Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Samantha Song | TV | August 30, 2026
September arrives this week, and television has decided the transition from summer to fall should be handled gently, with Arctic murder, kidnapped children, organized crime, supernatural wedding homicide, and Glen Powell attempting to play college football while disguised as a completely different human being.
Labor Day weekend, traditionally a time for grilling.
Here is what is arriving this week, sorted by how aggressively each premise suggests that everyone involved should have simply stayed home.
Sunday, August 30th belongs to Vigil (BBC One/iPlayer, season three premiere), which has apparently decided that investigating murder aboard a nuclear submarine and then within the British military was insufficiently stressful. DCI Amy Silva and DI Kirsten Longacre are back, this time heading to Svalbard after a British special forces officer is murdered in the Arctic. Melting ice has opened new shipping routes and resource opportunities, Russia, China, and Britain are circling — Rose Leslie and Suranne Jones return, presumably having accepted that their characters will never be assigned a nice straightforward burglary in Surrey.
Also premiering Sunday is Trigger Point (ITV1/ITVX, season four premiere), with Vicky McClure returning as explosives officer Lana Washington to deal with professional mercenaries threatening London. So British television has thoughtfully provided two options for your Sunday evening: geopolitical Arctic murder or people planting bombs around London.
Vibe: The BBC has looked at the Arctic Circle and identified its biggest problem: insufficient murder.
Monday, August 31st releases The Sex Lives of College Girls (Netflix, seasons one through three premiere), bringing all three seasons of Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble’s college comedy to Netflix. The series follows a group of roommates attempting to navigate academics, relationships, sex, friendships, and the general administrative nightmare of becoming an adult while living approximately six feet away from three other people doing the same thing. Compared with the murder, kidnapping, organized crime, and international espionage arriving later this week, this is technically the relaxing option.
Vibe: Four years of higher education, condensed into the realization that your roommate knows far too much about your personal life.
Tuesday, September 1st brings Welcome to the Family: The Murder of Dan Markel (Hulu, four-episode docuseries), revisiting the 2014 murder of Florida State University law professor Dan Markel and the sprawling investigation into the people surrounding his former wife’s family. What began as a killing outside Markel’s Tallahassee home eventually developed into a case involving a bitter custody dispute, hired killers, years of investigations, multiple trials, and the Adelson family—who has a “family situation” going as catastrophically wrong as humanly possible.
Paramount+ also debuts The Varnell Hill Show, bringing Tommy Davidson’s Martin character back as the host of a late-night talk show three decades after his original appearance. Because apparently no fictional character is ever truly unemployed anymore.
Vibe: One family dispute becomes a decade-long murder case, while Varnell Hill somehow gets the most successful career comeback of the week.
Wednesday, September 2nd gives Gal Gadot what may be the worst cardio session ever devised in The Runner (Prime Video, movie premiere). Gadot plays a high-powered London attorney whose son is kidnapped, after which a mysterious caller orders her to complete an increasingly dangerous series of tasks while running across the city. Damian Lewis co-stars, Kevin Macdonald directs, and absolutely none of this seems likely to improve London’s reputation among people who already find jogging unpleasant.
Vibe: Your Apple Watch congratulates you on closing all three rings while you attempt to rescue your kidnapped child.
Thursday, September 3rd brings back The Gentlemen (Netflix, season two premiere), with Theo James returning as Eddie Horniman, the British aristocrat who inherited an estate sitting atop a criminal empire. Season two takes Eddie and Susie Glass to Italy’s Lake Maggiore, where the Duke begins dealing with the Mafia, because apparently surviving British organized crime left him dangerously confident. Hugh Bonneville joins the cast, perfectly equipped to make international narcotics trafficking sound like a disagreement over dinner seating.
Hulu also brings back Chad Powers (season two premiere), continuing Glen Powell’s completely reasonable story about a disgraced quarterback disguising himself as another person to join a struggling college football team. Sports regulations apparently have some gaps.
Vibe: Downton Abbey, if the estate’s most profitable tenant was an international drug operation.
Friday, September 4th belongs to Mayday (Apple TV+, movie premiere), starring Ryan Reynolds as a U.S. Navy pilot who crashes behind Soviet lines during the Cold War and must rely on an eccentric former KGB operative to get home. Kenneth Branagh plays the Russian who becomes his unlikely ally, meaning the movie has assembled two men with considerable experience being charming while things explode and placed them in one of the least diplomatically relaxed periods in modern history.
I’m personally excited about A24 releasing Onslaught to theaters, starring Adria Arjona and Dan Stevens (in case your Friday required slightly more action-horror chaos).
Vibe: Ryan Reynolds has been trapped behind the Iron Curtain. Fortunately, Ryan Reynolds has also been cast as Ryan Reynolds.
Saturday, September 5th closes the week with Haunted Harmony Mysteries: Prelude to a Wedding (Hallmark Mystery, movie premiere), because Hallmark has clearly identified the one thing their weddings have been missing for years: homicide. Tamera Mowry-Housley’s music teacher Gethsemane Brown is invited to perform at a wedding alongside her ghost companion Eamon, only for a member of the bridal party to turn up dead. Most wedding disasters involve weather, seating charts, or somebody’s uncle making an alarming speech. Gethsemane apparently needs to determine whether one of the guests committed murder before everyone gets to the cake.
Vibe: “Something borrowed, something blue, something old, and Detective, we found the body near the reception hall.”
The Robot Chicken Adult Swim Special (Adult Swim, Sunday, August 30, animated special)
1000-lb Sisters (TLC, Tuesday, September 1, season nine premiere)
Botched Homes (HGTV, Wednesday, September 2, series premiere)
The Great American Road Rally (The CW, Wednesday, September 2, limited-series premiere)
LEGO Star Wars: The Mandalorian (Disney+, Wednesday, September 2, animated special)
Lovesick (Netflix, Wednesday, September 2)
Clash of the Thundermans (Nickelodeon/Paramount+, Thursday, September 3, movie premiere)
Earle Meets World (Netflix, Friday, September 4, series premiere)
Parasomnia (Shudder, Friday, September 4, movie premiere)
Surviving the Silence: The Roxane Gay Story (Saturday, September 5, documentary premiere)
This Week’s Hostage: The Gentlemen
There are compelling alternatives.
Vigil has sent Suranne Jones and Rose Leslie to the Arctic to investigate a murder with geopolitical consequences, which is the sort of assignment where the phrase “we need to talk to Moscow” is probably not followed by good news.
The Runner has Gal Gadot sprinting through London because somebody kidnapped her son.
Mayday has Ryan Reynolds trapped in the Soviet Union.
But The Gentlemen is going to Italy!
This is important.
Eddie Horniman began this series as an aristocrat who unexpectedly discovered that his family’s beautiful English estate was sitting on top of a massive marijuana operation. A sensible person would have sold something, contacted a lawyer, changed his phone number, and moved somewhere extremely boring.
Eddie instead became good at organized crime.
This is the exact kind of character development television should encourage.
Now he and Susie are heading to Lake Maggiore and getting involved with the Mafia, which means Guy Ritchie has taken Theo James, put him in expensive clothes beside an Italian lake, surrounded him with criminals, and apparently expects us to pretend there was ever a possibility we would watch something else.
There is Arctic murder this week.
There is supernatural wedding murder.
There is Gal Gadot being chased across London.
But Theo James is going to Italy to make catastrophically ambitious business decisions while wearing a suit.
You are watching.
I am watching.
The Duke has learned absolutely nothing.
