What to Look Forward to On Streaming This Week (August 28-September 3, 2022)

The summer is nearly over, but that’s no reason to despair, there is still a ton of new and exciting content coming to you from your favorite streamers. Here’s what you can look forward to this week:

Star Trek: Lower Decks (August 29, Paramount +) – Season 3 Premiere

This is Star Trek like you’ve never seen it before. Rather than focus on the bravest, smartest, most qualified captains and high-ranking officials of the bridge crew, Star Trek: Lower Decks takes a look at the “red shirts,” the low-ranking members of the Starfleet who are more likely to get killed on a given episode than ever make it to command. The series follows a handful of oft-ignored lower-level crew members on one of the least important and prestigious ships in Starfleet. Ensigns Mariner, Boimler, Rutherford, and Tendi are just trying to get by. Get ready to see some of these characters in another new Star Trek series, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

Lord of the Rings (September 1, Prime Video) – Season 1 Premiere

Set thousands of years before The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, this is one of Amazon’s biggest pushes into event TV, so expect high quality (it expected to be the most expensive television show ever made). The series covers some of the major events of Middle Earth that we have only heard about until now, including the creating of the rings of power, the rise of the evil wizard Sauron, the last alliance between Elves and Man, and more.

Pantheon (September 1, AMC+) – Season 1 Premiere

This animated series follows bullied teen Maddie who starts receiving messages from someone claiming to be her deceased father. As she tries to uncover the truth, she stumbles upon a much larger conspiracy surrounding an evil corporation, artificial intelligence, and humanity’s search for eternal life. This marks AMC’s first traditionally animated series and features some well known voices, including Daniel Dae Kim (Lost, Hawaii Five-O) , Katie Chang (The Bling Ring), Paul Dano (Escape at Dannemora), Rosemarie DeWitt (Little Fires Everywhere), Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight), Taylor Schilling (Orange Is The New Black), Ron Livingston (A Million Little Things), Chris Diamantopoulos (Silicon Valley), Raza Jaffrey (Homeland), and William Hurt (Black Widow, Goliath).

Love in the Villa (September 1, Netflix) – Movie

Julie (played by Kat Graham) is an obsessive planner who is ready for the ultimate romantic vacation to Verona, which she hopes will end with her boyfriend proposing. Her boyfriend, has other plans, dumping her instead. Which leads Julie to a solo trip that kicks off with frustration when she discovers that her villa has been double-booked by a stranger who is her polar opposite – spontaneous and cynical. In each other, they find love.

Fakes (September 2, Netflix) – Season 1 Premiere

Lifelong best friends Zoe and Rebecca find themselves embroiled in a get rich scheme – selling fake IDs – that soon puts their friendship and their lives at risk as things quickly spiral out of control. Told from each friends’ point of view, the series takes the audience on a wild ride, trying to sort out what really happened.

Ivy + Bean (September 2, Netflix) – Movie

Based on the children’s series of the same name, Ivy + Bean two girls who could not be more different (Bean is loud and wild while Ivy is more quiet and reserved) who develop an unlikely best friendship that leads on all sorts of imaginative adventures. Netflix is dropping three Ivy + Bean movies at once (which clock in at around an hour each), sure to delight parents who are looking for stories about the magic of friendship.

Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. (September 2, Peacock) – Movie

With the powerhouses of Regina Hall and Sterling K. Brown in the lead, there is no way this movie doesn’t delight in this mockumentary about a mega-church preacher and his wife. After the preacher is caught in a scandal that shuts down his church, he and his wife seek to reopen their church’s doors and win back their parishioners. If you’re a fan of series like The Righteous Gemstones, this will probably resonate with you.

The Rings of Power is probably the series I’m most excited to see, if only to see how it compares to the beautiful cinematic experience of Peter Jackson’s movies, but close behind that would be Star Trek: Lower Decks as a close second. I enjoyed the first two seasons so far and look forward to where the show will go in its third. For movies, Honk for Jesus could be great, if only because I miss my weekly fix of Sterling K. Brown on This Is Us. He is such a powerful and expressive actor and I’m ready to see how he digs into this much more comedic role.

Photo: Orcs in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Credit: Matt Grace/Prime Video. Courtesy of Amazon Studios.