Fall 2023 TV preview: 60 shows to put on your radar

The Wheel Of Time, Prime Video’s adaptation of Robert Jordan’s long-running book series, drops us into a high fantasy world influenced by franchises like Game Of Thrones and Lord Of The Rings. (That was true even before The Rings Of Power premiered, but it’s especially true now.) Yet it has a unique set of magical rules, characters, and factions to absorb. Rosamund Pike is a captivating lead as the sorceress Moiraine, who’s dealing with the loss of her powers and the discovery of the Dragon Reborn (Josha Stradowski’s Rand al’Thor) in season two. If you haven’t read the books, we’d suggest a rewatch of the first season to re-familiarize yourself with the World of the Wheel before diving into the second, which will further expand the lore. [Cindy White]

LaKeith Stanfield stars in The Changeling as Apollo Kagwa, a loving husband and devoted father who sets off on a strange journey through a dark, fairytale version of New York City after his wife suffers a breakdown and commits an unthinkable act. Screenwriter Kelly Marcel (Saving Mr. Banks, Venom) adapted the horror fantasy novel by Victor LaValle (whose voice can be heard as the show’s narrator) into eight episodes, while director Melina Matsoukas gives the story a striking visual language that keeps the viewer always slightly off balance. [Cindy White]

It’s been less than a year since The Walking Dead finally shambled off our screens forever, but Norman Reedus is already back with his Daryl Dixon spin-off. Originally, the series was meant to be a joint adventure for Daryl and Carol (Melissa McBride), but McBride dropped out early in the show’s planning stages, leaving Reedus to take center stage. The show will follow Daryl as he tries to get his memories back after waking up in France with no idea how he got there. Conveniently, France is also where the zombie outbreak started. (That can’t be a coincidence, right?) [Jen Lennon]

After a two-year break, Apple TV+’s drama The Morning Show returns for season three. Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Billy Crudup, Greta Lee, Mark Duplass, and Juliana Marguiles are joined by Jon Hamm, Nicole Beharie, and Tig Notaro for 10 new episodes. (The Morning Show collects famous actors like Thanos collects Infinity Stones.) Set in the cutthroat world of morning news, TMS tries to satirize the media world while gunning to be labeled as a prestige drama. If only. At least it’s bizarre and amusing in its efforts. [Saloni Gajjar]

Based on Zakiya Dalila Harris’ novel of the same name, The Other Black Girl is a mystery dramedy that centers on Nella Rogers (Sinclair Daniel), an editorial assistant at a New York City publishing house where she’s the sole Black female employee. Her loneliness subsides when another Black woman is hired to work there. But Nella soon starts receiving threatening messages to quit her job, which tests her newfound friendship with Hazel (Riverdale’s Ashleigh Murray). Eventually, she starts to uncover the company’s sinister history. The cast includes Bellamy Young, Eric McCormack, and Brian Baumgartner. [Saloni Gajjar]

’Tis the season for a twisted love story. Wilderness, based on B.E. Jones’ novel, is a psychological thriller about the unraveling of a happily married couple after Liv (Jenna Coleman) discovers Will’s (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) infidelity. To make matters worse, they’re on her dream vacation, a road trip through the American wilderness, with Will’s colleague and her boyfriend. As the four of them hike together, Liv concocts a revenge plan that could destroy all their lives. [Saloni Gajjar]

British miniseries The Gold is, well, extremely British, as evidenced by the cast. Hugh Bonneville, Jack Lowden, Dominic Cooper, and Tom Cullen star in this historical drama inspired by real-life events, when six armed men broke into a security depot near Heathrow Airport in 1983 and inadvertently stumbled on gold worth 26 million pounds. After airing on BBC One in the U.K., the six episodes will premiere in the U.S. via Paramount+. [Saloni Gajjar]

We didn’t realize how much we missed Sex Education until we saw Emma Mackey, Ncuti Gatwa, and Connor Swindells pop up in Barbie this summer. Fortunately, they’ll all soon be returning, along with Asa Butterfield and Gillian Anderson, for a fourth and final season of the audacious British comedy that takes its title quite seriously. Having graduated from Moordale, Otis (Butterfield) and many of his fellow classmates are heading to college, while Maeve (Mackey) studies writing in America under the instruction of new cast member Dan Levy. At home, Jean (Anderson) is struggling with being a single mother to a newborn. She gets help from her sister Joanna, played by Lisa McGrillis. With just eight episodes left to enjoy, we’re planning to savor every awkward moment. [Cindy White]

Cashing in on the love for the John Wick franchise, The Continental is a three-part prequel centered on Winston Scott (Colin Woodell). In an alternate ’70s, he rises to his position as proprietor of the New York branch of The Continental chain of hotels—a safe haven for legal assassins where no business may ever take place. (Everyone deserves a spot to chill, right?) The limited series explores variations on real-world events like the rise of the American mafia and the Winter of Discontent, and the ensemble includes Mishel Prada, Katie McGrath, Jessica Allain, and Mel Gibson (because no one listens to Josh Malina, sadly). [Saloni Gajjar]

A new fall network show in 2023? Yes, please. In The Irrational, which completed filming pre-strikes, The Flash’s Jesse L. Martin plays Alec Baker, a world-renowned professor of behavioral science. He lends his expertise to an array of high-stakes cases involving governments, law enforcement, and corporations. It sounds like a classic procedural, and we have so few of those now, so we might as well enjoy them while we can. [Saloni Gajjar]

The latest Bachelor spin-off is here with The Golden Bachelor, an aged-up version of the original show. This time around, it’s 71-year-old Gerry Turner who’s looking for love. Turner is the first senior citizen lead in the franchise’s history, and The Golden Bachelor is the first new entry in the franchise in three years, since 2020's one-off Listen To Your Heart. The show is getting some positive early buzz, reigniting interest in a franchise that some had seen as growing stale over the years. [Jen Lennon]

The Boys spin-off Gen V is about to do for the YA genre what the original show did for superhero stories—i.e., blow it to gloriously gruesome bits. Gen V takes place at Godolkin University, a college for aspiring superheroes where the students compete so they can rise in the school rankings. If you’ve ever thought that The Hunger Games could use fewer morals, a shit ton more lewdness, and a couple hundred more buckets of blood, Gen V is exactly what you’ve been waiting for. [Jen Lennon]

Okay, The Irrational isn’t the only new fall network show we’re getting this year. NBC is pairing it with Found, a crime drama that focuses on missing people. Public relations specialist Gabi Mosley (Shanola Hampton)—who was once missing herself—has now made it her mission to look for those who are forgotten. Along with her crisis management team, she solves cases, but unbeknownst to anyone, she’s hiding a chilling secret (because of course she is—it wouldn’t be a soapy drama otherwise). The cast includes Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Kelli Williams, Brett Dalton, and Karan Oberoi. [Saloni Gajjar]

After two long years, Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson are back for more adventures through time in Loki, the rare Disney+ Marvel TV show to get a second season. We’re heading back to the Time Variance Authority with our favorite trickster god and his erstwhile partner Agent Mobius M. Mobius (the “M” stands for Mobius), though we don’t know quite what we’ll find when we get there since Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino, returning this season) killed He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors, also returning in a new incarnation) in the finale and set the timeline free. We do know that Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan has joined the cast as a repair technician, and we love that for him and for us. [Cindy White]

It’s almost spooky season, which has come to mean something very specific for fans of elevated horror, crying, and really juicy monologues. Mike Flanagan, the auteur behind The Haunting Of Hill House, The Haunting Of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, and more returns this October for his final Netflix show, and he’s bringing the whole crew with him. Regular Flanaverse visitors will spot some familiar faces in the cast of this mashup of Edgar Allan Poe stories, including Carla Gugino, Kate Siegel, Annabeth Gish, Zach Gilford, Rahul Kohli, Samantha Sloyan, and T’Nia Miller. [Emma Keates]

Get ready to hum “Tossed Salads & Scrambled Eggs” again because Frasier is back, baby. The sequel (to the long-running Cheers spin-off) is joining a lengthy list of revived ’90s sitcoms. It will follow Kelsey Grammar’s iconic character as he returns to Boston with new challenges to face, new relationships to forge, and an old dream or two to fulfill. None of the original cast members are returning as series regulars, but they could still make appearances. Instead, Grammar will be joined by Nicholas Lyndhurst, Jack Cutmore-Scott, Toks Olagundoye, and Jess Salguiero. [Saloni Gajjar]

Not long after it was published in April of last year to become an instant bestseller, Bonnie Garmus’ debut novel, Lessons In Chemistry, about a brilliant woman subverting the limitations of mid-century America, attracted Hollywood’s attention, with Apple securing the rights to turn it into an eight-episode limited series. Surrounded by stylish period details to rival The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Brie Larson stars as Elizabeth Zott, a research chemist who’s fired from her lab position and pivots to a TV hosting gig on a cooking show. It’s there where she finds her true calling; teaching an audience of mostly women homemakers about the wonders of science and self-determination. [Cindy White]

White Collar’s Matt Bomer and Bridgerton’s Jonathan Bailey entangled—quite literally, it looks like—in a complicated love affair? Oh, yeah, Fellow Travelers already sounds promising ... and hot, but mostly promising. The show follows the volatile and forbidden romance between Hawkins Fuller and Timothy Laughlin across decades and seismic events like the Vietnam War, the AIDS crisis, and the disco hedonism of the ’70s. Alison Williams and Chris Bauer co-star. [Saloni Gajjar]

Let’s breathe a sigh of relief as Julian Fellows’ star-studded drama is finally returning with more period glamor. In season two, Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon) works to gain a stronger foothold in New York society while her husband, George (Morgan Spector), gets involved in a battle against a growing union at his steel plant. And in the Brook House, Agnes (Christine Baranski) doesn’t approve of, well, anything. [Saloni Gajjar]

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Anthony Doerr, All The Light We Cannot See is a historical drama set in Europe before and during World War II. Like the book, it’s split into parallel narratives following two different protagonists—Marie-Laure (Aria Mia Loberti), a blind French girl living with her father (Mark Ruffalo) and uncle (Hugh Laurie) in the walled city of Saint-Malo, and Werner (Louis Hofmann), a German boy with an affinity for radios who is recruited to fight on the side of the Nazis. The timeline jumps back and forth between the past and present, as their seemingly separate paths head toward an inevitable collision. [Cindy White]

Invincible is finally back for season two—or, at least, the first half of season two. We’ll have to wait until sometime in 2024 for the rest of the season, but for now, we’ll take what we can get. The adult-animated superhero show built to a jaw-dropping, horrifying season finale in 2021, as Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons) revealed the extent of his betrayal and decimated Chicago while fighting his son, Invincible (Steven Yeun). This time around, Invincible is facing off against a new antagonist called Angstrom Levy (Sterling K. Brown), who has a specific but as-yet-unknown grudge against him. [Jen Lennon]

An anachronistic adaptation of Edith Wharton’s unfinished final novel, The Buccaneers finds a group of wealthy and raucous young American ladies invading British high society as they search for love in Victorian England. They find no shortage of handsome and eligible suitors, but their courtships become complicated by tradition and restrictive notions of propriety. If you already miss Sanditon or you can’t wait for the next season of Bridgerton, this show might just scratch that itch. [Cindy White]

The OA co-creators Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij are behind this FX limited series, in which a billionaire (Clive Owen) hosts a group of folks in a remote locale (as billionaires are wont to do) that, yes, feels like it’s at the end of the world. When one of the guests turns up dead, an amateur sleuth (The Crown’s Emma Corrin) tries to piece it all together. Marling, Harris Dickinson, and City Of God’s Alice Braga round out the cast. [Tim Lowery]

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is one of the best movies of the last two decades. So does it necessarily need an anime remake? No. But if the entire cast is coming together to present the film in a new format, who are we to judge? Scott Pilgrim Takes Off features Michael Cera, Aubrey Plaza, Kieran Culkin, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Brie Larson, Chris Evans, Allison Pill, Anna Kendrick, Mae Whitman, Satya Bhabha, and Jason Schwartzman. And we’re ready for whatever joyousness they’re cooking up. [Saloni Gajjar]

One of the most consistently great shows of the past decade is finally back after a three-year break. For the upcoming installment, the anthology series moves to 2019 and, like the film, takes place in Minnesota and North Dakota. Jon Hamm (as a cowboy-hat-donning sheriff), Juno Temple, and Jennifer Jason Leigh star, with Stranger Things’ Joe Keery, Never Have I Ever’s Richa Moorjani, and The Kids In The Hall’s Dave Foley rounding out the cast. Expect plenty of dark comedy and more than a few Coen brothers references. (Did anyone else think of this when they heard Temple’s character was named Dorothy “Dot” Lyon?) [Tim Lowery]

Marvel fans might remember Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox) as the deaf martial arts expert seeking vengeance against Ronin for killing her father in Hawkeye. As head of the organized crime syndicate Tracksuit Mafia, she used her resources to flush him out, but after discovering that her boss and surrogate uncle Wilson Fisk, also known as Kingpin, was actually the one responsible for her father’s death Maya fled. Her new self-titled series, Echo, will pick up with Maya returning to her hometown, wrestling with her criminal past, and reconnecting with the community she left behind. [Cindy White]

At long last, Donald Glover’s Mr. And Mrs. Smith TV show—a reboot of the 2005 film—is (almost) here. Initially announced in 2021, the series was supposed to star Glover and Phoebe Waller-Bridge as the titular married spies who work for opposing agencies. A year later, however, Pen15's Maya Erskine took over the role of Jane Smith. The show follows the couple entering a new era of their relationship while continuing with their jobs. (What is this, The Americans?). The impressive ensemble includes Parker Posey, John Turturro, Paul Dano, and Wagner Moura. [Saloni Gajjar]

Yellowstone’s Taylor Sheridan continues his takeover of Paramount+ with this upcoming Western, which stars David Oyelowo (who exec-produced the project with Sheridan) as the titular slave-turned-Deputy U.S. Marshal. Forrest Goodluck, Dennis Quaid, Lauren E. Banks, and Barry Pepper also appear in the eight-episode period piece, which was created by Rectify scribe Chad Feehan and, although it takes place in a similar era, has no direct connection to 1883 (or Yellowstone, for that matter). [Tim Lowery]

We still don’t really know what The Curse will entail. Per Showtime’s description, the hour-long, genre-bending dramedy “explores how an alleged curse disturbs the relationship of a newly married couple as they try to conceive a child while co-starring on their problematic new HGTV show.” But any series from Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie is sure to be laugh-out-loud funny, extremely meta, and unlike anything we’ve seen before. Emma Stone stars as one half of the ill-fated couple alongside Fielder, while Safdie steps into the shoes of the HGTV producer. [Emma Keates]

Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters is Apple TV+’s latest sci-fi exploration (after Invasion, Foundation, and—best of all—For All Mankind). The show is set in the aftermath of a battle between Godzilla and the Titans that leveled San Francisco. In the series, two siblings follow in their father’s footsteps to work for a secret organization called the Monarch. The drama spans three generations and features father-son duo Kurt and Wyatt Russell playing the same character. Anna Sawai and Kiersey Clemons co-star. [Saloni Gajjar]

Culprits is an eight-part series that combines a heist drama with a murder mystery . After committing a high-stakes robbery, a group of thieves go their separate ways and try to leave their old ways. Life is never that easy, though, so their past collides with their present when an assassin starts killing them one by one. Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Gemma Arterton, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Tara Abboud, and Kevin Vidal star. [Saloni Gajjar]

Sept 1: Power Book IV: Force, season two (Starz), Disenchantment, season five (Netflix)

Sept 4: American Dad, season 18 (TBS)

Sept 7: Gamera-Rebirth (Netflix), Star Trek: Lower Decks, season four (Paramount+), Virgin River season five (Netflix)

Sept 12: Welcome To Wrexham, season two (FX)

Sept 20: American Horror Story, season 12 (FX)

Sept 22: Still Up (Apple TV+)

Sept 22: Love Is Blind (Netflix)

Sept 24: Krapopolis (FOX)

Sept 25: The Voice season 24 (NBC)

Sept 27: The Masked Singer, season 10 (FOX)

Sept 28: Colin From Accounts (Paramount+)

Oct 1: Bob’s Burgers, American Dad, The Simpsons season premieres (FOX)

Oct 4: Quantum Leap, season two (NBC), Chucky, season three (Syfy), The Spencer Sisters (The CW), Sullivan Crossing (The CW)

Oct 5: Lupin, season three (Netflix)

Oct 13: Shining Vale, season two (Starz)

Oct 15: Rick And Morty, season seven (Adult Swim)

Oct 20: Elite, season eight (Netflix), Upload, season three (Prime Video)

Oct 22: Fear The Walking Dead (AMC)

Nov 9: Rap Sh!t, season two (Max)

Fall date TBD: Our Flag Means Death, season two (Max), For All Mankind, season four (Apple TV+)