Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max and more
Searching for a new TV show this month? I’m stoked that Parks and Recreation star Amy Poehler is back in sitcom mode with Binge’s Dig, while I’m hoping that ABC iview’s Shakedown, a drama about the Robodebt scandal can be both gripping and illuminating.
Netflix
My top Netflix recommendation is The Altruists (November 19).
The story of FTX, the high-flying cryptocurrency exchange that went bankrupt in 2022 with prison sentences for its young founders, is vast. It’s a $12 billion finance scandal, a philosophical betrayal and a catastrophic love story. What creator Graham Moore (The Imitation Game) does and does not focus on will be crucial, but he has an exceptional pair of leads as the gifted couple that started the company to change the world and ended up as adversaries: Julia Garner (Ozark) plays Caroline Ellison, while Anthony Boyle (Say Nothing) is the now infamous Sam Bankman-Fried. The mogul mayhem will be juicy, but some deeper underpinning will be necessary, too. Wig aficionados will feast on this one.
Also on Netflix: The first season of Black Doves (November 5) required some acclimatisation. The London-set action thriller looked deadly serious, but with Keira Knightley (Boston Strangler) and Ben Whishaw (A Very English Scandal) as covert operative besties who combined whimsical diffidence and automatic weapons, the show had a pulpy pleasure that verged on the ludicrous. The show has a bloody groove now, with creator Joe Barton (Giri/Haji) returning for the second instalment. Neve Campbell (The Lincoln Lawyer) joins the cast and Knightley’s Helen is now the undercover wife of Britain’s new prime minister. Number 10 Downing Street is at serious risk.
The Body (November 19) is giving bonkers plot with a cheerfully satirical vibe. In this horror-thriller, the ambitious members of the dance team at a Catholic girls school take their preparation a little too far, turning a drug-fuelled initiation for new members into an occult ritual that may have, like, summoned the devil. Disturbing visions, spiritual ecstasy and mass hysteria are soon on the rise, as students, faculty and clergy grapple over eight episodes with the implications. A mash-up of Mean Girls, Donnie Darko, and The Exorcist? I like it.
October highlights: Florence Pugh was outstanding in East of Eden, Below brought the watery horror vibes, documentary The One About Matthew Perry needed more, there were issues with The New Stanford Prison Experiment but truly great lip service from Nobody Wants This.
Amazon Prime Video
My top Amazon Prime recommendation is Blade Runner 2099 (November 25).
I, along with Stephen King, was in the minority that found Silka Luisa’s 2022 Apple TV thriller Shining Girls to be a compelling show. Now she faces an even bigger challenge: making the sequel series to one of science-fiction’s most revered – and complex – franchises. The setting remains a dystopian Los Angeles, but 50 years after Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 movie. The bioengineered replicants, once hunted, are now the ruling class overseeing the dwindling human population. Staying alive is all that matters for a replicant police detective, Olwen (Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All at Once), whose expiration date is looming. Hunter Schafer (Euphoria) also stars as a human survivor posing as a replicant. The production design and the performances will need to be top-tier on this one.
Also on Amazon Prime Video: Produced in collaboration with his estate, The Greatest (November 4) tackles the breakthrough years of Muhammad Ali, who in the early 1960s went from Olympic boxing gold medallist to the heavyweight champion of the world. Good luck to Jaalen Best (All American: Homecoming), who must portray the most charismatic athlete of all time and find the man beneath the legend. Cross creator Ben Watkins certainly has no shortage of material to draw on, from high-profile title fights to Ali’s conversion to Islam and family conflict. Eight episodes actually feels right.
October highlights: A Stephen King classic got a timely update with a 21st century Carrie.
Stan*
My top Stan recommendation is The Good Daughter (November 13).
Rose Byrne continues to do it all. The Platonic star swings back to drama with this psychological thriller, in which she and Meghann Fahy (The White Lotus) play estranged sisters and attorneys. Samantha and Charlotte Quinn are reunited when their lawyer father, Rusty (Brendan Gleeson, The Banshees of Inisherin), falls ill, and they must deal with his pressing new case defending a young woman charged with a double murder. Crime author Karin Slaughter adapted her own 2017 novel of the same name, which opens the siblings up to their own residual trauma over an unsolved attack on their family when they were children.
Also on Stan: With licentious energy and a knowing wink, the first season of The Hunting Wives (November 26) made a bold impression in 2025. Brittany Snow (The Night Agent) played Sophie, a from-up-north outsider in the Texas town where her husband has moved for a new job who is overwhelmed by the very blonde socialite wife of her husband’s boss, Margo (Malin Akerman, Billions). In public: everything was church, conservative politics and pro-guns. In private: open marriages, drug-fuelled “girls’ nights” and turning those guns on your enemies. The show is bonkers, and I suspect the new instalment is only going to up the ante.
October highlights: Halloween-appropriate horror arrived with a Friday the 13th prequel, Crystal Lake, plus an enjoyably demented Australian creature feature in Gnomes.
Apple TV
My top Apple TV recommendation is 12 12 12 (November 13).
Anthony Mackie (Twisted Metal) and Jamie Dornan (The Fall) had a perilous chemistry as friends in the brain-bending 2020 thriller Synchronic (currently on Amazon Prime Video), but in this European-set heist thriller, they’re obsessive adversaries. The former is an FBI agent, the latter a master thief planning to hit a Swiss bank. Per the title, the series unfolds over three timelines: the 12 months to plan the job, the 12 minutes to execute it and the 12 days to disappear safely afterwards. Expect plenty of twists and a supporting cast of familiar European character actors.
Also on Apple TV: Stick (November 4) debuted last year with a Ted Lasso-gets-sketchy vibe, as Owen Wilson and his trademark crooked nose played former pro golfer Pryce Cahill, who saw redemption (and some much-needed money) in coaching a diffident teenage prodigy. It was pretty clear that sweetness would win out over cynicism in this sports comedy, but the second season has some welcome additions as Pryce decides to make his own comeback at the US Open. Most notable is the presence of Rhea Seehorn (Pluribus) as Amanda, a golf swing coach – and de facto therapist – who has to knock Pryce into shape.
October highlights: We made the case for why this season of Ted Lasso should be the last. Plus, Stephen Graham elevated slow-burn crime thriller Nocturne.
Binge
My top Binge recommendation is Dig (November 23).
Excellent news for Amy Poehler fans: the Parks and Recreation star (and host of the terrific podcast Good Hang) finally has a new comedy series. In Dig, she plays Elise, whose work at an archaeological site in Greece is complicated by both a momentous discovery and an overly dedicated British professor, Neville (Hugh Laurie, House). It appears to be a workplace comedy, but with an international conspiracy somehow intertwined. Poehler created the show with her Parks and Recreation boss Michael Schur, while the supporting cast includes Australian actor Geraldine Viswanathan (Miracle Workers). Fingers crossed for bonkers banter and goofy empathy.
Also on Binge: Even as conflict currently racks the Persian Gulf, Hollywood is adapting an earlier war in the region. High Value Target: The Hunt for Saddam (November 9) is a thriller set in 2003, when an American-led coalition swiftly deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein but failed to capture him. The limited series is based on Debriefing the President, the 2016 memoir of John Nixon, a CIA analyst who tracked Hussein down and led his interrogation. Joel Kinnaman (The Killing) plays Nixon, whose lack of field experience makes him a real-life equivalent to Tom Clancy’s fictional CIA analyst Jack Ryan, with veteran American actor Waleed Zuaiter (Gangs of London, The Spy) as Saddam. Good luck finding all those weapons of mass destruction.
October highlights: The Gen Z sitcom got a London spin with comedian Leo Reich’s It Gets Worse.
Disney+
My top Disney+ recommendation is Rivals (November 11).
It’s actually difficult to sustain an over-the-top show. You need glorious excess and a pinpoint feel for the characters caught up in it. This British comic-drama, set in the 1980s among polo-playing media tycoons and the ambitious women ready to grab their own slice of the action, nailed its first season. With the likes of David Tennant (Broadchurch) and Aidan Turner (Poldark) as adversaries, it was a full-bodied – full-bonking? – adaptation of Dame Jilly Cooper’s Rutshire Chronicles. The new season promises more of the same, which is exactly what devotees of the show want.
Also on Disney+: Putting Kim Kardashian (American Horror Story) at the centre of a wealth porn legal drama about the top divorce lawyers in Los Angeles didn’t pay off for me, but All’s Fair (November 4) drew a serious audience for its first season, once again commercially vindicating the never-subtle gaudiness of co-creator Ryan Murphy. The formidable ensemble cast once again delivers Glenn Close (Damages), Naomi Watts (Twin Peaks) and Niecy Nash (Claws) as allies, plus Sarah Paulson (Mrs America) as a completely bananas villain. If nothing else, it will be a wild ride.
October highlights: Connie Britton headlined the singular comic-thriller Phony, the Scrubs revival picked up pace and VisionQuest brought back the Marvel TV show spin-off.
HBO Max
My top HBO Max recommendation is Adultery (November 1).
How messy can an affair between two married parents get? That’s the hook for this frisky six-part British drama, which stars Dominic Cooper (The Gold) and Romola Garai (The Hour) as Tom and Beth, who meet unexpectedly and forge a clandestine connection that traverses passion, class and grief. Logic tells the two to stop seeing each other, starting with the fact that they already have partners, plus their respective teenage children are dating each other. But logic doesn’t stand a chance. The creator is the prolific Danny Brocklehurst, who has spent this decade knocking out twisty mysteries alongside crime author Harlan Coben.
October highlights: With Sienna Miller and Dominic West as famous, feuding exes, War was a hugely enjoyable London legal drama.
Paramount+
My top Paramount+ recommendation is Yellowjackets (November 20).
This supernatural-tinged thriller, which cuts between a group of female high school students going full cannibal after a plane crash strands them in the Canadian wilderness and the 40something survivors who don’t like to acknowledge their history with pagan protein, has reached its fourth and final season. Yellowjackets has always been ambitious, whether in terms of compulsively stripping back layers of trauma or finding the mordant humour in the screw-loose ramifications. Hopefully creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson can stick the landing, especially since they have assembled a stacked cast. The likes of Melanie Lynskey (The Last of Us), Sophie Thatcher (Companion) and Christina Ricci (Speed Racer) have all thrived under the show’s genre-bending approach.
October highlights: Dexter: Resurrection increased the body count with a new season.
ABC iview
My top iview recommendation is Shakedown (November 22).
The Robodebt scandal, where approximately 400,000 Centrelink recipients were issued incorrect debt notices via an unlawful automated program introduced by the Department of Human Services, remains a staggering national disgrace. The cost of the hectoring scheme, which included suicides and bankruptcies, is dramatised in this four-part series, with the numerous strands focused on three women: a grieving mother desperate for answers (Kate Box, Deadloch), a Centrelink worker internally disparaged for raising the alarm (Justine Clarke, House Husbands), and the senior bureaucrat who drove the scheme’s unyielding implementation (Mandy McElhinney, Wakefield). Tragedy, fury, defiance – the show must interweave the most volatile of emotions, while reflecting the historical record.
Also on ABC iview: Handling crises is a daily workplace experience for paramedics and best friends Sameer (Nazeem Hussain, Orange is the New Brown) and Donna (Urzila Carlson, Urzila), but improvised family life is a different matter in Separated at Birth (November 11). Created by Hussain, the Melbourne-set comedy kicks off with Sameer’s wife giving birth and asking for a divorce, plunging him into co-parenting and an extended family crisis. With a housing-challenged Donna as his new tenant and questionable source of advice, the shaken new father has to balance Muslim traditions and some modern issues.
October highlights: Dustfall was one of the best Australian dramas the ABC has made.
SBS On Demand
My top SBS On Demand recommendation is 2.6 Seconds: Death in the Outback (November 10).
SBS has been delivering some crucial documentaries in recent years. The latest is this four-part series, directed by Darren Dale (Total Control), which examines the fatal 2019 shooting of Warlpiri man Kumanjayi Walker by police constable Zachary Rolfe in the remote Indigenous community of Yuendumu. The case, including Rolfe’s subsequent murder trial, drove countless headlines and reductive political commentary, but this true-crime narration aims to supply the much-needed detail, both on an individual and societal level, that the tragic intersection of the two very different men requires.
October highlights: 70 Up delivered an immense conclusion to one of the finest series in documentary history.
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