons in The Blacklist, and it’s anchored by Australian expat Clarke’s performance as the dedicated lawman.

It’s a monumental task: how do you sum up Martin Scorsese? America’s greatest living filmmaker has released a succession of unyielding classics over the last six decades. But the director of Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, and The Wolf of Wall Street can also be found sending himself up in Apple TV+’s recent Hollywood farce, The Studio.

Scorsese is both a cinematic master and memeworthy. The documentary series Mr Scorsese (October 17) is fellow filmmaker Rebecca Miller’s attempt to reveal the 82-year-old’s essence. Miller (Maggie’s Plan), whose husband Daniel Day-Lewis has twice been Scorsese’s leading man, had full access to her subject, his archive, family, and collaborators.

September highlights: A new season of the Gary Oldman-led espionage thriller Slow Horses hit the spot, plus the New York crime drama Highest 2 Lowest reunited Spike Lee and Denzel Washington.

Disney+

My top Disney+ recommendation is Murdaugh: Death in the Family (October 15).

To avoid spoilers, I won’t list the deaths, revelations, accusations, and trials that have surrounded Alex Murdaugh, the headline-making South Carolina lawyer who mixed old money and even older crimes. Suffice to say, there’s a reason multiple documentary series and a TV movie have been made about Alex and family. Now prestige TV weighs in with this true-crime drama, which sees The Last Frontier’s Australian star, Jason Clarke, breaking bad as Alex, with Patricia Arquette (Severance) as his wife, Maggie. There’s a sizable amount of scandal to be covered here, but the show will have to make something that resonates from it. A recap won’t be enough.

Also on Disney+: We’re familiar with Disney’s current trend of producing live-action remakes of their signature animated hits – see Aladdin, Mulan, and the upcoming Moana – but no one said anything about updating their 1990s thrillers. The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (October 22) is a feature remake of the menacing 1992 maternal drama about a vengeful nanny who insinuates herself in the house of her target, a mother who’s just given birth, and tries to take over. The new leads are Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Ahsoka) as the initially trusting wife and mother, stalked by Maika Monroe (Longlegs) as the interloper. The original has a memorable moment that made cinema audiences gasp. Will it be repeated?

September highlights: Ethan Hawke got his Lebowski on for the idiosyncratic crime caper The Lowdown, while the dream team from Only Murders in the Building continued to delight.

HBO Max

Tim Robinson stars in The Chair Company.

My top HBO Max recommendation is The Chair Company (October 13).

Many fans of Tim Robinson, including me, think he is among the funniest people on television. The three essential seasons of his Netflix sketch comedy show, I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson, are a sublime mix of the absurd and the excruciating. But can Robinson underpin an entire series? We’ll find out with this eight-part black comedy, created by Robinson and longtime collaborator Zach Kanin, which begins with Robinson’s character, William Trosper, suffering a familiar fate: an embarrassing workplace accident. What comes after that, however, is the revelation of a vast conspiracy. Helping anchor the plot is Lake Bell (Harley Quinn) as William’s wife, Barb. If this is not good, I will be especially sad.

Also on HBO Max: The key question with streaming spin-offs from blockbuster movie is whether the key characters will feature on the small screen. The answer for horror prequel IT: Welcome to Derry (October 27) is yes – Bill Skarsgard’s nightmarish entity Pennywise the Clown will once again be tormenting and taking the children from the fictional Maine town of Derry. With input from filmmaker Andy Muschietti, who directed the Stephen King adaptations IT and IT: Chapter Two in 2017 and 2019 respectively, the show delves into Pennywise’s legacy via a period setting, as a new family arrive in Derry in 1962 just before events take a terrifying supernatural turn.

Speaking of television’s funniest people, British comic Steve Coogan is returning to his signature character, the perpetually awkward and wrongheaded broadcaster Alan Partridge. It’s 30 years since Partridge first appeared on television screens, with the legendary chat show spoof Knowing Me, Knowing You, and ever since he’s been a bellwether for a bewildered Britain’s setbacks. The six-episode mockumentary How Are You? It’s Alan (Partridge) (October 4) finds Partridge, returned after a year working in Saudi Arabia, examining the anxiety and mental health issues he finds in Britain. It will, of course, go terribly wrong, but there will also be some kernels of truth beneath the mishaps.

September highlights: Mark Ruffalo headlined the bleak but also tenderly intimate crime drama Task, and British political history revisited Margaret Thatcher’s rule with the media drama Brian and Maggie.

Stan*

My top Stan recommendation is Watching You (October 3).

When engaged Sydney paramedic Lina (Aisha De) succumbs to her self-doubt and has a one-night stand with a friend of a friend, Dan (Josh Helman), her regret soon becomes panic and paranoia when she is anonymously sent hidden camera footage of the hook-up. Suspicious of her friends and digging an ever-deeper hole as she tries to hide the truth from her fiance, Lina is the harried protagonist of an extremely 21st-century thriller. Adapted from the J.P. Pomare novel The Last Guests, the limited series is taut and twisty – it takes all of two episodes to work through your expectations and then really get provocative.

Also on Stan: Y2K actually goes off the rails in the new Australian feature One More Shot (October 12), a time-travel black comedy where a young woman’s plan to win back an old flame at a 1999 New Year’s Eve party finds increasingly loopy ways to go wrong. Emily Browning (American Gods) plays Minnie, who is shocked that the 21st century will commence with her on-off boyfriend Joe (Sean Keenan) smitten with Jenny (the very busy Aisha Dee). When Minnie realises every nip from her bottle of tequila takes her back to the party’s start, she goes full Groundhog Day with scenarios to split the two and win back Joe. The universe, however, is not in a co-operative mood.

September highlights: With David Tennant headlining, The Hack dramatised the Murdoch media’s shocking phone-hacking scandal, plus the court case that captivated the world got its first taste of documentary detail with Revealed: Death Cap Murders.

Amazon Prime

Bill Nighy stars Dr Jonathan Lazarus in Harlan Coben’s Lazarus.

My top Amazon Prime recommendation is Lazarus (October 22).

The prolific creative team of American crime author Harlan Coben and British writer/producer Danny Brocklehurst, who stocked Netflix with thrillers such as Fool Me Once and Missing You, bring their skill with twist-laden mysteries to Amazon Prime with this six-part limited series. Sam Claflin (Daisy Jones & the Six) plays Joel Lazarus, a forensic psychologist who returns to his family home after the death of his father, Johnathan (Bill Nighy), and becomes entangled with a series of cold-case murders. A string of disturbing experiences leaves Joel questioning himself, leaning the show into the horror genre. Everyone involved here knows how to pull off smartly satisfying entertainment.

Also on Amazon Prime: In the crime-fiction pantheon there’s a space set aside for the Parker novels by Donald E. Westlake, whose titular antihero is an amoral, ruthless and meticulous professional thief. Hollywood has long admired the books, with Lee Marvin (Point Blank), Mel Gibson (Payback), and Jason Statham (Parker), starring as Parker in various adaptations. The latest applicant is Mark Wahlberg (The Fighter), who headlines the action-thriller Play Dirty (October 1), where Parker takes on the New York underworld and a Latin American dictator. Will the movie work? It has the ideal writer and director in Shane Black, whose previous successes include Lethal Weapon, Iron Man 3, and The Nice Guys.

September highlights: Miranda Tapsell returned to Darwin for the big-hearted family comedy Top End Bub, whereas the British psychological thriller The Girlfriend walked a fine line between critique and craziness.

ABC iview

Adam Goodes (left) appears with Tony Armstrong on the latter’s new ABC series End Game.

My top ABC iview recommendation is End Game with Tony Armstrong (October 21).

Whether as an ABC sports presenter, documentary series host, or even a Eurovision Song Contest commentator, Tony Armstrong has been one of the most lively and incisive new voices in the Australian media landscape the past few years. Now the one-time AFL player returns to his roots, embarking on a quest for solutions to the issue of racism across Australian sport. Armstrong, who witnessed first-hand the distressing spectator treatment of a fellow Indigenous player and teammate, Sydney Swans champion Adam Goodes, crisscrossed the globe looking for answers. I’m expecting a series true to Armstrong’s voice: open, empathetic, and committed.

September highlights: One of Australia’s best drama franchises returned, with a new season of Mystery Road: Origin.

SBS On Demand

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau stars as William the Conqueror in King & Conqueror

My top SBS On Demand recommendation is King & Conqueror (October 12).

It’s the event numerous generations of students memorised: The Battle of Hastings in 1066, where England’s last Saxon king, Harold Godwinson, was defeated by the invading forces of William, Duke of Normandy, changing the fundamental course of British history. Created by Robert Michael Johnson (Sherlock), this epic historical film dramatises how the two nobles, who were once allies, ended up in a bloody war after the passing of Harold’s childless predecessor, Edward the Confessor. If you’re thinking this sounds very Game of Thrones, so were the showrunners – William is played Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (GoT’s Jaime Lannister), with James Norton (House of Guinness) as Harold and Eddie Marsan (Ray Donovan) as Edward.

September highlights: The People vs Robodebt was truly a must-see documentary, expertly unfolding a national disgrace, while the gripping Code of Silence put a welcome spin on the British crime drama.

Other streamers

My top recommendation for the other streaming services is Binge’s Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy (October 17).

It’s a big month for true-crime devotees who can’t get enough serial killer content. Netflix has drafted Ed Gein, while Binge is relying on John Wayne Gacy. Created by Patrick Macmanus (The Girl from Plainville), this limited series charts the apprehension and trial of one of America’s most prolific murderers, who raped and killed at least 33 young men and boys in the 1970s. Gacy, a married builder from the suburbs who would perform as a clown at community events, will be played by Michael Chernus, with Gabriel Luna (The Last Of Us) as Rafael Tovar, the Illinois police detective who helped catch him.

Also: “Hopefully this is a series that returns for more seasons,” I wrote when BritBox’s Karen Pirie (October 10) debuted here in 2022. It took three years, but there’s satisfaction at last with a second adaptation from Val McDermid’s series of crime novels. As played by Karen Lyle (Outlander), Karen Pirie is an unyielding Scottish police detective, dogged both on the case and in a male-run service that regards her with suspicion. Promoted after her successes in the first season, Karen gets a new cold case and more official scrutiny. Creator Emer Kenny (Harlots) has rendered a thorough crime drama, rich in distinctly Scottish detail and history, with a memorable female protagonist.

September highlights: It was a tall order, but Binge’s The Paper held its own as a successor to The Office, plus we enjoyed the knowing fun of British sleuthing comedy Death Valley.

* Nine owns Stan and this masthead.

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