Better Off Ted
Apple TV
In this canceled-before-its-time workplace sitcom, Ted (Jay Harrington) runs R&D at the sinister megacorporation Veridian Dynamics. The organization may be soulless and evil, but Ted does his best to find workarounds that minimize the damage it wreaks upon the world. The writing is sharply satirical, the joke density is gratifyingly high, and the cast — featuring a steely Portia de Rossi as Ted’s boss and Jonathan Slavin and Malcolm Barrett as a pair of hapless lab techs — shines. — Glen Weldon
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Scott Everett White/The CW
Get past the title. This show starts out as a broad, sudsy comedy about a successful woman (Rachel Bloom) so obsessed with a hot guy that, imagining her life is a musical, she moves to California to be with him. Over the course of its four-season run, however, the show digs under that glitzy premise to unearth some dark truths about romantic love, mental health and taking responsibility for one’s actions. Throughout, the songs remain fantastic — by turns soaring, smutty, hilarious and scathingly satirical. — Glen Weldon
Happy Endings
Hulu
Need to feel better? Got 22 minutes? Pick any episode of this show at random, sit yourself down, and thank me when you’re done. Nothing groundbreaking in its premise — six friends hang out together. But magic happens when a barrage of sharp, specific, well-crafted jokes start streaming out of the mouths of a cast so perfectly suited to deliver them. Don’t make me pick a favorite. (But, seriously, Eliza Coupe’s high-strung but ruthlessly efficient Jane is an all-time-great sitcom creation.) — Glen Weldon
Newhart
Prime Video
This show’s final episode, featuring a wry meta-joke about Bob Newhart’s previous sitcom, is so beloved it tends to overshadow the series that came before it. Specifically, how it morphed over the course of its lifetime from a pretty straightforward little show about a bland, soft-spoken man (Newhart) running an inn in Vermont into a vehicle for delivering a steady stream of deeply weird absurdism into millions of American homes every week. (You can skip the first season.) — Glen Weldon
Staged
The Roku Channel
Written and performed during the pandemic, the first season of this British series stars actors David Tennant and Michael Sheen playing heightened versions of themselves as they attempt to rehearse a play over Zoom. Writer Simon Evans (playing what is presumably a more weaselly version of himself) creates witty, incisive banter that Tennant and Sheen go all in on. Two subsequent seasons get increasingly self-referential; be warned if that’s not your thing. Me, I ate it all up. — Glen Weldon
New in Fall 2023
Taskmaster
YouTube
Try one episode of this silly, dumb, brilliant British game show and you’ll join the ranks of the converted. The premise: Five comedians compete to perform a series of tasks assigned to them by the towering, hilariously imperious Greg Davies, who judges their performance with scathing wit. The tasks are mundane (paint a picture in the dark, create a catapult to launch a shoe into a bathtub), but watching funny people try — and, hilariously, fail — proves an unending delight. — Glen Weldon
The Dick Van Dyke Show
Peacock
It’s a classic for a reason. Rob Petrie (Dick Van Dyke) works as a comedy writer during the day and comes home to his beloved wife (Mary Tyler Moore) at night. The show found the perfect balance between its star’s work and home life, and — importantly — didn’t consign Moore to the traditional background status of a sitcom wife. Her Laura was hilarious on her own, and a perfect comedic partner for Van Dyke, capable of going toe-to-toe with him even — especially — when things got silly. — Glen Weldon
The Mothers-in-Law
Tubi TV
Yeah, the whole premise is sexist and retrograde: Watch these two middle-aged ladies (Eve Arden and Kaye Ballard) interfere with their son’s and daughter’s married lives. They’re nosy! They’re know-it-alls! Etc.! But look, it was the ’60s — as if you couldn’t tell that from the clothes, the hair, the modular furniture, the retina-sizzling color scheme. Think of it as a time capsule from a less-enlightened era, and let Arden and Ballard’s comic timing (and allll that paisley!) carry you away. — Glen Weldon
Dear Mama: The Saga of Afeni and Tupac Shakur
FX
Even though Afeni Shakur was notable in her own right as an activist and Black Panther, she’s often stood in the shadow of her superstar son, Tupac. Allen Hughes’ in-depth docuseries puts their towering legacies in direct conversation with one another to create a fuller understanding of who they were — and their impact. — Aisha Harris
Murder, She Wrote
Peacock
Murder mysteries are having a moment, thank goodness. Angela Lansbury’s Jessica Fletcher, the on-the-go author/amateur sleuth who seems to always be in the vicinity whenever a murder goes down, remains a top-tier binge-watch for the form. Trying to guess the killer is fun, but so is imagining that it’s really Jessica behind all those deaths. — Aisha Harris
The Righteous Gemstones
Ryan Green/HBO
On paper, this is the red state version of Succession: A widowed megachurch pastor played by John Goodman contends with business adversaries and his ever-bickering adult children (Danny McBride, Edi Patterson and Adam Devine) who hope to one day take over Daddy’s empire. But this show stands on its own as a wacky, hyperviolent satire of evangelical Christianity and American excess, with a stacked cast to boot, including Walton Goggins as the perfectly named Uncle Baby Billy Freeman. — Aisha Harris
South Side
Jean Whiteside/HBO Max
Bashir Salahuddin and Diallo Riddle’s show lovingly depicts Chicago as deeply weird and its colorful cast of characters as more than mere caricatures. Enterprising employees of a rent-to-own store, ineffective cops, low-level criminals, hack politicians — they all breathe life into the silliest of scenarios, like putting on a play while sheltering from a tornado. It was canceled after three seasons, just as the show was getting weirder. But at least we’ll always have Sergeant Turner’s wigs. — Aisha Harris
The Real World, Season 1
Paramount+
Reality TV has either come a long way since The Real World, or it’s devolved. Maybe it’s a bit of both! There’s something refreshing about watching this particular set of seven strangers try to coexist with one another before there was a playbook for the genre. Most striking about Season 1 is how it’s a time capsule of Gen X and early ’90s New York City, yet remains, for better and for worse, quite current. (See, infamously, the conversations about race between Kevin Powell and Becky Blasband.) — Aisha Harris
New in Fall 2023
Lupin, Part 3
Emmanuel Guimier/Netflix
The first part of the stylish French mystery series was so thrilling that the follow-up, while fun, couldn’t quite measure up. Still, I look forward to Part 3 of the exploits of the cunning gentleman thief Assane Diop (Omar Sy), who we last left on the run after being framed for murder. The most pressing question: What kinds of clever disguises will Assane come up with this time? — Aisha Harris
New in Fall 2023
The Continental: From the World of John Wick
Katalin Vermes/Starz Entertainment
If you can stand Mel Gibson — and his problematic real life past — murdering a New Yawk accent, then you might enjoy this prequel to the ultra-violent John Wick films. Set in ’70s-era New York, it features different actors playing younger versions of Ian McShane’s crime overlord Winston and his No. 2, the late Lance Reddick’s Charon, with Gibson as their ruthless mentor. For Wick fans, it’s got lots of the bloody “gun-fu” fight action and more details about the films’ shadowy underworld. — Eric Deggans
New in Fall 2023
Lawmen: Bass Reeves
Lauren Smith/Paramount+
Blame the industry’s longtime indifference over Black-centered stories for why it’s taken star David Oyelowo more than eight years to create this series about the Old West’s first African American deputy U.S. marshal. It took a partnership with Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan to finally get this project made. The show centers on Bass Reeves, a former enslaved person-turned-peace officer working in Arkansas and Oklahoma who is believed by one historian to be an inspiration for the fictional Lone Ranger. — Eric Deggans
Jury Duty, Season 1
Freevee
It sounds impossible to execute: a comedy and sort of docu-series centered on one average guy serving on a jury who doesn’t realize everyone else around him is a performer executing contrived scenarios — even actor James Marsden, who plays a parody of himself. Somehow, this twisted comedy works, as San Diego-based solar contractor Ronald Gladden is hit on by a fellow juror and apologizes to Marsden for accidentally telling him that his movie Sonic the Hedgehog was terrible (which it kinda was). — Eric Deggans
Justified
FX
Based on short stories from legendary novelist Elmore Leonard, FX’s crime drama is a masterful, modernized Western centered on Timothy Olyphant’s laconic U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens. With an unerring instinct for sniffing out criminals and an unyielding personal code, Givens works the hollers of his Kentucky home county while contending with his grifter father, a backwoods crime-lord former buddy and his own compulsion to confront bad guys regardless of the cost. — Eric Deggans
New in Fall 2023
Little Richard: I Am Everything
CNN
This Sundance Film Festival favorite traces the fitful, uneasy evolution of Richard Penniman from a gay kid kicked out of his family’s Macon, Ga., home to a drag performer, a nightclub singer and, eventually, rock ’n’ roll architect Little Richard. With a father who pastored a church and owned a nightclub, Little Richard, who died in 2020, was often torn between living the God-centered life some expected and indulging the promiscuous performer’s instincts that helped make him a legend. — Eric Deggans
New in Fall 2023
Deadlocked: How America Shaped the Supreme Court
Showtime
Director Dawn Porter compares the evolution of the modern, conservative-dominated Supreme Court with the Warren Court — the justices, led by Earl Warren in the 1950s and 1960s, who abolished racial segregation in voting and education. Debuting after the SCOTUS decision that ended the federal constitutional right to abortion, the docuseries couldn’t be timed better to examine how SCOTUS moved from championing rights of marginalized groups to rulings aligned with conservative ideology. — Eric Deggans
New in Fall 2023
Found
Matt Miller/NBC
For decades, experts have criticized the media’s tendency to focus more on missing person cases involving pretty white women. Now NBC and showrunner Nkechi Okoro Carroll have built an entire series around the idea, featuring Shanola Hampton as Gabi Mosely, a Black public relations specialist with a crisis team who works to shed light on people of color who disappear. Think Scandal’s Olivia Pope-meets-Taken with a juicy catch: Mosely was once one of those forgotten victims — and now hides a chilling secret. — Eric Deggans
New in Fall 2023
Invincible, Season 2
Prime Video
The first season of this adult-oriented, animated superhero drama debuted two years ago, with Steven Yeun as Mark Grayson, a teen whose father is the powerful superhero Omni-Man. As Mark gained his own powers, he was trained by his father, eventually learning that his dad hid an awful secret. Based on a comic book by Robert Kirkman (who co-created The Walking Dead), the new season finds Mark facing his father’s legacy, buoyed by a cast featuring Sandra Oh, Sterling K. Brown and the great J.K. Simmons as Omni-Man. — Eric Deggans
New in Fall 2023
Loki, Season 2
Marvel Studios
Given Marvel’s spotty recent track record and the legal troubles of co-star Jonathan Majors, the second season of this series on the god of mischief’s time-bending adventures faces some serious challenges. But stars Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson had an oddball, complementary chemistry the first time around; if any twosome can undo all the damage to time done by Majors’ character Kang — while managing the Majors backlash and leading the rare superhero-centered TV hit — they certainly can. — Eric Deggans
New in Fall 2023
The Morning Show, Season 3
Apple TV+
This convoluted drama spent its first two seasons telling the story of Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon as anchors on a network TV morning show rocked by serious #MeToo violations. But the drama’s lack of diversity and day-late storylines (including a take on COVID-19 one year after the lockdowns) often limited its impact. Now a fresh third season offers the always excellent Nicole Beharie as a new anchor and the possibility that Jon Hamm’s jerky billionaire might buy the network — a narrative that’s sadly in sync with modern events. — Eric Deggans
Beef
Andrew Cooper/Netflix
How can a story about a road rage incident gone horribly wrong turn into a treatise on a failing marriage, classism, Asian family culture, capitalism and the power of forgiveness? Watch and learn. This brilliant limited series shows Steven Yeun and Ali Wong as two dysfunctional, emotionally incomplete people whose unfortunate meeting in a parking lot escalates into a feud for the ages. — Eric Deggans
I’m a Virgo
Prime Video
Creator/director/writer Boots Riley’s absurdist, occasionally surreal story about a 13-foot-tall Black teen living in Oakland wears its messaging on its sleeve. It’s easy to see Riley’s revolutionary spirit in this world where Black excellence is expressed in superpowered people of color and where the controlling, exploitive nature of capitalism is rendered in a Tony Stark-esque, armor-wearing superhero billionaire who controls his image by managing his own comic book company. — Eric Deggans
Reacher
Keri Anderson/Prime Video
Forget about Tom Cruise’s mediocre Jack Reacher films; towering hunk Alan Ritchson is much closer to the brainy, giant-size expert fighter from Lee Child’s novels. Ritchson’s turn here as Reacher — a drifter/ex-Army investigator tearing into a small-town conspiracy — is both believable and compelling. Toss in a fun odd-couple pairing with Malcolm Goodwin’s persnickety police captain Oscar Finlay, and you’ve got the makings of an above-average adventure mystery. — Eric Deggans
Shrinking
Apple TV+
Yes, it’s another dramatic comedy about an angsty, privileged white guy; this time, series co-creator Jason Segel is a therapist constantly crossing patient boundaries while coping with his own loss. But what elevates this show is its supporting cast — including Harrison Ford at his crusty best as Segel’s emotionally closed-off mentor, and Jessica Williams as a third therapist at his practice — and the writing, courtesy of co-creators and Ted Lasso alums Bill Lawrence and Brett Goldstein. — Eric Deggans
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
Marni Grossman/CBS
Centered on the starship Enterprise before Capt. James T. Kirk takes command, this series has taken smart, boldly creative swings, while always tipping a hat to the franchise’s storied legacy. Anson Mount’s Boy Scout-like Capt. Christopher Pike leads his crew through a singing episode (with Klingons dancing!), a crossover with animated series Lower Decks and a story where Ethan Peck’s Mr. Spock is transformed fully into a human. Truly puts the “fantastic” in its fan service. — Eric Deggans
The Wonder Years
Erika Doss/ABC
There may be no better example of how changing the race of characters can completely restructure a program than this delightful coming-of-age comedy, which recenters the 35-year-old original series’ story on a Black family in 1960s-era Montgomery, Alabama. Don Cheadle narrates as the grown-up voice of precocious 12-year-old Dean Williams (played by E.J. Williams) bumbling through typical tween stuff while also navigating one of the most tumultuous times for Black folks in American history. — Eric Deggans
Crash Landing on You
Netflix
This very beloved K-drama begins with a South Korean heiress and businesswoman accidentally paragliding into North Korea, where she’s discovered by a soldier. What follows balances gripping drama, slapstick, action, buddy comedy and swoony romance. And believe it or not, it all works tremendously well. You will laugh, you will cry, you will join a large community of fans. If you’ve wanted to explore the thriving K-drama world, this is a fantastic place to start. — Linda Holmes
Maid
Ricardo Hubbs/Netflix
The drama series Maid is based on Stephanie Land’s memoir, which covers her time as a struggling single mother making her living cleaning houses. Margaret Qualley is excellent as a woman named Alex who, with her daughter in tow, escapes an abusive relationship, only to find that the social safety net is full of holes. Also featuring Qualley’s mother, Andie MacDowell, as Alex’s very troubled mom, it’s a show that gets into some of the logistics of being poor in a way that television rarely attempts. — Linda Holmes
The Last Movie Stars
HBO Max
Ethan Hawke directed this docuseries about Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, both legendary actors, who were married for decades. Drawing extensively from interviews completed long ago for a planned Newman memoir — interviews read by contemporary actors — Hawke traces a history that covers the difficulties of Newman’s past relationships, his relationships with his children, the acting careers of both Newman and Woodward (which were both similar and different), and the reverence people had, and still have, for their relationship. — Linda Holmes
The Patient
Suzanne Tenner/FX
Steve Carell plays a therapist and Domhnall Gleeson plays a serial killer in this intense thriller series from the creators of The Americans. Believing Carell’s character, Alan, might be able to help him stop killing, Gleeson’s Sam holds him captive, chained to the floor, in an attempt to force Alan to be his therapist. Often unbearably tense as Alan tries to survive this bizarre ordeal, The Patient also makes good use of flashbacks and fantasy elements, as well as glimpses of Alan’s family. — Linda Holmes
This Is Going to Hurt
Anika Molnar/Sister Pictures/BBC Studios/AMC
Ben Whishaw plays Adam, a doctor pushed to his limits, in this adaptation of Adam Kay’s memoir. It’s a brutal look at how doctors in Britain’s National Health Service are worked to the bone in an underfunded system that doesn’t provide them with enough support or respite. While it’s not a show about COVID-19, it feels especially urgent in a world of questions about what we ask of medical professionals in and out of times of crisis and how doctors like Adam and his trainee, Shruti, suffer as a result. — Linda Holmes
The Traitors
Euan Cherry/Peacock
Alan Cumming hosts this competitive reality show in which reality show veterans and regular people face off in a series of challenges and votes meant to identify and expel those among them who have been secretly designated “traitors.” It’s a popular format in several other countries, and the U.S. version is highlighted by Cumming’s marvelous suits and over-the-top delivery (you’ll never forget the way he says “murrrrrrrder”). It’s a very entertaining and surprisingly satisfying binge-watch. — Linda Holmes
New in Fall 2023
Lessons in Chemistry
Apple TV+
Based on the hugely popular book of the same name that has been a New York Times bestseller for well over a year, this series stars Brie Larson as a scientist who becomes a cooking show star in the 1950s. Larson has been terrific in a lot of projects more varied than the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so there’s reason for great optimism about her ability to anchor a series made from a beloved property. — Linda Holmes
New in Fall 2023
Still Up
Apple TV+
Starring Antonia Thomas and Craig Roberts, this show Apple calls an “almost romantic comedy” is about two insomniacs and best friends who keep each other company in the middle of the night, often by phone. It’s a charming premise (and who can’t relate to sleep problems?), and romantic comedy (or almost romantic comedy) is a neglected genre, so hopefully, it will be worth waiting up for. — Linda Holmes
New in Fall 2023
The Changeling
Apple TV+
The Changeling is an eight-part thriller series based on Victor LaValle’s book of the same name. It stars the always indelible LaKeith Stanfield as a father searching for his wife after the birth of his daughter. The trailer promises a story about dangerous wishes, unsettling spaces all over New York, and the desperate searching that only happens when someone you really love is missing. Sounds creepy. — Linda Holmes
New in Fall 2023
The Other Black Girl
Hulu
Based on the popular novel by Zakiya Dalila Harris (sister of NPR’s Aisha Harris), this 10-part series is a blend of dark comedy, drama and horror about a young Black woman named Nella who grows suspicious when “the other Black girl,” Hazel, is hired by the publishing company where she works. The increasingly twisty story about solidarity and the pressures of bad workplaces goes to places both unsettling and unexpected. — Linda Holmes
New in Fall 2023
Fargo, Season 5
Michelle Faye/FX
With each installment, FX’s oddball Midwestern crime anthology series moves a little further from its roots in the Coen brothers’ film universe. The fifth season features its most contemporary story yet, set in 2019, featuring Ted Lasso star Juno Temple as a Midwestern housewife with a past, pursued by a sheriff from North Dakota played by Jon Hamm. Policing the quality of the accents alone should make for one heck of a drinking game, you betcha. — Eric Deggans
New in Fall 2023
American Horror Story: Delicate
FX
Gossips may focus on reality TV queen Kim Kardashian’s first major scripted TV series role in this, the 12th edition of Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s horror anthology. But it’s also the first AHS edition based on a new book: Danielle Valentine’s novel Delicate Condition, about an actress who believes her pregnancy is being secretly sabotaged. Toss in ace performers like Emma Roberts, Cara Delevingne, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez and Zachary Quinto, and you have the makings of a blockbuster season, indeed. — Eric Deggans
New in Fall 2023
The American Buffalo
Harvey Payne/PBS
There may not be a more PBS-sounding project than a four-hour, two-part film directed by Ken Burns about a species of bison that roamed America for thousands of years until it was nearly hunted to extinction. But Burns, who remains one of the industry’s best — and most criticized — documentarians, spent four years on this project, which uses the animal’s story to trace more than 10,000 years of North American history. — Eric Deggans
New in Fall 2023
Frasier
Paramount+
Was the world clamoring for another Frasier Crane sitcom without most of the original series’ excellent supporting cast, nearly 20 years after the first one ended? We’ll find out in this 10-episode revival, with Kelsey Grammer as Crane returning to Boston, where he began as a character on Cheers. Unfortunately, David Hyde Pierce declined to return as Frasier’s hilariously fussy brother Niles and John Mahoney, who played his crusty dad, Martin, died in 2018. Let’s hope lightning strikes again anyway. — Eric Deggans
New in Fall 2023
American Horror Stories
Hulu
They’re calling it a four-episode “Huluween” event — ugh. But this is actually a version of Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s horror series that works more like a traditional anthology. Instead of one story stretched over an entire season, viewers get a different story every installment, delivered in a four-episode stretch — perfect for the most ghoulish time of the year. — Eric Deggans
New in Fall 2023
The Gilded Age, Season 2
Alison Cohen Rosa/HBO
The second season of this show, set in the 1880s, looks set to repeat the rhythms of its first, featuring Carrie Coon’s wife of a robber baron, Bertha Russell, fuming at being denied a box at the Academy of Music, while her husband, George (played by Morgan Spector), focuses on breaking a union at his steel plant in Pittsburgh. The big question: Can they get TV audiences in the age of Elon to feel for newly megarich strivers trying to elbow their way into New York high society, circa 1883? — Eric Deggans
New in Fall 2023
Gen V
Brooke Palmer/Prime Video
It’s the first spinoff from Prime Video’s successful superhero drama The Boys and is set at a college for young superheroes called Godolkin University. Of course, fans of The Boys know its supes get their powers via injection of a special serum — so how does megacorporation/serum manufacturer Vought International handle the first generation of heroes at its academy who know their powers came from a test tube, rather than naturally? — Eric Deggans