New to TVNZ+ in October

September 25, 2023 0 Comments

Tokyo Vice (full season, October 19) is a Max thriller about an American journalist’s immersion into the Tokyo underworld of the 1990s.

Michael Mann directed the first episode of the eight-part 2022 series, which is based on a true story and stars Ansel Elgort (West Side Story, Baby Driver) and Ken Watanabe (Godzilla, Inception).

Rotten Tomatoes summed it up as “a seductive slice of neon noir” based on an 85% approval rating from top critics.

But key UK critics weren’t as won over. The Telegraph thought it “as dated as Miami Vice’s fashion sense” while The Guardian said: “Tokyo Vice becomes an ensemble drama that struggles to keep up the momentum of its multiple storylines, and in its middle episodes misses the menace of that Mann-directed opener.”

Wolf (full season, October 11), not to be confused with feeble procedural Wolfe, puts two storylines on a collision course: one about a tormented cop who believes his neighbour killed his 10-year-old brother 20 years earlier; a family that’s trapped and terrorised by a psychopath in their isolated home.

Ukweli Roach (Annika), Sacha Dhawan (The Great), Iwan Rheon (Game of Thrones) and Juliet Stevenson (One of Us) star in a “propulsive, twisty thriller with serious bite” (Radio Times) that’s “highly compelling – if not for the faint of heart” (Independent).

Juice (full season, October 21) is a British comedy about a youngster’s quest for attention as he navigates his chaotic family and love life.

The Guardian dubbed it “a raucous, eye-popping millennial queer comedy” and NME “the year’s best new British sitcom“.

Mawaan Rizwan (Taskmaster) stars with his real-life mother, Bollywood star Shahnaz Rizwan, and brother Nabhaan Rizwan (Station Eleven) as well as Russell Tovey (The Sister).

WTF is Crypto? (full season, October 17) is a docuseries about Kiwi crypto pioneers who have made and/or lost millions in the digital wild-west.

Each episode explores a different part of the crypto-verse in a way that’s hopefully easier to understand than industry jargon like “non-fungible tokens” and “open source blockchain”.

Also new are Love Island UK S5 (October 1), wartime satire C*A*U*G*H*T (full season, October 2), local series Sneakerholics (full season, October 6) and risky comedy reboot Frasier (October 12).

The TVNZ+ Hallowe’en line-up includes, from October 23, Bates Motel S1-5, Creepshow S1-2 and The Terror S1 as well as Ouija (October 15), a six-part French-language supernatural coming-of-age story focusing on the tragedy that besets a French-German school exchange in rural France during the 1982 World Cup.

There are two foreign language premieres — Valkyrien S1 (October 8), Man in Room 301 S1 (October 8) — while among the documentary newcomers are 1977’s Pumping Iron (October 14), Putin: A Russian Story S1 (October 25), Eden: Untamed Planet S1 (October 27) and Earth’s Sacred Wonders (October 27).

The Witnesses (October 3) is a Jehovah’s Witness expose and Evacuation (October 26) is Channel 4’s inside story of the perilous British campaign to evacuate Kabul in 2021.

True-crime fare includes Floribama Murders (October 1), Killer Affair S1 (October 17), A Black and white Killing (October 17) and Kingpin (October 28) while music specials range from Oasis: Supersonic (October 1) and Studio 54: The Documentary (October 1) to NAS: Time is Illmatic (October 1) and TLC Forever (October 8).

TVNZ+ also is exhuming My Mad Fat Diary S1-3 (October 9),Younger S1-7 (October 13), Mr Mercedes S1-3 (October 14), Ripper Street S1-5 (October 18), Stag (October 20), and The Tunnel S1-3 (October 25) and Luther S1-5 (October 30).

Sport highlights include NFL, URC, MotoGP, Red Bull (Rampage & BC One World Finals), Australia v South Africa Netball and Women’s Super League (here’s the full schedule).

An excellent Kiwi retrospective — In My Father’s Den, Matariki, Out of the Blue, Sleeping Dogs, Smash Palace, UTU Redux 50 Ways of Saying Fabulous — spearheads October’s movie newcomers: