TV to watch in August

Ahsoka Tano is returning in her own Disney+ series.

(Image credit: Lucasfilm)

published 28 July 2023

Coming up next month in the world of television: A beloved "Star Wars" character gets her own streaming series, an Emmy-nominated mystery show returns, and a wildly popular manga gets the live-action treatment. These are all the new and returning shows to watch in August 2023:

"The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart" (Aug. 4)

You know Sigourney Weaver has range when she can follow up her role as a 14-year-old in "Avatar: The Way of Water" with a role as a grandmother in "The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart," the new Prime Video miniseries based on the best-selling novel by Holly Ringland. "After losing her parents to a mysterious fire, nine-year-old Alice Hart is raised by her grandmother June on a flower farm where she learns there are secrets within secrets," the synopsis says. "But years on, an unearthed betrayal sees Alice forced to face her past." Alycia Debnam-Carey ("The 100") stars as Alice, while Weaver plays the grandmother and also serves as executive producer. Showrunner Sarah Lambert described the series as a "timely drama about family, love and relationships born out of the violence so often hidden neatly away behind closed doors."

Is there any greater flex for a streaming series than casually adding Meryl Streep to the cast three seasons in? The Hulu original "Only Murders in the Building," which stars Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez as the hosts of a true crime podcast, returns for its third season in August, and Streep has joined the ensemble. Also jumping on board is Paul Rudd, who was briefly introduced at the end of the second season as an actor who suddenly dies on stage, teeing up this season's mystery. "Paul Rudd, after making an auspicious entrance into the world of our show at the end of season 2 as Ben Glenroy, is someone we clearly want to know more about and see in our upcoming season 3 — as he is a clear source of many upcoming questions and, as ever with our show, many twists yet to come!" co-creator John Hoffman told Variety. Fire up the fan theory machine.

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The Dan Harmon empire is expanding, this time to Apple TV+. The "Rick and Morty" co-creator serves as executive producer of this new animated series based on the popular webcomic. Set in a "whimsical world of cotton candy pinks and purples," the show centers on blue beings who "explore the absurdity of everyday human traditions," per the streamer. Nathan W. Pyle, the webcomic's creator, co-created the show with Harmon. The voice cast includes Hannah Einbinder, Demi Adejuyigbe, and Danny Pudi, meaning Pudi is reuniting with Harmon, the creator of NBC's "Community." Six seasons and an unrelated animated series!

Hulu's "Dopesick" took on the opioid epidemic in 2021 and received 14 Emmy nominations, but Netflix is tackling the story next. From "Friday Night Lights" creator Peter Berg, "Painkiller" is a new limited series that traces the origins of the opioid epidemic, although Netflix describes it as a "fictionalized retelling of events." Matthew Broderick stars as Purdue Pharma president Richard Sackler, while Uzo Aduba plays a lawyer investigating OxyContin and Taylor Kitsch plays a family man whose "life is upended after an injury." Berg told Netflix's Tudum his "goal was to capture the DNA that lives deep in the soul of the opioid crisis — a very dense and complex tragedy fueled by greed, corruption, human fragility and more greed."

Everyone's favorite "Star Wars" rebel is back on Disney+. Rosario Dawson returns as Ahsoka Tano in this "Star Wars" streaming series, which follows up "The Mandalorian" but also looks like it's essentially a new season of "Star Wars Rebels." That animated show ended with Ezra Bridger disappearing into space with Grand Admiral Thrawn, and Ahsoka was searching for Thrawn in "The Mandalorian." This show picks up that thread and brings characters from "Rebels" into live-action, including Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) and Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Hayden Christensen also returns as Anakin Skywalker, so we might finally see a conversation between Ahsoka, Anakin's former Padawan, and his Force ghost for the first time since his redemption in "Return of the Jedi." Understanding the series without having seen "Rebels" may be tough, though, so for those not caught up, now's the time to cram.

Fans of "The OA" are still bitter at Netflix for canceling the show on a cliffhanger, but at least the creators are back with something new on Hulu. Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij bring us this new FX on Hulu limited series that centers on a "Gen Z amateur sleuth and tech-savvy hacker" named Darby Hart, played by "The Crown" star Emma Corrin. A reclusive billionaire invites Hart and eight others to a remote retreat. But "when one of the other guests is found dead, Darby must use all of her skills to prove it was murder against a tide of competing interests and before the killer takes another life," according to the network. Marling stars in the show in addition to co-creating it. In Corrin, could Hulu have found its very own version of Daniel Craig's Benoit Blanc?

Bringing anime to live-action doesn't always go well, as Netflix subscribers know by now. The streamer's live-action "Cowboy Bebop" was a flop in 2021 that was canceled soon after it premiered, and fans didn't love Netflix's "Death Note" movie, either. But now the classic anime series "One Piece" is headed to live-action on Netflix, although the source material is technically the original manga. It follows the "epic voyage for treasure" of a young pirate named Monkey D. Luffy and his crew, per Netflix's synopsis. Iñaki Godoy stars in the lead role. One promising sign for fans is that Eiichiro Oda, creator of the original manga, is an executive producer on the adaptation. In a recent letter to fans, he promised "there were no compromises" made in the adaptation, stressing, "The producers and the crew are pros at live action, and frankly, they're 'One Piece' superfans too."

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Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.