New to TVNZ+: August 30-September 5

Two of the actresses who played ex-wives of Steve MacDonald in Coronation Street are flying high in new streaming thrillers: Suranne Jones in Netflix’s Hostage, which goes live today, and Katherine Kelly in TVNZ+’s In Flight (September 1).

Kelly stars as a flight attendant who’s forced to smuggle drugs by a criminal syndicate after her son is jailed for murder in Bulgaria.

“Highly entertaining, even if the production values let it down,” said The Telegraph while The Time dubbed it “itchily tense with impossible dilemmas”.

Radio Times was less enthusiastic: “The series is not just thematically dark but also literally, with an extraordinary amount of its runtime taking place at night or in dimly lit rooms.

“The monotonous look of the show makes everything just that bit more dreary, potentially helping to up the tension somewhat, but also making it all more oppressive for the viewer.”

The Guardian agreed, praising the Channel 4 series — “it’s brisk, it’s well made, it’s entirely harrowing” — while acknowledging the “distressing scenes set in a Bulgarian prison [are] so claustrophobic it’s suffocating”.

In Flight will roll out in weekly double-episodes — as will the latest Office reboot, The Paper.

The Peacock mockumentary about a struggling small-town newspaper launches with four episodes the same day as its TVNZ 2 premiere (where it screens 6.25 Fridays from September 5).

Thereafter, double-eps will stream express from the US whereas TVNZ 2 will broadcast just one a week.

TVNZ+ also is bringing back the US Office for an epic nine-season binge.

From 8.30 on September 4, hockey fans can live stream the Oceania Cup clash between the Vantage Black Sticks and Australia’s Hockeyroos and Kookaburras.

And streaming the same time as their linear debuts, as previewed here, are The Dog House Australia S3, Terror at 30,000 Feet and River Hunters.