August 2024 media picks and news
Here’s a look at media of interest coming out in August 2024.
DVDs/Blu-rays
A list of major releases is available here.
Top Cat: The Complete Series (Blu-ray), August 27
The Garfield Movie (4K, Blu-ray, DVD), August 27
Star Trek: Discovery: The Complete Series (Blu-ray, DVD), August 27
Sonic Prime: Season Two (Blu-ray), August 27
Netflix
A full list is available here.
Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie, August 2
Paramount+
A full list is available here.
Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, premieres August 9
RuPaul’s Drag Race Global All Stars, premieres August 16
Sports
Summer Olympics (NBC, Peacock), through August 11
My thoughts
Disney+ doesn’t have much for August, for whatever reason: last year’s strike fallout? Budget cuts? Waiting for September and the fall TV season? The only new material is literally a BTS docuseries/concert film, new episodes of a few Disney Junior shows (“Spidey and His Amazing Friends,” “Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures”), a few National Geographic shows, and… that’s it. That said, those with the Disney Bundle at least can rely on Hulu to make up for this shortfall.
Paramount+ is debuting “Tales of the TMNT,” a new TV series based on the “Mutant Mayhem” movie.
A few series debuting on Blu-ray include early 60s Hanna-Barbera cartoon “Top Cat,” plus a complete series set of “Star Trek: Discovery.” I assume Paramount’s DVD/Blu-ray releases won’t be impacted by the recently announced merger with Skydance.
Netflix is getting various series from AMC that’d normally be on their streaming service, AMC+, including the first season of the “Interview with the Vampire” TV series. There’s also a “SpongeBob SquarePants” made-for-TV movie starring Sandy. Meanwhile, Amazon Prime Video is getting a new Batman animated series, “Batman: Caped Crusader,” which isn’t on Max (the supposed home of all things DC Comics), for… “reasons.”
All this just seems to reduce the selling point of many of these streaming services, and point out the boom in their number during the “streaming wars.” If many of these originals are just going to end up on the longtime catch-all standbys everyone already pays for (Netflix, Hulu, and/or Amazon Prime Video), why bother shelling out for AMC+, Paramount+, Max, etc.? (Unless you’re a fan of a specific show or franchise.)
Sports stuff
The Summer Olympics will run through August 11. The events themselves are covered OK via Peacock, which usually uses either a generic Olympic broadcast feed or NBC’s cable siblings like USA. However, watching NBC”s coverage of the opening ceremonies is a reminder that VPNs and Canada’s CBC exist.
Otherwise, there’s much else sports-wise for August, besides the appearance of pre-season football, a reminder that summer’s winding down and fall is approaching.