Fall 2023 TV preview: 60 shows to put on your radar
The coming weeks promise the welcome returns of Fargo and Loki, a spin-off of The Boys, a Scott Pilgrim anime series, The Golden Bachelor, and much more
For TV, fall is usually the most buzzy time of the year, when network shows return, big series premiere, and, of course, the Emmys go down. Things will look slightly different in 2023, though, because of the ongoing strike by both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA against studios and networks. But there’s still some good news for viewers: Fall boasts returns like The Wheel Of Time, The Morning Show, and—yes, at last—Fargo. What’s more, you can expect some major debuts, such as a YA spin-off of The Boys, Mike Flanagan’s latest horror series, and period dramas starring Brie Larson, Matt Bomer, and Jonathan Bailey. Meanwhile, movie franchises like John Wick and Godzilla make their way to the small screen. Here is The A.V. Club’s guide to the shows you need to know about over the next three months.
, Prime Video’s adaptation of Robert Jordan’s long-running book series, drops us into a high fantasy world influenced by franchises like and . (That was true even before 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 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 finally shambled off our screens forever, but Norman Reedus is already back with his 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 returns for season three. , Reese Witherspoon, Billy Crudup, Greta Lee, Mark Duplass, and Juliana Marguiles are joined by , 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 , 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 (’s Ashleigh Murray). Eventually, she starts to uncover the company’s sinister history. The cast includes Bellamy Young, Eric McCormack, and . [Saloni Gajjar]
’Tis the season for a twisted love story. , 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 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 until we saw Emma Mackey, Ncuti Gatwa, and Connor Swindells pop up in 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 franchise, 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 (, sadly). [Saloni Gajjar]
A new fall network show in 2023? Yes, please. In , which completed filming pre-strikes, 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 , 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]
spin-off 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 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 , 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 . , the auteur behind , , , and more returns this October for his final Netflix show, and he’s bringing the whole crew with him. Regular 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 is back, baby. The sequel (to the long-running Cheers spin-off) is joining a lengthy list of revived . 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, , 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 , 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]
’s Matt Bomer and s 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, 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]
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 or you can’t wait for the next season of , this show might just scratch that itch. [Cindy White]
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 (’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]
is one of the best movies of the last two decades. So does it necessarily need ? 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 , Aubrey Plaza, Kieran Culkin, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Brie Larson, Chris Evans, Allison Pill, Anna Kendrick, , 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 ’ Joe Keery, Never Have I Ever’s Richa Moorjani, and The Kids In The Hall’s rounding out the cast. Expect plenty of dark comedy and more than a few Coen brothers references. (Did anyone else think of 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 . 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, , 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, ’s TV show—a reboot of the —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, 's 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 impressive ensemble includes Parker Posey, John Turturro, Paul Dano, and . [Saloni Gajjar]
’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 (or Yellowstone, for that matter). [Tim Lowery]
We still don’t really know what will entail. Per Showtime’s description, the “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 (after , , and—best of all—). 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]
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