Looking for something new to add to your watchlist? Here’s what to stream on Showmax in November.
First seasons of Lucky Hank, A Spy Among Friends; new Chucky, Chicago Med, Domina & And Just Like That…
LUCKY HANK S1 | Binge from 15 November
Based on Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Russo’s novel Straight Man, Lucky Hank stars Emmy winner Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad, Nobody) as Professor Hank Devereaux, an English department chairman at an underfunded college, who toes the line between midlife crisis and full-blown meltdown, navigating the offbeat chaos in his personal and professional life and proving that tantrums get better with age.
From the executive producers of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, Lucky Hank has a 93% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where it’s currently #29 on their Best TV Shows of 2023. “There is no one who plays the exasperated everyguy like Bob Odenkirk,” says NPR. Or, as Arizona Republic put it, “Odenkirk… makes you want to spend time with a character who definitely doesn’t want to spend time with you.” Odenkirk has already been nominated for a 2023 Hollywood Critics Association Award for Best Actor in a Broadcast Network or Cable Comedy Series.
The stellar support cast includes Emmy nominees Mireille Enos (Hanna), Cedric Yarbrough (Reno 911!), Oscar Nuñez (Oscar Martinez in The Office), Kyle MacLachlan (Orson Hodge in Desperate Housewives), Chris Diamantopoulos (Mrs Davis, Russ Hanneman in Silicon Valley), and Brian Huskey (Leon West in Veep), with a guest appearance from Oscar, Emmy and BAFTA nominee Catherine Keener (Get Out, The 40 Year-Old Virgin, Being John Malkovich).
A SPY AMONG FRIENDS | Binge from 17 November
Emmy winners Damian Lewis (Homeland, Billions) and Guy Pearce (Mare of Easttown, The Hurt Locker) star in the thriller A Spy Among Friends, which tracks the real-life events around one of the most infamous espionage scandals in UK history.
Set against the backdrop of the Cold War – when the stakes were high and the consequences of being caught could be deadly – the six-part series tells the story of British intelligence officer Nicholas Elliott (Lewis) who’s stunned to learn that his best friend and colleague, Kim Philby (Pearce), has been secretly working as a double agent for the KGB since the 1930s.
Nominated for the 2023 BAFTA for best miniseries, A Spy Among Friends has an 80% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the critics’ consensus calling it “an intelligent tale of espionage elevated by a pair of sterling performances.” Financial Times says: “For all the intricate plotting and fertile ambiguity, the show doesn’t lose sight of the more basic, universal tale it tells about the pain of betrayal.”
Pearce was nominated for a 2023 Hollywood Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Limited Series. The cast also includes BAFTA winner Anna Maxwell Martin (The Bletchley Circle, Good Omens) and award winner Stephen Kunken (The Handmaid’s Tale, Billions), with former South African musical theatre star Edward Baker-Duly (Litvinenko) as James Bond writer Ian Fleming.
A Spy Among Friends is based on Ben Macintyre’s award-winning novel of the same name.
CHUCKY S3 | First on Showmax | Binge all episodes from 13 November
Chucky is headed for the White House in the third season of the cult horror franchise. It’s up to Jake, Devon, and Lexy to figure out how to stop Chucky when he’s cosied up to America’s First Family, in the most secure house in the US.
Alyvia Alyn Lind, Zackary Arthur and Björgvin Arnarson are back as Lexy, Jake and Devon, as is Oscar nominee Jennifer Tilly as Chucky’s ex and now sworn enemy, Tiffany, who’s facing a looming crisis of her own this season as the police close in on her.
Chucky was nominated for Best Horror Series at this year’s Critics Choice Super Awards, with Brad Dourif up for Best Villain in a Series as the title character.
Chucky S3 has a 100% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with Collider saying, “This killer doll series is only getting better… There is no horror series out there quite like Chucky… It is all killer with almost no filler… Its cast is impeccable, the kills wonderfully unhinged, and the humour remains as sharp as ever.”
CHICAGO MED S7 | Binge from 13 November
From Emmy-winning Law & Order co-creator Dick Wolf, Chicago Med follows Chicago’s most highly skilled medical team as they save lives while trying to navigate the challenges of their own.
Dr Will Halstead (Nick Gehlfuss) is back at Gaffney this season, along with nurse Maggie Campbell (Marlyne Barrett from The Wire and Damages), chief of psychiatry Daniel Charles (five-time Emmy nominee Oliver Platt from The Bear), Dr Ethan Choi (award winner Brian Tee from Jurassic World and The Wolverine), Sharon Goodwin (Emmy winner S Epatha Merkerson, who played Anita Van Buren in Law & Order), Dr Dean Archer (Steven Weber from 13 Reasons Why and Get Shorty) and trauma surgeon Crockett Marcel (Dominic Rains aka Kasius in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.).
Sadly, we’ll be saying goodbye to a favourite character this season, but there’ll be some new faces on the team too, including Kristen Hager (Condor, What/If) coming in as Dr Stevie Hammer, who’s known Dr Halstead since med school.
AND JUST LIKE THAT…| Binge from 22 November
From Emmy-winning Sex and the City writer and executive producer Michael Patrick King, And Just Like That… catches up with our favourite glam besties, Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte, as they navigate the complex reality of life as 50-somethings. Max’s Sex and the City reboot started out as a miniseries but was soon renewed for a second season, and has recently been greenlit for a third.
The show’s Emmy-winning stars Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis all exec produce. Franchise alums Evan Handler, Mario Cantone, and David Eigenberg return for Season 2 alongside Emmy nominee Sara Ramirez (Grey’s Anatomy), Screen Actors Guild Award nominees Sarita Choudhury (Homeland, Little Fires Everywhere) and Karen Pittman (Mia Jordan in The Morning Show), and BET and Black Reel Award nominee Nicole Ari Parker (Empire’s Giselle).
Fans of the original show will be thrilled to know that this season promises a cameo from Kim Cattrall (aka Samantha) as well, and there’s excellent news for Team Aidan, with Emmy nominee John Corbett (Northern Exposure’s Chris) making a welcome return to Carrie’s life, and maybe her heart too…
The critics are all saying Season 2 is better than the first. “The second season has allowed a clean slate of sorts,” TheWrap explains, “with Carrie emerging from the depths of her grief enough to allow for some good, old-fashioned Sex and the City-style dating, brunch banter, luxurious fashion plotlines and the return of sex.”
Plus, the guest appearances are ramping up this season, with a star-studded guest cast that includes Emmy nominees Victor Garber (Jack Bristow in Alias) and Billy Dee Williams (Star Wars’ Lando Calrissian); Oscar nominee Candice Bergen (Murphy Brown, Boston Legal, Let Them All Talk); Emmy, Grammy and Tony-winning Broadway legend André De Shields; and Critics Choice Award nominees Miriam Shor (Diana in Younger) and Rosemarie DeWitt (Rachel in Rachel Getting Married and Laura in La La Land), not to mention Gloria Steinem, Tony Danza, Drew Barrymore and Sam Smith as themselves.
DOMINA S2 | First On Showmax | Binge from 13 November
Set in Ancient Rome, Domina follows the story of Livia Drusilla (Italian Golden Globe winner Kasia Smutniak from Devils) as she rises to become Rome’s most powerful empress.
Once again taking on politics from the female perspective, Season 2 finds Livia Drusilla presiding over a tumultuous empire, a precarious marriage and a dysfunctional family, amidst an increasingly ruthless power struggle for control of the Roman Empire.
Domina’s first season won an Australian Cinematographers Award, while Liam Cunningham (Ser Davos in Game of Thrones) was nominated for Best Actor – Drama as Marcus Antonius at the Irish Film and Television Awards.
As The Guardian put it, “This Roman epic fills a gory, horny, Game of Thrones-shaped hole. The show has a great cast, a big budget and is full of carnage and backstabbing. Plus people say ‘My liege!’ a lot. What’s not to like?”
YOUNG ROCK S3 | Binge from 24 November
Before “The Rock,” there Was “Rocky Maivia”. The final season of Young Rock takes us all the way from the young Dwayne Johnson’s decision to step into the ring to the start of the acting career that would make him a global icon, and one of the highest-paid stars in Hollywood.
Already nominated for seven People’s Choice Awards (including The Comedy Show of 2022, and both Comedy TV Star of 2022 and Favorite Male TV Star for Johnson), Young Rock was up for the Kids’ Choice Award for Favorite Family TV Show this year and boasts an 8.1/10 rating on IMDb.
In addition to Dwayne himself, Adrian Groulx returns as kid Dwayne, with Bradley Constant as the teen Dwayne and Uli Latufeku (The Champion in Black Adam and Byamba in Marco Polo) as the young adult Dwayne. Also look out for Brock O’Hurn (Torsten in The Righteous Gemstones) as Hulk Hogan and a guest appearance from 21-time Emmy winner Lorne Michaels, the producer of Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock.
ON THE LINE: THE RICHARD WILLIAMS STORY | Binge from 23 November
The documentary series On The Line: The Richard Williams Story tells the story of the man who raised two of the greatest sporting heroes of our time.
With five Olympic gold medals, 30 Grand Slam singles championships and 150 titles to their names, Venus and Serena Williams changed the face of tennis forever. But getting them there took a devoted, demanding maverick with a meticulously executed 78-page plan… and an unstoppable faith in his daughters.
Told in his own words, using interviews spanning from the 1980s through now, father and tennis coach Richard Williams retraces his family’s journey from the courts in Compton to the grass at Wimbledon, defying every custom of the lily-white tennis establishment and fighting back against a system of oppression to raise two of the greatest champions in history: Venus and Serena Williams.
With never-before-seen archive material and new, in-depth intimate interviews, Williams retraces his family’s meteoric journey. This is the real story of one man’s fight against racism, suppression, and violence and an emotional reckoning on race in America, family, courage, and determination. The film also includes interviews with the likes of tennis greats like Billie Jean King, Pam Shriver, Brad Gilbert, Katrina Adams and Rick Macci, as well as comments from Serena and Venus themselves, and their mother and coach, Oracene Price.
The Golden Globe Awards praised the film for “bringing a fresh perspective and breathing life into its subject in a way that not even King Richard was able to accomplish,” and being “firmly invested in exploring not merely athletic accomplishment, but chiefly the contours of the modern African American experience.”
Also watch the Oscar-winning movie King Richard on Showmax.
ANGEL CITY | Binge from 27 November
The HBO docuseries Angel City goes behind the scenes and onto the pitch with the groundbreaking Los Angeles-based professional women’s soccer team Angel City FC, backed by the largest female ownership group in professional sports, including the likes of Natalie Portman, America Ferrera, Abby Wambach, Eva Longoria, Mia Hamm, and Serena Williams.
Executive produced by Portman and the Oscar-winning filmmakers behind Free Solo and The Rescue, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, the three-part series pulls back the curtain on the team’s origin story, revealing the passion and grit needed to build a franchise from scratch and blaze a bold trail in the world of professional sports.
Directed by Arlene Nelson (who directed the explosive miniseries Secrets of Playboy and picked up an Emmy nomination for her cinematography on American Masters), Angel City features interviews with Portman, Ferrera, Hamm, Wambach, and Serena Williams and her husband, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, as well as the likes of Jennifer Garner, footballer Eni Aluko, tennis legend Billie Jean King, singer Becky G, and some of the greatest names in women’s soccer today, revealing both how and why this dauntless team decided to do things differently, embarking on a game-changing mission to fight for equity and respect.
Decider says the series offers “a fascinating glimpse at the inner workings of a shiny-new sports club busting ass to flip the table on the old way of doing things. It’s not all touchy-feely inspirational fodder – sure, these women want to be a motivational force, but they’re also transparent about their desire to make this a profitable enterprise. The implication being, if you treat your players well and make money, you’re beating the men at their own game. Such is the spirit of competition.”
EVERYTHING ON SHOWMAX IN NOVEMBER 2023
To see everything on Showmax in November 2023, including Spinners, the first African series ever selected for CanneSeries; M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock At The Cabin, with Dave Bautista; and Nicolas Cage as Dracula in Renfield, click here.
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