From a local version of The Office to a buzzy Cate Blanchett thriller: here’s what to stream in October

From the homegrown reboot of a comedy classic to a thriller jam-packed with Oscar-winning talent, here’s what’s worth checking out on streaming next month.

We’ve sifted through the latest offerings from TV and streaming platforms to find the best shows you should be watching this coming month.

Rob Morgan as Orson McNab in Teacup. Picture: Mark Hill/Peacock

BINGE

TEACUP

OCTOBER 10

Australian horror-meister James Wan (of Saw and The Conjuring fame) is one of the driving forces behind this eight-part sci-fi spook-fest through his Atomic Monster company. Adapted – and updated – from Robert McCammon’s 1988 best-selling book Stinger, it zeros in on a disparate group of families trapped on a farm in rural Georgia by forces they can’t see, but know have deadly consequences. Aussie star of The Handmaid’s Tale, Yvonne Strahovski, and Felicity’s Scott Speedman play the parents pushed to extreme lengths to keep their family safe.

Ella Purnell in a scene from the Binge drama Sweetpea.

SWEETPEA

OCTOBER 10

Fresh from her kick-arse role in the fab video game adaptation Fallout, Ella Purnell stars in and executive produces what’s billed as a darkly comic, “coming-of-rage” thriller, from the producers of the outstanding Slow Horses. The Yellowjackets star plays Rhiannon Lewis, a timid young woman who is tired of being overlooked and ignored at work, in her love live and by the bully who made her life hell. She harbours revenge fantasies with a list of all the people she’d like to murder and eventually snaps, banishing the wallflower and embracing an intoxicating new power … if she can get away with it.

ALSO SHOWING:

The Franchise – October 7

Superman & Lois final season – October 8

American Horror Stories – October 16

Hysteria – October 18

What We Do In the Shadows final season – October 22

Rescue Hi-Surf – October 22

Somebody Somewhere final season – October 28

Sophie Turner as a jewel thief in the crime drama Joan.

STAN

JOAN

OCTOBER 1

Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner banishes the ghost of Sansa Stark forever in a gritty, 1980s-set grime drama based on a true story. She plays Joan Hannington, a smart, tough and devoted mother trapped in a marriage to a violent criminal and dreaming of a better life for her and her daughter. When her husband goes on the run, she sees an opportunity to make those dreams come true and reinvents herself as a master jewel thief, using her charm and talents for impersonation and performance to take advantage of those foolish enough to underestimate her.

Sherry Lee Watson in Thou Shalt Not Steal.

THOU SHALT NOT STEAL

OCTOBER 17

It’s been more than 30 years since Aussie stalwarts Noah Taylor and Miranda Otto worked together on The Nostradamus Kid, but the pair look like they are having an absolute blast playing a shady sex trafficker and a fraudulent preacher in this buzzy black comedy that premiered to great acclaim at the Toronto International Film Festival and will also play at SXSW Sydney next month. Sherry-Lee Watson from Heartbreak High plays a young Aboriginal delinquent who escapes from detention and sets out on an Outback road trip with awkward teen Gidge (also Heartbreak High) to find the truth behind a mysterious family secret.

ALSO SHOWING:

Dead and Buried – October 24

Jussie Smollett: Anatomy of a Hoax – October 27

Oscar-winner Kathy Bates says her role as Matlock will be her last. Picture: Frederic J. BROWN/AFP

PARAMOUNT+

MATLOCK

OCTOBER 18

In what she says will be her last role before retiring, Oscar-winner Kathy Bates takes the title role in this legal drama based on the 1980s original of the same name, much loved by Grampa Simpson and senior citizens the world over. Bates plays Madeline “Matty” Matlock, who claims to be a widowed, inexperienced ex-lawyer raising her grandson and in need of money, who takes a job at high-powered law firm Jacobson & Moore. It’s soon revealed that she is in fact the wily and driven Madeline Kingston, a wealthy woman whose husband is still alive, and who wants to get inside the law firm she believes could be partly responsible for the death of her daughter from an opioid overdose.

Nicole Kidman and Zoe Saldana in season two of Lioness.

LIONESS

OCTOBER 27

Zoe Saldana was an absolute badass as Joe, the CIA officer in charge of the Lioness program in the first season of Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan’s slick spy drama and returns to the field as its fight against terror gets closer to home. As the pressure and the body count rise, Joe and her bosses Kaitlyn Meade (Nicole Kidman) and Byron Westfield (Michael Kelly), enlist a new Lioness operative to infiltrate a previously unknown threat. With the trailer spouting lines such as “there’s no such thing as a moral war”, “no one can be trusted”, and “nobody’s innocent”, things are going to get ugly and murky fast, as Joe faces up to the personal and moral cost of serving her country.

ALSO SHOWING:

Aussie Shore – October 3

NCIS: Origins – October 15

Elsbeth Season 2 – October 18

Ghosts Season 4 – October 18

Fire Country Season 3 – October 18

Star Trek Lower Decks Season 5 – October 24

Jesse Spencer and Radha Mitchell in Last Days of the Space Age.

DISNEY+

LAST DAYS OF THE SPACE AGE

OCTOBER 2

It’s flares and pointy collars all around in this homegrown dramedy set in 1979 Western Australia, with Perth gearing up to host the Miss Universe Pageant just as the American space station Skylab comes crashing back to earth not far away. As a US crew comes to investigate the debris and the beauty contest drawing the world’s gaze, the locals are dealing with a strike at the power plant that threatens to plunge the region into darkness and tear families apart. Radha Mitchell, Jesse Spencer and Deborah Mailman head up the quality cast in series that also promises to delve into the fast-changing attitudes to racism and sexism of the era.

Oliver Chris and Emily Atack in the Disney+ drama Rivals.

RIVALS

OCTOBER 18

This eight-part series adapted from romance queen Dame Jilly Cooper’s 1988 novel of the same name looks like a trashy treasure. Set in the greed-is-good ‘80s era of excess in the fictional English county of Rutshire, it stars Alex Hassell (His Dark Materials) and one-time Doctor Who David Tennant as the amoral, uber-rich titular rivals Rupert Campbell-Black and Lord Tony Baddingham. As each tries to outdo the other, with the ruthless and big-money word of independent television as the backdrops, expect oodles of sex, over-the-top drama, dastardly deals and very rich people behaving very badly.

ALSO SHOWING:

Me and Mickey Season 3 – October 2

Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War Season 3 – October 3

9-1-1 Season 9 – October 9

LEGO Marvel Avengers: Mission Demolition – October 18

Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band – October 25

Wizard Beyond Waverley Place – October 30

Felicity Ward as Hannah Howard in the Australian version of The Office.

PRIME VIDEO

THE OFFICE

OCTOBER 18

Why mess with a comedy classic … is exactly what they said nearly 20 years ago when the US version of Ricky Gervais’s much loved and revered office-place comedy was announced. And with 201 episodes over nine seasons, that worked out pretty well for Steve Carrell and friends so it’s worth giving this homegrown iteration the benefit of the doubt at the very least. This time, the two lead roles have been gender-flipped, with reliable writer-comedian Felicity Ward as Hannah Howard, the managing director of packaging company Flinley Craddick, and Edith Poor as her officious offsider Lizze. And in a very 2020s twist, Hannah is fighting to save her tiny empire from a head office order that wants to shut her down and make everyone work from home.

Matilda De Angelis in Citadel Diana.

CITADEL DIANA

OCTOBER 10

The American version of this spy thriller, released last year with Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra starring, wasn’t too flash but maybe like pasta, pizza and football, the Italians can do it better with this follow-up set eight years after independent global spy agency Citadel was destroyed by its nefarious rival Manticore. Matilda De Angelis (who played the mysterious young woman who ruined Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant’s perfect life in The Undoing) stars as Diana Cavilieri, one of Citadel’s last remaining undercover agents who is trapped behind enemy lines and has to make an unlikely alliance to escape with her life.

ALSO SHOWING:

T20 Women’s World Cup – October 3

The Legend of Vox Machina Season 3 – October 3

Canary Black – October 24

Cate Blanchett in the AppleTV+ drama Disclaimer.

APPLE TV+

DISCLAIMER

OCTOBER 11

This psychological-thriller adapted from Renee Knight’s 2015 book of the same name comes with an absolutely sterling pedigree – helmed by five-time Oscar-winning director Alfonso Cuaron and starring Oscar-winners Cate Blanchett and Kevin Kline. Aussie Blanchett plays an acclaimed documentary journalist who discovers she’s a character in a novel that reveals a shameful secret that could ruin her life, while Kline is the retired private school teacher harbouring a grudge against her. Playing out over two time lines, with Leila George as the younger version of Blanchett’s character, it looks like the kind of twisty-turny, quality drama that should feature in the next awards season.

Harrison Ford and Jason Segel in season 2 of Shrinking on Apple TV+

SHRINKING

OCTOBER 16

One of the most delightful comedies of recent years – and one that helped fill the Ted Lasso shaped hole in our lives – is back for a second season and is as good as ever. Harrison Ford leverages his grumpy old man persona perfectly as crotchety psychiatrist Paul Rhoades, who is still facing up to life with Parkinson’s disease while allowing himself the possibility of love with his neurologist Julie (Wendie Malick). Meanwhile, Jimmy (a hilarious Jason Segel) is trying to put his life together again after his unorthodox therapy methods landed him in hot water when a patient pushed her abusive partner off a cliff and his tryst with colleague Gaby (Jessica Williams) – the best friend of his late wife – has reached maximum awkward. Series co-creator Brett Epstein (yes, Roy Kent!) also joins the cast.

ALSO SHOWING:

Where’s Wanda – October 2

Before – October 25

Anna Torv as Emily Lawson in Territory.

NETFLIX

TERRITORY

OCTOBER 24

This Aussie Outback drama looks like cross between Succession and Yellowstone as it follows the intrigues and machinations at the world’s biggest cattle station when it’s left without a clear successor. When the Lawson family can’t agree on who should take control of the mighty Marianne Station, rivals including cattle barons, desert gangsters, Indigenous elders and billionaire miners sense that a once-great dynasty is on its knees and jostle to take advantage of any weakness. Filmed in the Northern Territory with a solid Aussie cast including The Newsreader’s Anna Torv and Longmire’s Robert Taylor as members of the Lawson clan.

Keri Russell as Kate Wyler in The Diplomat.

THE DIPLOMAT

OCTOBER 31

After the nailbiting finale of a solid season one, when it was revealed that the British Prime Minister apparently ordered for his own aircraft carrier to be blown up off the coast of Iran, you just know that life got a whole lot more complicated for the America’s UK Ambassador Kate Wyler (Keri Russell). Now that she has the explosive information, she has to not only prove it, but also weigh up the potential damage to the alliance and intelligence ties between the two countries. She will also have to deal with a marriage that’s in tatters – as well the arrival of suspicious US Vice President Grace Penn (West Wing star Alison Janney making a welcome return to the political arena).

ALSO SHOWING:

Love Is Blind Season 7 – October 2

Heartstopper Season 3 – October 3

Lonely Planet – October 11

Simone Biles Rising Part 2 – October 25

Originally published as From a local version of The Office to a buzzy Cate Blanchett thriller: here’s what to stream in October