Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Samantha Song | TV | August 9, 2026
Streaming services have once again mistaken “having free time” for a personal challenge. Here is what is arriving this week, sorted by the only metric that matters to any of us: what kind of psychological condition would make you press play.
On Sunday, August 9, The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip: Roaring 20th (Bravo, season premiere) is released. Bravo’s latest Ultimate Girls Trip gathers Housewives veterans for another vacation full of old grudges, new alliances, and conflicts that could probably be resolved over lunch. They will instead summon Andy Cohen, three couches, and several hours of reunion footage.
Vibe: The Avengers, if every superhero remembered what the others said about her marriage at BravoCon four years ago.
Monday, August 10 is relatively quiet, but Michael (Starz, streaming premiere) is doing plenty of heavy lifting. The Michael Jackson biopic, starring Jaafar Jackson as his uncle, finally makes the jump from theaters to streaming, which means everyone who skipped the discourse the first time around can now experience it from the comfort of their own couch. Elsewhere, Dr. Seuss’s Red Fish, Blue Fish returns to Netflix for Season 3, in case your household’s viewing decisions are currently being made by someone who still needs help tying their shoes.
Vibe: Two and a half hours of “wait, did they really recreate that?”
Tuesday, August 11 hands the microphone to one of soccer’s least microphone-shy personalities with Mourinho (Netflix, series premiere). The three-part documentary traces José Mourinho’s career from Porto to Chelsea, Inter Milan, Real Madrid, and beyond, with Mourinho himself joined by an absurdly deep bench of former players, rivals, and fellow managers. This is a man who once christened himself “the Special One,” so the chances of everyone spending three episodes pretending this is merely a sober historical record seem fairly low.
Vibe: One man, several European capitals, and absolutely no shortage of opinions about who was right.
Wednesday, August 12 belongs to one extremely large man with the return of Reacher (Prime Video, season four premiere). Alan Ritchson is back as Jack Reacher for another season of noticing one microscopic inconsistency, uncovering an enormous conspiracy, and making several unfortunate men reconsider whatever choices brought them into the same room as him. Deductive reasoning and upper-body strength remain a surprisingly effective investigative partnership.
Vibe: Murder mystery for people who think the best investigative tool is being absolutely enormous.
Things get considerably stranger on Thursday, August 13 with A Child of My Own (Netflix, documentary premiere). The documentary follows a woman whose fake pregnancy spirals into months of deception, which already sounds stressful before accounting for the truly nightmarish amount of calendar management involved. Director Maite Alberdi is thankfully behind the camera, because Netflix could very easily have sold this to us with a shattered sonogram and the words SHE LIED TO EVERYONE.
Vibe: Gone Girl crossed with The Rehearsal, except the continuity department is one increasingly desperate woman.
Friday, August 14 brings us back to camp with Camp Rock 3 (Disney+, movie premiere), because Disney has once again located an unattended section of our childhood and begun developing it. Connect 3 returns to Camp Rock in search of an opening act for its reunion tour, giving a new generation of campers the chance to discover themselves through suspiciously polished original songs. The rest of us get to discover something far more upsetting: the first Camp Rock came out eighteen years ago.
Vibe: Disney has discovered that millennial nostalgia is renewable, highly combustible, and still knows every word to “This Is Me.”
Saturday, August 15 closes the week on a much sunnier note with Aussie at Heart (Hallmark Channel, movie premiere). Rhiannon Fish stars as Samara, a former lawyer turned event planner who reunites with old coworker and rival Nate (Daniel Lissing) while planning an anniversary in Queensland, which naturally gives them just enough professionally mandated proximity to start reconsidering the past. It is Hallmark, so Australia will presumably contain perfect weather, emotionally available men, and absolutely no logistical problems that cannot be solved before the final kiss.
Vibe: Australia, but with all the spiders removed and the emotional misunderstandings added back in.
Also arriving:
The Chosen in the Wild with Bear Grylls (Prime Video, Sunday, August 9, series premiere)
Double Lives of Suburban Wives (TLC, Sunday, August 9, series premiere)
Mourinho (Netflix, Tuesday, August 11, limited-series premiere)
Dana White’s Contender Series (Paramount+, Tuesday, August 11, season 10 premiere)
Tires (Netflix, Thursday, August 13, season three premiere)
Travis Barker: Louder Than Fear (Hulu, Thursday, August 13, documentary premiere)
Don’t Say Good Luck (Netflix, Friday, August 14, movie premiere)
The X-Files: I Want to Believe—Director’s Cut (Hulu, Friday, August 14)
UFC 330: Makhachev vs. Machado Garry (Paramount+, Saturday, August 15)
This Week’s Hostage: Camp Rock 3
There are more sophisticated choices this week. A Child of My Own has an incredible premise, Reacher remains one of television’s most dependable good times, and Mourinho gives one of soccer’s most famously restrained personalities three entire episodes to reflect on his career.
But Camp Rock 3 is Camp Rock 3.
Disney waited eighteen years, reopened the camp, brought Connect 3 back, and placed our adolescent nostalgia directly under a heat lamp. We can discuss the dangers of legacy sequels and recycled intellectual property after we find out whether somebody has the courage to say, “This is real. This is me.”
You are watching.
I am watching.
We can discuss dignity next week.
Samantha spends her free time rock climbing and arguing with strangers on the internet about movies. Her taste ranges from Hallmark Christmas movies to the ‘Saw’ series, a dichotomy she sees absolutely no problem with.
