Grab the remote and sit back
5 TV shows to get excited about this fall
The fall TV season isn’t what it used to be — the other three seasons have long since caught up — but the months between now and year’s end still bring an embarrassment of riches.Trust us, you won’t be without stories to discuss at the proverbial watercooler.
“American Crime Story: Impeachment” (FX, Sept. 7)
He’s done O.J. Simpson. He’s done Gianni Versace. Now it’s time for uber-producer Ryan Murphy to reconsider yet another scandal from the ’90s with the long-awaited “American Crime Story: Impeachment.” After several delays and false starts, the series will finally arrive boasting an all-star cast including Beanie Feldstein as White House intern Monica Lewinsky, Clive Owen as President Clinton and Sarah Paulson as Linda Tripp, the Pentagon employee who surreptitiously recorded her phone calls with Lewinsky. With playwright Sarah Burgess as showrunner, the 10-episode series is one of several recent projects to revisit this sordid saga in the post-#MeToo age, and it treats Lewinsky, who was involved as a producer, as a sympathetic protagonist rather than a punchline. — Meredith Blake
“Y: The Last Man” (FX on Hulu, Sept. 13)
Based on Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra’s Eisner Awardwinning comic book series, “Y: The Last Man” is set in a world where every single mammal with a Y chromosome suddenly and pretty horrifically dies one day — except for a cisgender man named Yorick and his pet monkey, Ampersand. Besides the mystery around the tragedy and Yorick and Ampersand’s immunity, the survivors also have to figure out how to rebuild a functional society and maybe avoid human extinction. — Tracy Brown “The Big Leap” (Fox, Sept. 20) In 2014, a British docuseries recruited a group of averagesize amateur dancers and trained them for a performance of “Swan Lake.” This hourlong show fictionalizes the endeavor with earnest emotionality about life’s second chances and follows, among others, an unemployed man hoping to win back a spouse, a single mom trying to overcome depression and a famous athlete working to fix his reputation. Scott Foley adds humor and conflict as the producer of the show within a show. — Ashley Lee
“Queens” (ABC, Oct. 19)
This prime-time soap from “Scandal” writer and executive producer Zahir McGhee centers on the members of an allfemale ’90s hip-hop group who attempt to mount a comeback in their 40s. Though the premise sounds similar to “Girls5Eva,” the tone and approach is decidedly different and boasts real-life hit-makers Eve and Brandy in its cast. — Ashley Lee
“The Beatles: Get Back” (Disney+, Nov. 25)
“Get Back” is Peter Jackson’s hyper-extended happy cut of Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s downbeat 1970 film documenting the birth of the album that would be called “Let It Be,” seemingly along with the death of the band that was making it. LindsayHogg’s movie, long offered as evidence that something was rotten in Pepperland, has been out of circulation for years; Jackson’s version, which restores the album’s original title, argues that the Fab Four were having fun and working like a band in between the scenes of passiveaggression. Once intended for theaters, it comes to television as six hours spread over three nights. The restored footage, as seen in trailers, looks beautiful. — Robert Lloyd