Mandatory Streamers: Star Trek Lower Decks Is Ready for Action
Welcome to Mandatory Streamers, our column covering the best new streaming content coming your way every week! For the week of August 3, the support crew of CBS All Access’ Star Trek: Lower Decks is ready for action in the brand-new animated comedy series from Emmy winner Mike McMahan (Rick and Morty, Solar Opposites). Check out the best shows debuting and returning online this week as well as the latest renewal announcements below, and be sure to visit our mother site Mandatory by clicking here!
CBS All Access
Star Trek: Lower Decks, Series Premiere: The series follows the story of the support crew serving on one of Starfleet’s least important ships, the U.S.S. Cerritos, in 2380. Ensigns Mariner, Boimler, Rutherford, and Tendi have to keep up with their duties and their social lives, often while the ship is being rocked by a multitude of sci-fi anomalies. The animated series will premiere on Thursday, August 6.
Netflix
Wizards: Tales of Arcadia, Season 1 Premiere: Following Trollhunters and 3Below, the new series centers on wizard-in-training Douxie (Colin O’Donoghue, Once Upon a Time) and the other heroes of the titular world as they embark on a time-bending journey to medieval Camelot to help fight the forces of evil in an apocalyptic battle for the control of magic. Wizards will begin streaming on Friday, August 7.
Immigration Nation, Limited Series Premiere: In the groundbreaking six-part documentary series, acclaimed filmmaking team Shaul Schwarz and Christina Clusiau (2017’s Trophy) offer an unprecedented look at the processes, pitfalls, and pain of immigration in America. Shot over the course of three years, Schwarz and Clusiau capture the daily workings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, activists, lawmakers, attorneys, and a wide swath of undocumented immigrants, from desperate recent arrivals to longtime residents to deported U.S. military combat veterans. With an unrelenting flow of migrant workers continuing across the U.S. border, the pressure on ICE to enforce the administration’s zero-tolerance policies puts immigrants in the crosshairs. But how do we fix a system that seems beyond repair? How do we apply common sense to something that’s evolved from one of humanitarian concern to an us-versus-them political flashpoint? Has the story of America – the one that inspired our own immigrant relatives to risk death for a better life – been rewritten so broadly that the “land of the free” is a luxury afforded now only to a few? The limited series will launch on Monday, August 3.
Sundance Now
Upright, U.S. Premiere: When family outcast Lucky Flynn (Tim Minchin) learns that his mother is dying, he decides to drive to the other side of Australia to see her, packing nothing but an upright piano for the journey. His plans are soon turned upside down when he meets the runaway teenager Meg (Milly Alcock), who’s dealing with some family demons of her own. Together, they forge an unlikely friendship as they embark on a road trip adventure across the beautiful Nullarbor Plains in a race against time. Along the way, they encounter feral camels, a magical pink lake, highway thieves, cliff-top parties, a speed-loving truckie, an underworld fighting ring, suspicious cops, and the world’s most musically appreciative motorcycle gang. Over eight hot days, Lucky and Meg drive, hitch, and scam their way across the scorching desert continent – with the upright piano never leaving their side – on a journey that will ultimately make them both feel more at peace with everything in life that they’ve been kicking against. The series will premiere on Thursday, August 6, with two new episodes released every Thursday.
Quibi
The Fugitive, Series Premiere: When a bomb rips through the Los Angeles subway train he’s riding on, blue-collar Mike Ferro (Boyd Holbrook) just wants to make sure his wife, Allison, and 10-year-old daughter, Pearl, are safe. But the faulty evidence on the ground and “tweet-now, confirm-later” journalism paint a nightmarish picture: it looks to all the world that Mike was responsible for the heinous act. Wrongfully — and very publicly — accused, Mike must prove his innocence by uncovering the real perpetrator, before the legendary cop (Kiefer Sutherland) heading the investigation can apprehend him. The series will premiere on Monday, August 3.
Renewals
P-Valley, Season 2: Just two weeks after the drama premiered on Starz to a rare 100 percent approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and setting a record or the most-viewed series premiere on the streaming app, Katori Hall’s P-Valley has been renewed for a second season! You can stream new episodes of the series on Starz’s platforms.