Nine of the best TV shows to watch this August (2024)

From the latest series of Industry and Only Murders in the Building to a dark comic drama about Greek gods starring Jeff Goldblum.

1. Mr Throwback

Steph Curry – famous in the US as a champion in the National Basketball Association and a familiar face to non-sports fans from his Subway sandwich commercials ­– makes one of those sports-star-to-actor moves, playing a version of himself in this mockumentary-style sitcom. Adam Pally plays Curry's childhood friend, Danny, who was the star of their middle-school basketball team. "Danny was so good, I was the backup," Curry says in the trailer. But when Danny turns up again in Steph's life, he is an energetic screw up, a down-on-his luck sports memorabilia dealer. Steph gives him a boost by making him the focus of a documentary. Ego Nwodim of Saturday Night Live also stars as the producer of the documentary, whose appeal she describes by saying, "People love a redemption story, but you know what people love even more? A trainwreck." It looks like Mr Throwback, droll but with a hint of Ted Lasso warmth, is not a trainwreck at all.

Mr Throwback premieres 8 August on Peaco*ck in the US

2. Industry

With good reason, Vanity Fair has called this series "the missing link between Euphoria and Succession". One of the best shows on television, if a bit under the radar in the US, it returns bolder than ever in its third season as we follow its Gen Z characters trying to make it in London's fast-paced, ruthless world of high finance. The season begins with Yasmin (Marisa Abela) on her father's yacht, which is named after her. The consequences of that trip ripple through the season. She and Robert (Harry Lawtey) are still at Pierpoint, with Eric (Ken Leung) their boss at the firm. Harper (Myha'la), fired at the end of last season, surfaces somewhere else but is still in their orbit as a competitor. And Kit Harington plays a new character, the appropriately named Sir Henry Muck, the rich and charming head of Lumi, a green energy company whose IPO is being managed by Pierpoint.

Industry premieres 11 August on HBO and Max in the US

3. Bad Monkey

Vince Vaughn stars as Andrew Yancy, a sardonic, smart-mouthed detective suspended from the Miami police force for driving his car into his girlfriend's husband's golf cart. The irreverent role sounds tailor-made for Vaughn, but in fact the show is based on a novel by Carol Hiaasen, known for his witty Florida-set mysteries. When fishermen turn up a severed arm, Yancy tries to solve the murder and get back on the force. Rob Delaney plays an unscrupulous real estate developer with interests in Florida and the Bahamas, where Neville (Ronald Peet) is trying to hold on to his beachfront shack he lives in with his pet monkey. Michelle Monaghan plays Yancy's sometime girlfriend and Jodie Turner-Smith is the Dragon Queen, whom Neville turns to for some voodoo help. The show was created by Bill Lawrence, a co-creator of Ted Lasso, but the satirical tone here couldn’t be further from that series' upbeat optimism.

Bad Monkey premieres 14 August on Apple TV+ internationally

4. Emily in Paris

There were hate-watchers in its first season, but the joke's on them, as the series returns for its fourth instalment. The show may not be wildly original, but it works by offering reassuring rom-com tropes, plenty of out-there fashions and gorgeous views of Paris. The last season ended on a cliff-hanger for Emily and her friends, when (deep breath) the pregnant Camille called off her wedding to Gabriel because she realised he was in love with Emily, who has been seeing Alfie. Now Emily (Lily Collins), who thought Gabriel (Lucas Bravo) was off bounds, has to choose: him or Alfie (Lucien Laviscount) or another man or men? As she says in the trailer, "Oh my God, Mindy. Know what I saw on my run? Hot men everywhere". As the love quadrangle resolves itself, Mindy (Ashley Park) is trying to get to Eurovision with her band and somehow in all that, Emily turns up in Rome. The season's 10 episodes will be split in half, with the second part arriving on 12 September.

Emily in Paris season four, part one is released on 15 August on Netflix internationally

5. Pachinko

The first season of this series, based on Min Jin Lee's century-spanning novel about four generations of a Korean family living in Japan, was another of the year's best shows. The new season picks up where the last left off, and is equally absorbing as it gracefully blends intense personal drama with the sweep of history and questions of cultural identity. The show flashes back and forth in time, with sequences set in the 1980s and just before and during World War Two, when Sunja (Minha Kim) sells kimchi on the streets of Osaka and raises her two sons, while her rich, handsome former lover Koh Hansu (Lee Min-ho) moves in and out of her life. Yuh-Jung Youn (Oscar-nominated for Minari) plays the older Sunja and Jin Ha is her grandson, Solomon, still trying to manoeuvre his way in the world of high finance. But the most dramatic scenes are set during wartime, as the family struggles to survive.

Pachinko premieres 23 August on Apple TV+ internationally

6. City of God: The Fight Rages On

The movie Twisters is not the season's only follow up to an original that landed decades ago. This drama series is a sequel to City of God, the 2002 film centred on a crime and drug-riddled section of Rio de Janeiro that set its co-director, Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardener, The Two Popes) on a long successful career. The film took place in the 1970s and The Fight Rages On returns to the neighbourhood of Cidade de Deus two decades later, following many of the same characters. In the film, Alexandre Rodrigues played a boy called Rocket who escaped poverty and crime by becoming a photographer. He returns as the show's star and narrator, now a professional photographer observing as a young drug dealer just released from prison arrives in the neighbourhood and makes a play for power. In a daring choice, excerpts from the movie, which is number 38 on the BBC's list of The 21st Century's 100 Greatest Films, are used as flashbacks, highlighting the fact that the series has a lot to live up to.

City of God: The Fight Rages on premieres 25 August on Max in the US

7. Only Murders in the Building

If you lived in one of the most murder-filled buildings in New York City, you might want to leave town too. That's what happens as Charles, Oliver and Mabel, the trio of murder podcasters played by Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez in their hit comedy, return for its fourth season. The latest killing in the building happened at the end of season three, when Charles' friend and lookalike stunt double, Sazz Pataki (Jane Lynch), was left as a corpse on his kitchen floor. While trying to figure that one out, the team heads to Los Angeles where a movie is being made about their podcast success, which stars Eugene Levy, Zach Galifianakis and Eva Longoria as Charles, Oliver and Mabel. Best of all, Meryl Streep, so perfectly funny last season, returns as Loretta, the actress who fell for Oliver. Melissa McCarthy, Kumail Nanjiani and Molly Shannon guest star. Lynch told People magazine she'll be back in flashbacks and, mysteriously, "another way".

Only Murders in the Building premieres 27 August on Hulu in the US and Disney+ in the UK

8. KAOS

There's something wonderfully mischievous in the idea of Jeff Goldblum as an all-powerful deity. In this dark comic drama he plays Zeus, the Greek god from Mount Olympus, dropped into a contemporary setting. The series' creator, Charlie Covell (writer of the Netflix series End of the F***ing World), has said he was intrigued by the question, "What if the king of the gods had a midlife crisis?" Zeus fears he is losing his grip on power and decides to wrangle with the mortals who appear to threaten it. Here on Earth, he is a splashy, gold-watch-wearing tycoon with spectacularly bad taste in clothes, who lives in a gaudy mansion fit for a mob boss. He is surrounded by his dysfunctional family, played by a top-flight cast. Janet McTeer is his wife, Hera, with David Thewlis as his brother Hades and Cliff Curtis as Poseidon. You never know what those gods will get up to next.

KAOS premieres 29 August on Netflix internationally

9. Terminator Zero

Based on the Terminator movie franchise, this animated series comes with a completely new setting and characters, and a theme more topical than ever. The show takes place in Japan in 1997, the year that, as seen in Terminator 2: Judgement Day, an AI network called Skynet threatens to take over the world. Andre Holland is the voice of Malcolm Lee, a developer creating a rival artificial intelligence, Kokoro (voiced by Rosario Dawson), and Timothy Olyphant is the voice of the Terminator, the time-traveling cyber-villain sent from the future to kill Malcolm. "There are a lot of callbacks to the other films," the series' creator Mattson Tomlin told EW, and the show's premiere date itself is an Easter egg. 29 August 1997 is the date Skynet gained consciousness in Terminator 2. But two of the movies franchise's most famous characters, John and Sarah Connor, will not show up in this fresh take, drawn in bold anime strokes.

Terminator Zero premieres 29 August on Netflix internationally

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