What to Watch This Week: Relax With Top 9 TV & Movie Picks (September 2–8)

New on TV this week

Fall is in the air, which means it’s time for our favorite time of year here at CableTV.com: Fall TV season! To celebrate, we’ve compiled a calendar of when all this season’s new shows and your old favorites hit the screen in Fall TV 2024: 120+ Premiere Dates. You can almost smell the pumpkin spice lattes …

This week’s What To Watch recs include new series English Teacher and Universal Basic Guys, docuseries Dark Side of Reality TV, new seasons of Tell Me Lies and Slow Horses, true-crime drama Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist, and Sunday Night Football season kickoff action. Full on into fall!

New on FX this week

English Teacher | FX, Hulu | Comedy, drama

Series premiere, Monday, September 2: The show title sounds like a first draft, and the Labor Day premiere date is curious, but English Teacher is still a promising workplace comedy. Creator and star Brian Jordan Alvarez (Jane the Virgin, Will & Grace) is Evan Marquez, an Austin high school teacher who, along with his fellow educators (Stephanie Koenig and Sean Patton), wants the best for his students, even if he runs afoul of the principal (Enrico Colantoni). Two of eight episodes drop on September 2.  Watch trailer

New on VICE this week

Dark Side of Reality TV | VICE | Documentary

Series premiere, Tuesday, September 3: The early 2000s were a wild time for reality TV and a perfect subject for VICE’s Dark Side series, even though it could be argued that there was no “light” side. Episode 1 looks at The Swan, a 2004 FOX series wherein two “ugly” women were given extreme makeovers and then judged on the result—yes, this was a real network show. Subsequent episodes will cover equally bizarre series Joe Millionaire, The Surreal Life, and the still-running Hell’s Kitchen. Reality bites.  Watch trailer

New on Hulu this week

Tell Me Lies | Hulu | Drama

Season 2 premiere, Wednesday, September 4: Based on Carol Lovering’s 2018 novel, Tell Me Lies follows the turbulent (to put it mildly) relationship between New York college students Lucy (Grace Van Patten) and Stephen (Jackson White). “Hulu’s sexiest series” (according to Hulu) turns up the college-drama heat even more in season 2 with the arrival of Lucifer’s Tom Ellis as a hunky Baird College professor who’ll certainly contribute to the campus toxicity curve. Two of eight episodes will stream on September 4.  Watch trailer

New on Apple TV+ this week

Slow Horses | Apple TV+ | Drama

Season 4 premiere, Wednesday, September 4: British drama Slow Horses, about screwup MI5 agents who are demoted to Slough House desk duty but can’t stay out of the espionage game, amps up the action in season 4 (or series 4 if you prefer). Joining an already impressive cast that includes Gary Oldman and Kristen Scott Thomas are Hugo Weaving, Joanna Scanlan, and James Callis as a U.K. terrorist threat looms. Based on early critic reviews, this season sits at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes—cheers!  Watch trailer

Want more new TV shows?

Live on NBC this week

Sunday Night Football | NBC, Peacock | Sports, football

Coverage begins Thursday, September 5, 8:15 p.m. ET/5:15 p.m. PT: Sunday Night Football on a Thursday? Best not to question the NFL; move along. The kickoff of the 2024–2025 NFL season sees the Baltimore Ravens taking on Taylor Swift-anointed Super Bowl champs, the Kansas City Chiefs, on their home turf at Arrowhead Stadium, followed by a proper Sunday night game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Detroit Lions on September 8. Cue Carrie Underwood …  Watch trailer

New on Peacock this week

Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist | Peacock | Drama

Series premiere, Thursday, September 5: Scaling up Will Packer’s true-crime Fight Night podcast, Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist is a dramatized take on real events that took place in 1970 Atlanta. When local hustler Chicken Man (Kevin Hart) hosts a party to celebrate Muhammad Ali’s ring comeback, the rich guests are robbed at gunpoint, and the police suspect that Chicken Man is behind it. Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist also stars Samuel L. Jackson, Don Cheadle, Taraji P. Henson, and Terrence Howard.  Watch trailer

Looking for your next binge-watch?

New on Netflix this week

The Perfect Couple | Netflix | Drama

Series premiere, Thursday, September 5: Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber, Dakota Fanning, Eve Hewson, Billy Howle, Omar Epps, Jack Reynor, and Meghann Fahy star in The Perfect Couple, adapted from the Elin Hilderbrand novel by Jenna Lamia (Good Girls) and director Susanne Bier (The Night Manager). The setup: A ritzy Fourth of July weekend wedding on Nantucket is thrown into disarray when a dead body floats up in the harbor—of course, everyone is a suspect. All six episodes stream on September 5.  Watch trailer

New on FOX this weekend

Universal Basic Guys | FOX, Hulu | Animation, comedy

Series premiere, Sunday, September 8: Animation Domination staples The Simpsons and Bob’s Burgers won’t return with new seasons until September 29, but FOX is serving up Universal Basic Guys right now. The new series, from writer/animator brothers Adam and Craig Malamut (Sports Friends, Game of Zones), centers on the unemployed Hoagies brothers (voiced by the Malamuts) as they battle boredom while living off of universal basic income. Social welfare? In America? Only in a cartoon.  Watch trailer

New movie releases available to rent/buy on VOD this week

Lady Scorpions (2024)

Martial arts legend Cynthia Rothrock made dozens of action flicks in the ’80s, ’90s, and ’00s, including such deathless classics as 24 Hours to Midnight, China O’Brien, and Lady Dragon. Now she’s back with Lady Scorpions, from “a producer of Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” (sounds legit). When a drug enforcement agent (Rothrock) vexes a crime boss (a deliciously arch Jeff Fahey), she and her martial artist daughter (Caitlin Dechelle) team up to save her kidnapped granddaughter from his clutches. BTW, Rothrock is 67 and still kicking all the ass.  Watch trailer

• At Her Feet (September 3)
• Black Outside (September 3)
• Borderlands (September 3)
• Charlie Tango (September 3)
• The Crossroads (September 3)
• Disciples in the Moonlight (September 3)
• Great White Summer (September 3)
• Lady Scorpions (September 3)
• Skincare (September 3)
• Transmedium: Puerto Rico’s UFOs (September 3)
• The Well (September 3)
• Betrayal (September 6)
• Continue (September 6)
• Curse of Sin Eater (September 6)
• Hounds of War (September 6)
• A New York Story (September 6)
• Off Ramp (September 6)
• The Paragon (September 6)
• Wolves Against the World (September 6)