Let Dame Hellen Mirren introduce Documentary Now!'s fourth season trailer

The season 53 (though it’s actually season four) trailer for IFC’s Documentary Now! flashes a solid slate of guest stars and a whole new array of documentaries to spoof, including Agnes Vardas’ Beaches Of Agnes and the Oscar-winner My Octopus Teacher.

“Stories that dare to tell the truth have never been more crucial to our culture,” Hellen Mirren says in the trailer. “Now, more than ever, the world needs Documentary Now!”

In the trailer, we see this truth-telling in the form of a man (Nicholas Braun) who mistakes an arthouse cinema for a “porno theater,” and another man (Fleabag’s Jamie Demetriou) who “who forms a deep, emotional, and financially taxing relationship with a monkey.”

Some of this season’s special guests include Alexander Skarsgård, Cate Blanchett, Owen Wilson, Michael Keaton, Natasha Lyonne, John Mulaney, Michael C. Hall, Tom Jones, Liliane Rovère, SNL alum Taran Killam, and Richard Kind.

Ahead of the season four premiere, we learned that Blanchett came up with the idea for the episode, “Two Hairdressers In Bagglyport,” which features her and Harriett Walter as two hairstylists prepping for their yearly lookbook. The fly-on-the-wall portrait pays homage to the very British 3 Salons at the Seaside and The September Issue.

“[When] Cate Blanchett brings an episode to you, it feels like you probably should do it. So that was what definitely pointed us in that direction,” series co-creator Rhys Thomas said. “But in terms of the whole season […] it felt exciting to me that it would force us all to think differently, that it would give a different landscape of what we do, and maybe energize the writing and everything.”

Documentary Now! is executive produced by Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, Seth Meyers, Rhys Thomas, Alex Buono, John Mulaney, Andrew Singer, and Lorne Michaels.

Season four will debut with a two-episode premiere on Wednesday, October 19 at 10 PM on IFC, as well as a three-episode premiere on AMC+ the same day.