What to watch in August, from Chimp Crazy to Vince Vaughn’s Bad Monkey and Leigh Sales’s The Assembly

For some reason, the streaming services decided to make August a big month for primate content.

Before we get into this month’s monkey-dominated new releases, it is my pleasure to inform you…

There are so many big new series returning this August

Trash connoisseurs will be pleased to hear that Emily in Paris has returned for its fourth season. Those who are still having Succession withdrawals should know Industry season three has just dropped, and everyone missing House of the Dragon should hit play on Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season two the moment it returns from August 29. Only Murders in the Building is also back for another season of intergenerational sleuthing from August 27, because there’s no such thing as too much Steve Martin.

OK, enough about the old stuff. I’m too excited to tell you about:

Chimp Crazy — Binge, August 19

Eric Goode has done it again.

The filmmaker behind Tiger King is back with another sensational docuseries on the phenomenon of exotic animal owners in the US. But this time, his focus is on the self-described “Dolly Parton of chimps”, Tonia Haddix.

Tonia is a self-professed chimp lover, but believes she has a bond with one chimpanzee in particular: Tonka. Tonka isn’t just any chimpanzee — the 30-something primate is also a retired Hollywood actor who starred alongside Alan Cumming in the 1997 film Buddy.

That topline is absolutely ludicrous, and this series is frequently shocking. It’s also thrillingly paced, captivating until the final episode — and deeply sad. Chimp Crazy doesn’t veer away from the big issues at play here, from the risks of assigning human characteristics and motivations to animals, to the point of protest, the issues with exotic animal ownership, and what love is.

As with Tiger King, you can expect big characters. Tonia is very into back-combed wigs, false lashes and nonsensical statements, and one of the other chimp owners regales us with the tale of how she regularly breastfed a premature chimp alongside her human baby.

Goode makes a few appearances too, reflecting on the impact of Tiger King and how the viral success of his 2020 show has made his work exposing welfare issues in the secretive exotic animal world more difficult.

Chimp Crazy is a must-watch.

For fans of: Tiger King, Ren Faire, Gunther’s Millions

Bad Monkey — Apple TV+, out now

Based on Carl Hiaasen’s New York Times bestselling 2013 novel, this mystery series stars Vince Vaughn as suspended police detective Andrew Yancy.

Yancy’s life in the Florida Keys is full of simple pleasures. But without work to fill his days, he’s unable to appreciate it.

So, when his former partner asks him to drive a human arm fished up by tourists to Miami, he takes the opportunity to get back in the Sheriff’s good graces.

Except the Miami Police Department refuses to accept the arm. The Florida Keys Police Department doesn’t want ownership of the case either.

Then Yancy officially loses his badge, despite his best efforts to retain it. But he doesn’t let a little thing like no longer being affiliated with the police department keep him from attempting to get to the bottom of how the severed arm ended up floating in the sea with a shark tooth embedded in it.

Yancy’s off-the-books investigation pulls him into a world of greed and corruption that spans from Florida to the Bahamas, where the titular Bad Monkey resides. (Now that I’ve seen Chimp Crazy, I want to know that this monkey actor has been and will continue to be looked after.)

Bad Monkey isn’t trying too hard to do anything different, because it doesn’t need to. It’s a lightly funny black comedy meets crime drama helmed by a big name actor that’s a moreish, and easily digestible time in this age of constant streaming. It also bears some striking resemblances to Road House, Prime Video’s record-breaking streaming hit from earlier in the year.

Will you remember Bad Monkey in a year’s time? Probably not. But will you enjoy watching it this month? Absolutely.

For fans of: Ted Lasso, Only Murders in the Building, Road House

KAOS — Netflix, August 29

It’s hard to be sad about the news that Hugh Grant dropped out as the lead of KAOS, when it was Jeff Goldblum who was called on to replace him.

Goldblum is enigmatic, cool and knowingly camp in a way Grant simply isn’t. And KAOS sees him apply those inimitable traits to a contemporary portrayal of Zeus, the king of the gods.

Goldblum’s version of Zeus is a mafia-style leader of the society of Olympia, alongside his wife Hera (a steely Janet McTeer), enforcing blind worship from the humans.

He also happens to be exceedingly neurotic, athleisure obsessed and at risk of losing his empire over a midlife crisis — prompted by the arrival of a new forehead wrinkle. But that’s not all. Zeus’s ex-best friend and current prisoner Prometheus (Stephen Dillane) is plotting to overthrow him and save the world with the help of three blissfully oblivious humans. And Hera, along with Zeus’s son Dionysus (Nabhaan Rizwwan) and his brothers Hades (David Thewlis) and Poseidon (Cliff Curtis), each have their own schemes at play too.

From the writer behind The End of the F*****g World, Charlie Covell, and the producers of Chernobyl (what a combination), KAOS promises to be an accessible and darkly comedic retelling of Greek mythology that touches on themes of power and the abuse of it, love, death and dysfunctional family units.

Don’t worry if you’re not across the Greek myths.

“I never want people to feel they can’t watch the show unless they’ve done their homework, because that’s just terrible and very kind of exclusionary,” Covell recently told Netflix. “But I would love for people who have read (Greek mythology) to be like, ‘Easter egg, Easter egg, Easter egg.’ “

For fans of: The Good Place, Severance, Search Party

The Assembly — ABC iview, August 20

Imagine this: You’re a student reporter being coached by three-time Walkley Award-winning journalist Leigh Sales as you prepare to interview… Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

This actually happens in the new six-part series, The Assembly. A handful of autistic journalism students are mentored by Sales ahead of interviews with a handful of Australia’s most famous people. As well as the PM, the 15 budding reporters get the chance to interview Adam Goodes, Hamish Blake, Deltra Goodrem and Sam Neill.

Without giving too much away, you can expect a series of disarmingly earnest and creative questions from these budding journalists, and fittingly honest responses from their famous interviewees.

I’ve seen reviewers elsewhere describe The Assembly as “feel-good”. That’s definitely what the soundtrack was going for, and The Assembly may make you feel good.

And it doesn’t matter if you couldn’t care less about the media industry; the issues these young people face as prospective reporters unfortunately apply to other career paths, too.

For fans of: Austin, Heartbreak High, Everything’s Gonna Be Okay

No Gain No Love — Prime Video, August 26

Sometimes a K-drama with a deliciously questionable but utterly irresistible premise is all you need to feel alive again and No Gain No Love delivers exactly that.

K-drama veterans Shin Min-a and Kim Young-dae play driven, high-powered career woman Son Hae-yeong and night-time convenience store worker Kim Ji-uk, respectively. Our story starts with Hae-yeong on the cusp of losing out on a promotion at work.

But she doesn’t believe there’s any room for loss in life — or love. In a desperate attempt to secure the higher role and to recoup all of the customary congratulatory money she’s given to newlywed couples over the years, she decides to plan a fake wedding for ~K-drama reasons~ and asks Ji-uk to be her groom .

Despite finding Hae-yeong to be exasperatingly perplexing, Ji-uk agrees, also for K-drama reasons.

Episodes of No Gain No Love will be dropping weekly from August 26 but, as any K-drama fan will know, the suspense — built up over months of meaty installations — is always worth it.

For fans of: Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha, Crash Landing on You, Business Proposal