October streaming guide: Succession, Insecure, You and New Gold Mountain
The return of our favourite ultra-dysfunctional family, a modern guide to sex, a twisted psychological thriller … cancel your plans.
Another month of television is upon us – and what a month October will be. Several beloved series are returning for fresh seasons, there’s a brand new miniseries to devour, and teen murder mysteries continue to be popular.
Following the success of the likes of Outer Banks and Cruel Summer, this month sees two new young adult shows taking up their mantle: Amazon’s reboot of I Know What You Did Last Summer, and One of Us is Lying, a new Stan series based on a very popular teen book trilogy.
Teens are ruling the stream this month, with the return of The Baby-Sitters Club and a third season of the phenomenally popular You, starring Penn Badgley and Victoria Pedretti, on Netflix.
If you’re looking for something a little more grown-up, Succession and Insecure are returning to Foxtel On Demand and Binge this month, as well as New Gold Mountain, a historic epic coming to SBS.
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Maid
Margaret Qualley and her mother, Andie Macdowell, star in this Netflix miniseries, based on a best-selling memoir, Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay and a Mother’s Will To Survive. Qualley’s character is a single mother struggling to make ends meet after escaping an abusive relationship, and who takes up work as a maid for wealthy families. Qualley, who has been turning in scene-stealing performances in Once Upon a Time In Hollywood and Fosse/Verdon, more than handles her first major lead role here, and casting Macdowell as her character’s mother is a stroke of genius.
Netflix from October 1.
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One of Us is Lying
Five students walk into detention. Only four leave. Who is responsible for the death of the fifth? One of Us is Lying is based on an incredibly successful novel for young adults, and it shows: the plotting and the twists in this one will keep you guessing, even if the production values are a grade below some of the other high school murder mysteries cropping up. This is a juicy series that is a lot of fun to watch. We only wish that all episodes were available for bingeing, instead of arriving week by week.
Stan from October 8.
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The Baby-Sitters Club
Netflix’s successful reboot of The Baby-Sitters Club managed to both tap into the nostalgic charm of a beloved book series and update it for modern audiences. The show returns this month for a second season, and if you enjoyed spending time with Claudia, Kristy-Thomas, Mary-Anne and others the first time around, we’re sure you’ll be along for the ride this time. At any rate, Clueless star Alicia Silverstone has never been better.
Netflix from October 11.
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New Gold Mountain
Yoson An and Alyssa Sutherland star in this sumptuous period drama set during the Gold Rush in 1850s Victoria, when Chinese miners came in search of fortune. The four-part miniseries has been inspired by real-life events and features a diverse cast, directed superbly by filmmaker Corrie Chen.
SBS and SBS On Demand from October 13.
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I Know What You Did Last Summer
The original starred Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr, Ryan Phillippe and Jennifer Love Hewitt. This trashy reboot stars … well, you wouldn’t know their names, but it features a gaggle of teenagers about to graduate from high school and enjoy the best summer of their lives until it all goes wrong. The original movie did exactly what it says on the tin and this reboot offers nothing more – but also nothing less. If you’re enjoying the craze for teen whodunits on streaming platforms, you’ll get a kick out of this.
Amazon Prime Video weekly from October 15.
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You
It can be hard to get the measure of You. The first season of this twisted psychological thriller, adapted from Caroline Kepnes’s novel, and starring Penn Badgley as a sociopathic stalker who thinks he’s a hero, was produced by Hallmark and had all the trappings of one of that network’s addictive melodramas. When it was cancelled, the show was picked up by Netflix. The second season – set in Los Angeles instead of the original’s New York – was more arch, and occasionally too slippery to nail down the tone. Regardless, it’s back for a third season, with Badgley’s character, Joe, now facing down fatherhood alongside pregnant girlfriend Love (Victoria Pedretti). Of course he is.
Netflix from October 15.
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Succession
Finally, Succession is back. Oh, how long we’ve waited for our favourite ultra-rich, ultra-dysfunctional family, the Roys, to grace us with their presence. It’s been a long two years since Kendall (Jeremy Strong) turned whistleblower on his own dad, Logan Roy (Brian Cox), patriarch of a sprawling, but battered, media empire. There’s also ridiculous Connor (Alan Ruck), scheming Roman (Kieran Culkin), shark Shiv (Australia’s own Sarah Snook), her husband, Tom (Matthew McFadyen), legal counsel Gerri (J Cameron Smith) herding cats, and lingering like a cockroach after the apocalypse is Cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun). Who will win control of the empire? On Succession, literally anything is possible.
Foxtel On Demand weekly from October 18.
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Sex, Love & Goop
Are you having problems in the bedroom? Because Gwyneth Paltrow wants to help with that. Following on from the success of her first collaboration with Netflix, a miniseries that dived deep into some of her company Goop’s wildest obsessions – from ice bathing to communing with the afterlife – Paltrow returns for a new reality show, this time focusing entirely on sex. Paltrow wants to talk about good sex, bad sex and how what we do (and how we do it) helps us find deeper intimacy with our partners. This series is going to break the internet.
Netflix from October 21.
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Invasion
We’ve seen plenty of alien invasion movies and television series, and we’re sure you have too. What’s special about Invasion – other than a stellar performance from Sam Neill, but when is he ever bad? – is that it tells the story of an invasion from the perspective of those impacted, rarely giving any airtime to the actual invading creatures themselves. It’s an interesting story conceit, and proves once again that AppleTV+ is making some of the best and most watchable television around these days.
AppleTV+ from October 22.
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Insecure
This is the final season of Issa Rae’s comedy masterpiece, and how we’ll miss it. Nothing on television has been as reliably entertaining and consistently well written as Insecure. We’re hoping this final season will give lead character Issa Dee the send-off she deserves. And won’t it be a pleasure to spend some time again with The White Lotus’s Natasha Rothwell?
Binge weekly from October 25.
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Love Life
The first season of this series followed Anna Kendrick’s Darby on her journey to love. Season two will take up with a brand new character named Marcus, played by The Good Place’s William Jackson Harper. The concept is the same: about our search, desperate and eternal, for love, set against the backdrop of New York City. Love Life is always an easy and cosy watch, which makes it perfect viewing for right now.
Stan from October 28.
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Colin in Black & White
The life of a young Colin Kaepernick is spotlighted in this Netflix drama series, helmed by director Ava DuVernay. Kaepernick is famous as the quarterback who pioneered peaceful protest in the American NFL by kneeling during the national anthem to call out police brutality; this limited series is about his childhood and journey to football. It’s a coming-of-age story that also happens to be about a future superstar.
Netflix from October 29.
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