What's on TV this week—Phony and Yaga premiere

Welcome to What’s On, our weekly roundup of notable shows. Here is what’s happening on TV from Sunday, October 18 to Saturday, October 24. All times are Eastern.

New this week

Phony (Hulu, Tuesday, series premiere) Friday Night Lights icon Connie Britton and her fellow White Lotus alum Sam Nivola lead this Hulu mystery-comedy from Nick Paley (Marcel The Shell With Shoes On) about Sonny Cooke, a teenage boy who wakes up after a car accident with the nagging feeling that his single mother has been replaced by a dangerous imposter. (Think Other Mommy, but with a different redheaded actress.) No one in his world (the cast also includes Grace Brennan, Maliq Johnson, Colter Lee, and Mahaela Park) takes Sonny’s paranoia seriously, so the high schooler hires a private investigator (Meera Syal) to look into his suspicions and uncover the truth. Look out for The A.V. Club’s review on Monday. 

The New Stanford Prison Experiment (Netflix, Wednesday, series premiere) Five decades after its morally, ethically, and scientifically questionable inspiration, this Netflix series attempts to re-create Philip Zimbardo’s infamous 1971 study by putting 30 willing participants into a real prison facility and randomly assigning them the role of “guard” or “prisoner.” Though the The New Stanford Prison Experiment  seeks to explore power dynamics, corruption, and conformity just as Zimbardo did (before he shut his study down after six days due to, among other issues, the guards’ abuse of the prisoners) it has been updated with modern-day safeguards including gender diversity, psychological screenings, and safe words. 

Nobody Wants This (Netflix, Thursday, season three premiere) Joanne (Kristen Bell) and Noah (Adam Brody)—she, the agnostic host of a sex podcast, and he, an adorable Jewish rabbi —are taking the natural next step in their opposites-attract relationship: Cohabitation. Further proving her commitment to her mensch of a boyfriend, Joanne also begins taking Intro to Judaism classes overseen by Rabbi Eden (Sarah Silverman), much to the gossip of fellow temple goers. Elsewhere, Sasha (Timothy Simons) and Esther (Jackie Tohn) navigate their new separation, the realities of coparenting, and the messiness of dating apps.