August brings the premieres of four series from Australia and New Zealand, including two comedies, a drama, and a reality series, to the US, Canada, and beyond.
For updates about shows from Australia and New Zealand added to US linear TV and streaming channels throughout the month, see the Down Under TV Viewing Guide.
Programs and dates are subject to change without prior notice.
Videos below may contain content that is not suitable for everyone.
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NATIONAL PREMIERES
Fisk (AU)
Fisk, the 2021 AACTA Awards winner for Best Narrative Comedy Series, stars Kitty Flanagan (Dreamland) as Helen Tudor-Fisk, a role for which she won the 2021 AACTA Award for Best Comedy Performer.
Fisk is a high-end contracts lawyer in Sydney who is forced to take a job at Gruber & Gruber, a shabby, suburban law firm specializing in wills and probate in Melbourne, after her marriage breaks down and her career implodes. She is hired by Ray Gruber (Marty Sheargold, The Librarians) to replace his sister, Roz Gruber (Julia Zemiro, An Accidental Soldier), a solicitor who was recently suspended and has appointed herself the firm’s office manager. Helping Helen to navigate the messy world of probate is George (Aaron Chen, Back in Very Small Business), the quirky probate clerk.
Fisk premieres in the US and others of Netflix’s territories on Tuesday, August 1, on Netflix. (You can set a reminder for it now.)
Preppers (AU)
This comedy series follows Charlie (Nakkiah Lui, The Letdown, Black Comedy), a young Aboriginal woman and successful TV presenter who discovers that her White fiancé and producer, Thomas (Grant Denyer, Street Smart), is cheating on her with Sophie (Brooke Satchwell, Mr Inbetween), the vapid blonde host of their breakfast TV show. On one fateful Australia Day, aka Invasion Day, Charlie loses her job, her home, her fiancé, and her reputation, all in one fell swoop.
Worse yet, when Charlie wakes up from her drunken existential crisis, she discovers she’s landed smack dab in the middle of an Aboriginal Doomsday Preppers group called “Eden 2,” who have set up camp on her grandmother’s land, where they are planning for the apocalypse. A wizened old Indigenous man called Monty (Jack Charles, Cleverman, Wolf Creek) founded Eden 2 as a refuge for Aboriginal people, not to mention a few suckers that he has conned into footing the bill. (Cuz, you know, doomsday prepping ain’t cheap.)
Joining Monty at Eden 2 are Lionel (Chum Ehelepola, The Newsreader) and Kelly (Ursula Yovich, Irreverent), a relentlessly optimistic, born-again religious, mixed-race couple; Kirby (Eryn Jean Norvill, Love Me), the mysterious host of the Agent of Truth conspiracy podcast; Guy (Meyne Wyatt, Mystery Road), a macho Aboriginal survivalist obsessed with self-image; Jayden (Aaron McGrath, Glitch), a woke millennial who sees the apocalypse as the ultimate opportunity for Aboriginal self-determination; and Fig (Luke Arnold, Black Sails), a White Australian yuppie trying desperately to fit in but swiftly booted from the camp in favor of Charlie.
At first, Charlie tries to quit prepping like she’s quit so many other endeavors. This is her grandmother’s land and she wants Eden 2 off it so she can ride out the storm alone. But Monty conveniently presents her with a 10,000-year lease that her Nan (Miranda Tapsell, The Heart Guy) signed over so he could realize his dream. With nowhere else to go, Charlie reluctantly joins the preppers and is eventually won over by the ragtag bunch of misfits as she tries to come to terms with the dissatisfaction, loneliness, and alienation she’s always felt trying to find her place in a White Australia.
Together, the preppers face off against authentic, pre-colonial overnight First Nations survival exercises, the mythical Penrith Panther (Kate Miller-Heidke, The Divorce), a cunning Aboriginal Aboriginal archaeologist (Luke Carroll, Upright), and Charlie’s even more cunning mother (Christine Anu, The Alice). But nothing jeopardizes their survival more than a group of White preppers (played by Leeanna Walsman, Safe Harbour; Yael Stone, Orange is the New Black; Toby Schmitz, Black Sails; and Sofia Nolan, RFDS Royal Flying Doctor Service), led by the rejected Fig, who threaten to steal the life and land the Eden 2 mob have built together.
By gaining a sense of purpose, becoming an unlikely leader, and confronting the generational trauma of colonization, Charlie will ultimately realize that she isn’t as powerless or vulnerable as she thinks, and that maybe, just maybe, the end of the world might be her best chance at a new beginning…
Preppers premieres in the US and Canada on Tuesday, August 1, exclusively on MHz Choice and its digital channels, including MHz Choice on Amazon. (You can add it to your watchlist now.)
The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart (AU)
Based on The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, the international best-selling novel by Holly Ringland, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart features a star-studded cast that includes Sigourney Weaver (Avatar, Alien), Asher Keddie (Nine Perfect Strangers, Offspring), Leah Purcell (The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson, Wentworth), Alycia Debnam-Carey (Fear the Walking Dead, Saint X), Frankie Adams (The Expanse), Alexander England (How to Please a Woman), Charlie Vickers (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power), Tilda Cobham-Hervey (I Am Woman), Sebastián Zurita (Como Sobrevivir Soltero), Alyla Browne (Nine Perfect Strangers), and Xavier Samuel (Elvis).
Set against Australia’s breathtaking natural landscape, the seven-episode drama tells the story of Alice Hart, who, as a 9-year-old girl (played by Alyla Browne), tragically loses her parents in a mysterious fire. She is taken to live with her grandmother, June (Sigourney Weaver), at Thornfield flower farm, where Alice learns that there are secrets within secrets about her and her family’s past. As she grows from her complicated past, her journey builds to an emotional climax when Alice (played by Alycia Debnam-Carey) finds herself fighting for her life against a man she loves.
The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart premieres globally with three episodes on Friday, August 4, exclusively on Prime Video. One new episode will debut each week until the series finale on September 1. (You can add it to your watchlist now.)
Down for Love (NZ)
This feel-good reality series follows six Kiwis with Down Syndrome as they navigate the trials and triumphs of dating in their quest to find love and happiness.
Down for Love, a Netflix Series, premieres globally (outside New Zealand) on Friday, August 11, exclusively on Netflix. (You can set a reminder for it now.)
NON-PREMIERE PROGRAMS BEING ADDED TO STREAMING SERVICES
One Lane Bridge: Season 3 (NZ)
The third season of this supernatural crime drama opens two months after the Season 2 finale, when Detective Sergeant Ariki Davis (Dominic Ona-Ariki, The Commons, Filthy Rich) used police work and his second sight to uncover who killed his best friend, Joe Turner, on One Lane Bridge. Now it’s all changed at Queenstown CIB, as a big gun has been sent in to clean up the mess Stephen Tremaine (Joel Tobeck, The Luminaries) left behind. (Video is from Season 2)
One Lane Bridge: Season 3 begins streaming Monday, August 14, on Acorn TV and its digital channels, including Acorn TV on Amazon.
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Did you miss any of the new shows from previous days, weeks, or months? Check the Down Under TV Viewing Guide and Archives to find out.
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For details about the August premieres of shows from the UK, Canada, and Ireland, visit The British TV Place. For info about the debuts of original-language, English-subtitled programs from Europe, visit The Euro TV Place. And for that of a select list of titles from other countries, visit The Global TV Place.
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