It’s a three-day weekend, so how appropriate that there are three new and returning series (plus a program addition) that you can stream through Labor Day (and beyond).
For updates about shows from Australia and New Zealand added to US channels and streaming services throughout the month, see the Down Under TV Viewing Guide.
NATIONAL PREMIERES
A Place to Call Home: Season 6 (Final) (Australia)
The winner of the Silver Logie for Most Outstanding Drama Series at the 2017 Logie Awards, this addictive Aussie period drama returns for its final season.
Starring Marta Dusseldorp (Janet King, Jack Irish — see below) as Sarah, a nurse who becomes involved in the affairs of the wealthy Bligh family, and Noni Hazlehurst (The Letdown, City Homicide) as Elizabeth, the Bligh family matriarch, the final season is set in 1960 and finds each member of the family, as well as their intimates, experiencing challenges that will forever change their lives.
Originally scheduled to premiere in the US on Monday, September 3, Acorn TV moved up the debut date of A Place to Call Home: Season 6 to today, August 31, so stateside fans can watch (and re-watch) the final season’s first two episodes over the three-day weekend.
Episodes 3 through 10 will debut weekly on Mondays, from September 10 through October 29, exclusively on Acorn TV and the Acorn TV channel on Amazon US.
Sisters (Australia)
This drama series follows the lives of three women who discover they are sisters.
While caring for her ailing father, Julia Bechly (Maria Angelico, Other People’s Problems) learns he had secretly used his own sperm when he worked as a fertility specialist and thus could be the father of hundreds of children. This revelation turns Julia’s life upside down, but she decides to throw a family gathering of her new-found half-siblings anyway. Which brings her to another discovery: only two of her siblings are sisters — children’s television star Roxy Karibas (Lucy Durack, The Heart Guy) and lawyer Edie Flanagan (Antonia Prebble, Westside — see below).
Co-starring in the drama are Dan Spielman (Offspring), Charlie Garber (Party Tricks), Lindsay Farris (Home and Away), Zindzi Okenyo (The Code), Catherine McClements (Rush), Roy Billing (Jack Irish), Magda Szubanski (Kath & Kim), and Barry Otto (Strictly Ballroom).
Sisters, a Netflix Original series, premieres in the US on Saturday, September 1, exclusively on Netflix. You can add it to your queue now.
Westside: Seasons 1-3 (New Zealand)
This crime comedy-drama series — the prequel to the multiple award-winning series Outrageous Fortune — follows the lives of Rita (Antonia Prebble, Anzac Girls) and Ted West (David de Lautour, Touch), a husband-and-wife team of career criminals.
Set in Auckland during the 1970s-’80s, the show features real events, such as the 1974 Commonwealth Games held in Christchurch, New Zealand, alongside the threads concerning Ted and Rita’s passionate romance and crime-ridden history.
Co-starring Dan Musgrove (Underbelly: Land of the Long Green Cloud), Esther Stephens (Go Girls), and Pana Hema Taylor (The Brokenwood Mysteries), Westside: Seasons 1, 2, and 3 premieres in the US on Saturday, September 1, on Prime Video.
Wentworth: Season 6 (Australia)
This dark and gritty women’s prison drama returns with twelve new episodes and Leah Purcell (Janet King), Rarriwuy Hick (Cleverman), and Susie Porter (East West 101) joining the cast. The new season opens just days after the Season 5 finale, when Franky Doyle (Nicole da Silva, The Heart Guy) and Joan Ferguson (Pamela Rabe, The Secret Life of Us) escaped from Wentworth.
Co-starring Kate Atkinson (Jack Irish), Celia Ireland (All Saints), Robbie Magasiva (Shortland Street), and Katrina Milosevic (Glitch), Wentworth: Season 6 premieres in the US on Wednesday, September 5, on Netflix — just one day after the season finale airs in Australia.
Jack Irish: Season 2 (Australia)
Primetime Emmy® winner Guy Pearce (The Innocents, Memento, Mildred Pierce) returns as the eponymous antihero, a criminal lawyer-turned-debt collector and private investigator created by the late Australian crime fiction author Peter Temple.
In the new six-part thriller, Jack’s life has hit a new low, so he returns to the law in the form of mundane conveyancing, until he learns of foreign students at a disreputable private college dying under bizarre circumstances. His investigation uncovers fatal clinical trials conducted by manipulative pharmaceutical companies in bed with corrupt educational institutions and a complicit government — all of which are engaged in the literal pursuit of happiness and its very lucrative benefits, and each a part of a chain of events that will see Jack risking his life to uncover the truth.
Reprising their roles for Season 2 are Marta Dusseldorp (A Place to Call Home), Roy Billing (Underbelly), Aaron Pedersen (Mystery Road), Shane Jacobson (The Time of Our Lives), Kate Atkinson (Wentworth), Damien Richardson (Neighbours), and Damien Garvey (Rake). Guest stars include Danielle Cormack (Rake), Tiarnie Coupland (Sunshine), Jacek Koman (The Heart Guy), Leah Vandenberg (The Letdown), and Tom Gleeson (Hard Quiz).
Jack Irish: Season 2 premieres in the US and Canada on Monday, September 10, exclusively on Acorn TV and the Acorn TV channel on Amazon US.
Dead Lucky (Australia)
Told from multiple perspectives, this crime thriller series stars Oscar® nominee Rachel Griffiths (Hilary and Jackie) as Grace Gibbs, a detective obsessed with catching the armed robber who killed her junior officer. Her new trainee is Charlie Fung (Yoson An, The Meg), who blames Grace for his best friend’s death.
Meanwhile, a group of international students in a share house think they’ve found paradise, until one of their housemates disappears. And elsewhere in Sydney, a couple of greedy convenience store owners resort to deadly measures to defend their business, while a violent fugitive is hiding on the outskirts of the city. Over the course of a week, the paths of these characters collide with devastating consequences.
The four-part drama co-stars Mojean Aria (Call of the Void), Simon Burke (Deep Water), Justine Clarke (Tangle), Ian Meadows (The Wrong Girl), Rhys Muldoon (Rake), Anna Samson (Jack Irish), and Xana Tang (The Letdown).
Dead Lucky premieres in the US, Canada, UK, and Ireland on Thursday, September 20, on Sundance Now, and on the Sundance Now channel on Amazon US and Amazon UK.
ADDED TO PROGRAMMING SCHEDULES
The Blue Rose (New Zealand)
This mystery-crime drama series stars Antonia Prebble (Winter) as Jane March, an office temp brought in to take over for Rose, a secretary at the prestigious law firm who’s out with the flu. Jane soon realizes, though, that Rose isn’t ill but dead. She also learns that Linda (Siobhan Marshall, Outrageous Fortune), the deceased woman’s best friend, is convinced Rose was murdered. In relatively short order, Linda gets Jane and others of the office workers to help her find the truth about what really happened to Rose. The Blue Rose begins streaming as a Prime Video offering on Saturday, September 1.
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Did you miss any of the new shows from previous months? Check the Down Under TV Viewing Guide and Viewing Guide Archives to find out.
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For details about the September premieres of shows from the UK, Canada, and Ireland, visit The British TV Place. For those about the debuts of original-language, English-subtitled programs from Europe, visit The Euro TV Place.
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