Clockwise from top left: The Lowdown (Photo: FX); Cupertino (Photo: Elizabeth Fisher/CBS); Crystal Lake (Photo: Matt Infante/Peacock); Dig (Photo: Peacock)
With the fall TV season getting underway, The A.V. Club‘s editor-in-chief Danette Chavez wants to know: What series—new or returning—are you most looking forward to?
As always, we invite you to contribute your own responses in the comments—and send in some prompts of your own! If you have a pop culture question you’d like us and fellow readers to answer, please email it to [email protected].
East Of Eden (October 1, Netflix)
While The Grapes Of Wrath is the John Steinbeck novel that most people probably encountered in their high school literature courses, East Of Eden is, for my money, his best work. A sprawling, multi-generational tale about good, evil, and the choices we make between them, it’s one part Biblical allegory and one part devastating exploration of the human condition. (Seriously, if you have never read it, please fix your life.) Do I think that a seven-part Netflix adaptation can successfully contain all those multitudes? I’m not sure, but I’m intrigued enough to find out. Particularly since it stars Florence Pugh and will clearly focus heavily on Cathy Ames, infamous antiheroine and the subject of endless debate among readers and literary critics about the nature of evil. To steal an idea from Steinbeck himself: It doesn’t have to be perfect; it just has to be good. [Lacy Baugher Milas]
Carrie (October 7, Prime Video)
I’m hot and cold on Mike Flanagan. I love Hush and enjoyed his first Stephen King adaptation, Gerald’s Game. Even Dr. Sleep and Ouija: Origin Of Evil punch well above their weight. Still, the hardlines, pastel covers, and whispered performances of Hill House lost me. I skipped his Netflix era along with The Life Of Chuck, because “From the hearts and minds of Stephen King and Mike Flanagan” is a tagline that causes me to die of cringe. Chuck notwithstanding, I tend to enjoy Flanagan’s King adaptations, so his Carrie show has my attention. That’s a story that feels incredibly salient for the social media age, when teen humiliation can be live-streamed for all the world to see. Sure, an eight-episode limited series is a long time to wait for a predetermined promposal. But maybe it’ll make the pig’s blood taste all the sweeter. [Matt Schimkowitz]
Cupertino (October 8, CBS)
We’re all understandably sick of seeingreal and fictional tech billionaires and AI advocates champion their nefarious agendas, so I’m most curious to see how Cupertino positions itself in this sphere. I loved co-creators Robert and Michelle King’s most recent series, Evil, and they’re clearly good at making legal dramas work, as seen with The Good Wife universe. So I have faith in them to make, at the very least, an amusing broadcast drama that I can get hooked on again. Cupertino centers on two recently fired attorneys (played by Mike Colter and Rachel Keller) who start their own firm, mainly taking on clients aiming to fight back against the Goliaths controlling Silicon Valley. I’m intrigued by both the concept and the ensemble, which includes Nik Dodani, Busy Phillips, Renée Elise Goldsberry, and Ella Stiller. [Saloni Gajjar]
The Lowdown season two (October 14, FX)
The pleasures of The Lowdown are as straightforward as they are abundant: Great premise (amiable dramedy in the vein of Lodge 49 and Terriers that chooses the journey over the destination), great cast (Ethan Hawke, Keith David, Kaniehtiio Horn, and
Ryan Kiera Armstrong are back for season two, and are joined by Betty Gilpin and Tommy Lee Jones), and a setting that grows richer by the episode (Tulsa, OK). Even if series creator Sterlin Harjo hadn’t set up another uniquely compelling mystery in the upcoming season, I’d tune in to see Hawke as Lee Raybon, a character that lets the actor continue to show off his limitless range while also being of a piece with the other searching types in his repertoire. And did I mention Betty Gilpin is in the new season?? [Danette Chavez]
VisionQuest (October 14, Disney+)
As someone who liked WandaVision about 10 percent less than everybody I know—at least, once it stopped doing the fun TV pastiche stuff, and started defaulting to serving up cross-stitch material about grief—I was a little leery about next month’s Disney+ series VisionQuest. But I can’t say they didn’t get me: The show’s trailer, rolled out at D23 last month, really sold how fun the show could be, getting James Spader’s Ultron to Blacklist his way around an imaginary house while annoying the crap out of Paul Bettany’s NuVision. I’m not sold on the wider WandaVision family material the show is clearly building toward—it also turned me off of Agatha All Along—but I’m excited to at least watch the experiment play out for a few episodes, before wider franchise obligations inevitably win out. [William Hughes]
Crystal Lake (October 15, Peacock)
As an unreasonable slasher nut, I was skeptical about a prequel series centered on FridayThe13th‘s matriarch supreme, Pamela Voorhees. The first Friday essentially covers everything we need to know about the Voorhees family’s initially tragic, subsequently horrific descent into mayhem: Little Jason disappears in the lake, Pam cracks up, and horny camp counselors get iced in all sorts of inventive ways. What else did we need to know? While I’m anticipating (maybe dreading) some creative lore expansion from A24’s Peacock series, seeing Linda Cardellini decked out in Pam’s ’70s flannel and noting showrunner Brad Caleb Kane’s impressive résumé—including Lodge49, Fringe, and It:WelcometoDerry—has me feeling cautiously optimistic about CrystalLake. Frankly, seeing Cardellini cut loose on her victims with edged and serrated weapons is too much fun for even this wary horror hound to pass up. [Jarrod Jones]
The Fall And Rise Of Reggie Dinkins season two (November 2, NBC)
Okay, this is a little predictable, since I’m reviewing this Tracy Morgan-Daniel Radcliffe sitcom and all. But damned if I can’t wait to see how creators Robert Carlock and Daniel Means (alongside other Tina Fey sitcom factor hands like Phil Augusta, Meredith Scardino, and more) further expand the show’s fruitful comedic sandlot of fame, football and family. Morgan and Radcliffe have crafted an unexpected but hilariously lived-in odd couple energy as disgraced former NFL running back Reggie Dinkins and disgraced former indie film darling Arthur Tobin. And Erika Alexander, playing the seemingly thankless role of Reggie’s ambitious ex-wife and the only grownup in the room, is equally funny and human. The first season’s brisk 10-episode order saw the show sprint past plenty of scenarios and character dynamics the upcoming second outing can explore, and the show’s nimble handling of the hot button issue of gambling in American sports is only going to give the absurdly talented ensemble and writers more room to maneuver. [Dennis Perkins]
Black Doves season two (November 5, Netflix)
Black Doves was a perfect holiday binge with my parents: sleek, smart, twisty, and filled with charming British banter. We’d already been hooked on Slow Horses and this is that spy show’s shadier, more interpersonally tangled cousin. Erring towards Tom Clancy rather than James Bond, the middlebrow espionage has a brutal streak, which added an enjoyable edge to the otherwise comforting series of double-crosses. I’m happy to make this an annual tradition for as long as Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw want to get up to a little wetwork, and as long as they want to spar with Sarah Lancashire over who’s really in control. Add in a few new guest stars, another organization-spanning caper, and, as the British say, I’m sat. [Jacob Oller]
Yellowjackets season four (November 20, Showtime)
With all due respect to The Gilded Age(which returns on November 1), there is no premiere this season that matches my enthusiasm for the return of Yellowjackets. This is not because I have lofty expectations of this season, but because season three was so nuts that I have been waiting for 18 months just to see how the hell they’re going to wrap it up. And while I did enjoy season three largely for its camp factor (compared to its first season, which was more successful as a straightforward thriller), the fact that Yellowjackets‘ fourth and final season sees the girls return to their high school in New Jersey should help to avoid some of the wheel-spinning that befell the show’s last outing. Given that the creator Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson already said they planned to pick up the pace this time around, I’m looking forward to seeing something crazy. [Drew Gillis]
Dig (November 23, Peacock)
Digging! Everybody’s trying it this fall, whether it’s Tom Cruise doing Kirkland Signature Dr. Strangelove in Digger, or the Parks And Recreation duo of Amy Poehler and Michael Schur in their new Peacock comedy about archaeologists who stumble upon a potentially earthshattering secret while sifting through the ruins of ancient Greece. I know nothing of the source material—the novel Excavations by real-life archaeologist Kate Myers—but I have immense faith in the creative team here, which includes Schur’s wife, Single Parents co-creator and New Girl veteran J.J. Philbin. I’ve been eager to see Geraldine Viswanathan (who’s onboard as one of Poehler’s fellow archaeologists here) back on a TV comedy, and could Hugh Laurie be any better suited for a role than that of the hidebound professor leading the titular dig, someone I’m sure will have a totally measured and not at all explosive reaction to whatever artifact of inciting incident that his colleagues pull out of the ground? Here’s hoping they dredge up a trove of laughs along with it—if not, there’s always two seasons of Digman! to fall back on. [Erik Adams]
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