The end of summer can be a barren landscape for television, whether because there’s less time to spend on the couch due to vacation or because networks and streamers tend to save their best new releases for the fall.
However, late August is as good a time as any to check out some shows and movies that might have been overlooked at other times in the calendar.
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Here are some streaming options you should try:
Serengeti III
Now in its third season, the BBC nature documentary, narrated by actress Lupita Nyong’o, combines dramatic storytelling with the tried-and-tested natural history format. For viewers who know science and only listen to David Attenborough to learn about animals, Serengeti will require a little imagination. Filmed on a private reserve in Tanzania, one of East Africa’s most biodiverse savannah regions, the show features stunning footage of numerous species. Its real selling point is its innovative use of drones and other camera techniques to gain rare insights into animal behavior. The stories can be a little heavy-handed in order to elicit emotional responses, but the drama is designed to inspire empathy for the trials of life and survival the animals face.
The third season of the series will be released on August 25th on Max.
Room
It’s a bit of a shame that the name of 2015’s “Room” is so similar to “The Room,” Tommy Wiseau’s cult classic melodrama known for its endearing cruelty. In 2017, “The Room” went mainstream with a film adaptation of the book “The Disaster Artist,” becoming It can easily be confused with “space”.
In this gripping drama starring Brie Larson, viewers are left to imagine how motherly love and hope can endure despite the claustrophobia and trauma of captivity. Larson plays a woman who is held captive in a filthy shed for seven years, five of them to raise her son, born when her captor raped her. Based on a novel by Emma Donoghue, Room paints a believable picture of how a mother and her growing child find ways to cope – and how they might eventually hatch a plan to escape.
“Room” is now streaming on Netflix.
Untold: The Murder of Air McNair
In 2000, Steve McNair and the Tennessee Titans missed Super Bowl XXXIV by three feet in a game remembered as one of the most thrilling championship games in NFL history. McNair was a perennial star who shared MVP honors with Peyton Manning in 2003. His life ended tragically in a shooting on July 4, 2009, which was ruled a murder-suicide.
Fifteen years later, the investigation into McNair’s death is being explored in a new volume of the Netflix documentary series “Untold.” McNair was 36 when he was killed by his 20-year-old girlfriend, Jenni Kazemi, who had bought a gun in a downtown Nashville condo the night before the shooting. The documentary examines various circumstances surrounding the shooting and pays tribute to McNair through interviews with people close to him, including former Titans head coach Jeff Fisher.
The documentary is now available to stream on Netflix.
