August TV preview: Lanterns, Ted Lasso's return, and Ryan Murphy
Plus, Netflix adds a Ricky Gervais-led animated comedy and the final run of One Hundred Years Of Solitude.
By Saloni Gajjar and Erik Adams. Clockwise from top: Igby Rigney and Kaia Gerber in The Shards (Photo: FX), Tanya Reynolds and Jason Sudeikis in Ted Lasso (Photo: Apple TV), Kelly Macdonald, Aaron Pierre, and Kyle Chandler in Lanterns (Photo: John Johnson/HBO Max)
With the usual rush of fall TV premieres (or at least what passes for the usual rush of fall TV premieres) a month away, August’s premieres and returns are limited but mighty. It all starts with a busy first week that brings Ted Lasso back after a long wait. There’s also Ryan Murphy’s third (!) FX drama of the year, an adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ The Shards. Prime Video’s ongoing streak of YA dramas continues with Sterling Point. Later in the month, HBO Max goes green with the Lanterns debut, Reacher and Adults are back for more, and It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia whips up season 18. Here’s The A.V. Club‘s guide for what to watch on TV this August:
The Shards (FX, August 5)
Ryan Murphy’s visual flair meets Bret Easton Ellis’ taste for excess in The Shards, based on the latter’s 2023 horror novel. Set in 1981 in sunny Los Angeles, the nine-episode season centers on a 17-year-old Ellis (Igby Rigney), whose posh existence unravels when a mysterious new student, Robert (Homer Gere), enrolls in his private school. The timing is suspect because Robert arrives just as the city deals with a spooky serial killer called The Trawler. The Shards cast also features Kaia Gerber, Evan Rachel Wood, Wes Bentley, and Hayes Warner. [Saloni Gajjar]
Star Wars: Visions Presents—The Ninth Jedi (Disney+ and Hulu, August 5)
What the future holds for live-action Star Wars TV is anyone’s guess—only the second season of Ahsoka currently remains on the docket—but interesting things continue to emerge from the animated corner of the galaxy. The Clone Wars follow-up Maul—Shadow Lord was arguably more warmly received than the big-screen adventures of The Mandalorian And Grogu; now comes the first miniseries spun out of the anime anthology Star Wars: Visions. Hailing from Production I.G.—the studio behind Ghost In The Shell and O-Ren Ishii’s animated origin story in Kill Bill Vol. 1—these eight episodes continue the story of force-sensitive Lah Kara as she searches for her kidnapped father alongside the final remnants of the Jedi Order centuries after the end of the Skywalker Saga. [Erik Adams]
Sterling Point (Prime Video, August 5)
Megan Park follows up on 2024’s My Old Ass with another coming-of-age tale. In Sterling Point, type-A Annie (Ella Rubin) ponders her future after she doesn’t get into her dream school. It’s also when she learns that her estranged grandfather died and left Annie and her twin brother (played by Keen Ruffalo) an entire freaking island in Canada as an inheritance. Talk about an escape, huh? As Annie jets off to check out her new home, she discovers an unexpected community, a love interest, and more family secrets than she bargained for. [Saloni Gajjar]
Ted Lasso season four (Apple TV, August 5)
In 2023, Apple TV’s feel-good, fish-out-of-water soccer comedy was over: Jason Sudeikis’ purported three-season plan was complete, Ted Lasso had returned to the States to be closer to his son, and AFC Richmond finished at a respectable second-place in the Premier League standings. And now, in 2026… Ted Lasso is no longer finished. So what changed, aside from the Brinks trucks that presumably backed into the driveways of Sudeikis and his co-stars Hannah Waddingham, Brett Goldstein, Juno Temple, and Jeremy Swift? There’s also the matter of the Richmond women’s side that was proposed near the end of what’s no longer the series finale, whose need for a coach pulls Ted back across the pond and into a locker room full of all new personalities in need of that vintage, down-home Lasso inspiration. (And humor, right? Please let the show be funny again. The addition of Sex Education’s Tanya Reynolds to the cast bodes well on that front.) [Erik Adams]
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