MOST ANTICIPATED
AUG.
The Patient (8/30, FX on Hulu) In the first scene of this series from The Americans showrunners Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg, a therapist named Alan Strauss (Steve Carell) awakens to find himself chained to the floor in a basement. He quickly realizes he has been taken hostage by one of his patients (Domhnall Gleeson), who confesses that he’s a serial killer and says he won’t release Alan until he cures him of his homicidal tendencies. Their therapy sessions will undoubtedly go really well from there!
SEP.
Rick and Morty Season Six (9/4, Adult Swim) The multiverse that kicked off our current multitude of multiverses returns for a sixth season of reality-warping debauchery—after giving viewers a year to recover from the revelations of last season’s “Rickmurai Jack.” Call it Dr. Sanchez and the Mortyverse of Madness.
American Gigolo (9/9, Showtime) Jon Bernthal is one of the most versatile actors working today. In this drama, based loosely on the 1980 movie of the same name, he is cast as Julian Kaye, an escort who, like the character played by Richard Gere in the film, finds himself caught up in a murder investigation.
Atlanta Season Four (9/15, FX) The third season of this series from creator Donald Glover went to Europe. For the fourth and final season, Glover and castmates Brian Tyree Henry, LaKeith Stanfield, and Zazie Beetz return to the titular city, where reparations may now be a thing, depending on how much of season three was meant to be taken literally.
Los Espookys Season Two (9/16, HBO) The beloved, bizarre, darkly glamorous Julio Torres comedy finally returns to HBO for a second season. The series follows a group of friends who start a business that creates horror scenarios in real-life situations, giving normal life a weird veil of magic realism. Demons (fabricated, imagined, literal, interior) will be very on trend for fall.
Reboot (9/20, Hulu) Steven Levitan, co-creator of Modern Family, is behind this new comedy about the issues that arise when an early-aughts sitcom gets rebooted, bringing the friction between its cast members—played by Keegan-Michael Key, Judy Greer, Johnny Knoxville, and Calum Worthy—into the streaming era.
Abbott Elementary Season Two (9/21, ABC) Quinta Brunson’s hit comedy about life at a Philadelphia public school returns. After its first season of 13 installments, ABC has ordered 22 episodes for season two, which hopefully means much more delightful jackassery from principal Ava Coleman (Janelle James).
Andor (9/21, Disney+) The commercial and critical success of The Mandalorian means Star Wars will be staying in TV mode for a while. The Book of Boba Fett and ObiWan Kenobi were both disappointments that lacked dramatic tension and engaging pacing. Can Andor break the trend? There are reasons to be hopeful: The series is about—gasp!—normal people in the Star Wars universe, not just another retread of the messy Skywalkerfamily dynamics.
Ghosts Season Two (9/29, CBS) Another of last season’s freshman networkcomedy hits, Ghosts is about a woman who inherits an old house and discovers she can see and hear its longdeceased residents, though her husband cannot. Miraculously, this leads to hilarious high jinks rather than divorce, a sitcomready dynamic we expect to see more of in season two.
Ramy Season Three (9/30, Hulu) In season two, Ramy Youssef ’s titular character worked to become a better Muslim and less of a fuckboy—and basically failed on both counts. Is there any hope left for Ramy, who can’t seem to stop hopping into bed with various women and then hating himself for it? The third season adds half-Palestinian model Bella Hadid in a recurring guest role, and it would be great if she would put Ramy in his place already.
OCT.
Hasan Minhaj: The King’s Jester (10/4, Netflix) The comedian made a name for himself at The Daily Show, as a White House Correspondents’ Dinner host, and especially for his beloved weekly Netflix news-comedy series The Patriot Act. He will return this fall with his first special since 2017.
Alaska Daily (10/6, ABC) Hilary Swank plays a
journalist who wants to change her life, so she decides to move to Anchorage, Alaska. The dream version of this show would be a reboot of Northern Exposure with Swank moving to a tiny Alaskan town after getting a job at the local newspaper. This version seems likely to be more murdery.
The Midnight Club (10/7, Netflix) Based on Christopher Pike’s YA novel of the same name, this drama comes from Netflix’s official horror auteur, Mike Flanagan (see The Hauntings of Hill House and Bly Manor), and co-creator Leah Fong, a writer on Bly Manor. Set at a hospice for a small group of terminally ill teens, things get creepy when one of them dies after promising to communicate with another from the afterlife. In Flanagan tradition, it’s dropping just in time for Halloween.
NOV.
Blockbuster (11/3, Netflix) Tapping into nostalgia for a time when you had to go to a physical shop to rent a movie, this series stars Randall Park and Melissa Fumero as two of the employees working at the last Blockbuster video store in America.
Yellowstone Season Five (11/13, Paramount Network) Your uncle’s favorite TV drama returns, promising more political machinations, violence, and mournful gazes over the horizon while longing for an American past that never existed. That imaginary halcyon period, when men were really men and cows were really cows, lives on in the vision of protagonist John Dutton (Kevin Costner) and in show creator Taylor Sheridan’s evergrowing Yellowstone Televisual Universe.
The Crown Season Five (TBD, Netflix) As The Crown at last encroaches on the modern monarchical era, it swaps its cast one more time, installing a murderers’ row of British stardom: Imelda Staunton, Jonathan Pryce, Lesley Manville, Jonny Lee Miller, and Olivia Williams. Dominic West and Elizabeth Debicki appear as Charles and Diana. The show’s special distinction has always been to imagine the interior lives of these opaque public figures. What will that look like for the part of this story that’s already been told dozens of times? (Fingers crossed for an episode from Camilla’s POV.)
DEC.
Sort Of Season Two (12/1, HBO Max) The first season followed creator and star Bilal Baig’s character, Sabi Mehboob, a nonbinary Pakistani Canadian. Over eight episodes, Sabi was constantly infringed upon by people who didn’t quite understand them—their parents, their employers—but also beloved by their friends, making a viewing experience that was both tender and raw in its depiction of how our identities are perpetually in flux. The series’ second season will probably further those themes, and any time spent in the self-assured world built by Baig and Sort Of co-creator Fab Filippo is worthwhile.
TBD
The Watcher (Netflix) Who else to make a horror series about a weird house and the seemingly normal suburban family influenced by its strangeness than Ryan Murphy? The first season of American Horror Story, Murder House, was basically that, and Murphy revisits the idea with The Watcher. The new limited series is about an anonymous letter writer whose terrifying messages to the owners of a home in Westfield, New Jersey, formed the basis of a viral investigative piece published by this magazine. Naomi Watts and Bobby Cannavale star as the owners of 657 Boulevard.
The Sex Lives of College Girls Season Two (HBO Max) The series co-created by Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble continues tracking the love lives of four college freshmen, including Amrit Kaur’s Bela, an Indian American comedy nerd who is definitely not based on Kaling.
Dead to Me Season Three (Netflix) The second season of Dead to Me ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, as most of this addictive show’s episodes do. Jen (Christina Applegate) and Judy (Linda Cardellini) get struck by a vehicle driven by Ben (James Marsden), the semiidentical twin brother of Judy’s deceased former fiancé. That happened back in 2020. More than two years later, we finally get to find out what happens next.