8 best things The Nod team watched this August

If period dramas are your thing (my very obvious weakness), My Brilliant Career is worth adding to your binge list. Based on Miles Franklin’s 125-year-old novel, it follows Sybylla, a spirited young woman who is shipped off to her wealthy grandmother’s estate after her family falls into debt, with hopes that she’ll find a suitable suitor. The problem is, Sybylla has no interest in becoming anyone’s wife. She wants to write, experience life, and make her own choices, giving the show a wonderfully modern, rebellious heroine who reminded me a little of Emily in Dickinson. There’s pretty landscapes, gorgeous costumes, and a love triangle with two very easy-on-the eyes men thrown in for good measure. It’s not particularly groundbreaking, but it is exactly the kind of easy entertainment you can happily disappear into for six episodes. —Sheya Kurian

Let not the fact that the last Hal Jordan outing we remember came in the form of 2011’s disastrous Ryan Reynolds starrer Green Lantern dissuade you. Let not the fact that the guardians known as the Green Lanterns are wholly dependent on a green big-ass ring that needs to be charged everyday by a green big-ass lantern dim your enthusiasm either. In Lanterns, the new TV series in the DC universe, Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) is the current Green Lantern reluctantly mentoring trainee John Stewart (Aaron Pierre). They two find themselves in the town of Rushville in Nebraska, where there’s been a shooting in the football stadium. Hal is convinced the dead “people” are aliens. Are they? Take one guess. Only two episodes are out so far, but the stage seems set for exciting events. There’s the town Big Man and mysterious cowboy-style “caretaker” William Macon (Garret Dillahunt) guarding a large parcel of land that may be holding some secrets. There’s Macon’s flustered daughter-in-law and town sheriff (Kelly MacDonald), who’s mostly just exasperated. The town hospital is mysteriously full of brand-new equipment and zero patients. And at the end of the last episode we know there’s a Manhunter prowling in their midst in human form. We’re tuning in next week. —Shalini Shah

If you can’t make it through The Lion King without howling into a pillow (because honestly, who can?), this needs to be your next watch.

Jon Favreau (yep, the director of The Lion King himself) teams up with British wildlife producer Mike Gunton for this four-part National Geographic series following Kio, a (real) lion born into a powerful pride in Kenya’s Maasai Mara. Filmed over four years, we watch him grow from an adorable, energetic cub into a majestic king.

There’s everything you’d want from an epic coming-of-age story: family, devastating loss (in true Disney style, this one will absolutely destroy you), a brotherhood that forms against all odds—and all of this unfolds against the Mara’s spectacular, dramatic landscapes. And just when you think it can’t get better—bam! Hans Zimmer’s ‘Remember Who You Are’ from the original film makes a cameo. Throw in some shots of starry night skies, and you’re guaranteed a crash-out like no other.—Diya Parakh

If crime dramas had a formula, Furious shatters it with its first scene. The show on JioHotstar about an FBI agent’s (Emmy Rossum) search for an elusive killer (Lola Petticrew) opens with a shot of its fentanyl-injecting serial killer. What follows is a complicated cat-and-mouse chase between the cop and the killer where you really don’t know who you are rooting for. Blurring the lines between good and bad, tackling violence and victimhood through a new feminist lens, while drawing a commentary on a police procedural system that fails women, this is that rare detective series that is made for the post-Weinstein, post-Epstein world.

What makes it so binge-worthy is how every episode dismantles the regular tropes of a crime drama—the serial killer here is a childlike woman, the FBI agent comes with some serious trauma of her own, and through the series there is very little blood and gore (barring an eyeball incident I cannot forget). What breaks the flow, though, is the show’s anti-bingeing weekly model of Monday drops, which, honestly, most of us have little patience for today. Start on August 31, when the final episode drops, so you can finish watching it in one long binge. —Megha Mahindru

It may take more than two episodes of the new season to convince you to sink back into that familiar feeling of positivity and togetherness that is part of Ted Lasso's DNA. For me, it was the third episode that brought back the charm of its previous seasons, serving bedazzled football kits, tryouts ft Dani Rojas’s sister (!), and a will-they-won’t-they relationship. The show returns after a hiatus of three years, and this time Ted is coaching the Lady Greyhounds, a newly formed women’s soccer team. Fans are treated to throwbacks from the previous seasons—Shannon aka “soccer girl” with the fancy footwork makes it to the women’s team, the entire men’s team (minus Jamie Tartt) make a blink-and-you-miss-it guest appearance, and team therapist Dr Sharon and Trent Crimm film a podcast together. Safe to say this wholesome watch maintains its promise from the previous seasons, ie. good vibes and fuzzy feels only. —Ruhi Gilder

The verdict, of late, seems to be that Prime Video, with their robust roster of buzzy teen dramas, is the new CW. Yes, they may have shows like The Summer I Turned Pretty, or Off Campus that engendered a teen psychosis all through the internet, but none of them held a candle to the madness that I grew up watching. From Gossip Girl to Glee, The O.C. to The Secret Life of the American Teenager, teen dramas are not a joke to me. It is a form of entertainment that was perfected (and lost) in the early 2000s. That is, until I saw Sterling Point.

Created by Megan Park (The Secret Life of the American Teenager), with co-showrunners Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage (The O.C. and Gossip Girl), and music by Tyler Hilton (One Tree Hill), Sterling Point takes its teen drama lineage seriously. It’s the perfect nepo baby.

It honours the high-drama narrative traditions of the teen drama, like a long-lost sibling, a parent whose death haunts her children who didn’t quite know her, two young love interests learning that their parents were once in love, and more insane things like that but grounded in the funniest, most natural performances and delivered by a pretty loveable cast. Ella Rubin, who plays Annie, has Julia Roberts’s exact smile and that makes her very special to me. —Saniya Jaffer

Gen Z-ers who didn’t realise that the Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman starrer that’s currently in the news is actually a sequel, get ready to be schooled. The original is a classic—sisters, spells, a family curse, and midnight margaritas—that follows the two Owens’ siblings who live with their kooky aunts in their gorgeous cliffside home. One sister, Kidman, recklessly embraces her inner witchy-ness but uses it mostly to flirt and float through life. Bullock’s character, however, is more powerful but just craves a normal life—a husband, two kids, and no spells—in their small town that treats the family as contagious. Even though the film is ostensibly about finding love, the best bits actually happen when the family of matriarchs gets together, exorcise a creepy cowboy stalker who has possessed Kidman or hang around their kitchen casting spells. Sisterhood is, of course, a recurring theme—Kidman and Bullock have great chemistry together—but as is accepting your inner witchy-ness. Will the new film match up to the hype? I doubt it, but I will be watching it for the late-’90s-era fashion throwbacks it promises. —Butool Jamal

Kargil War stories have piqued the interests of filmmakers and audiences alike for two decades now, from battlefield stories like Lakshya (2004) and portraits of decorated and unsung soldiers in Shershaah (2021) to stories of women breaking barriers in Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl (2020). Oni Sen’s recently released Netflix series Operation Safed Sagar: The Untold Story of the Kargil War is the newest one attempting to bring to the fore another chapter from one of India's most decisive victories in its prickly history of warfare against Pakistan. It follows the Air Force’s Golden Arrows squadron as they go about their mission.

But it does so with heart. It swaps over-stylised aerial sequences and chest-thumping jingoism to bring in some sincere performances. Vinay Pathak brings nuance to the portrayal of former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Siddharth makes squadron leader Ajay Ahuja his own, and Manu Rishi Chaddha is sharp as the abrasive Parvez Musharraf. The series also gives a peek into the strategic and diplomatic decisions behind the scene and takes it time (the first couple of episodes of the six) doing this. It is unhurried and does not try too hard. Watch it for the performances and the people behind the history. —Tanvi Parekh