As the nights begin to draw in and the air gets crispier, the compulsion to nestle under a blanket with your TV remote gets harder to ignore. And while we’d never sneer at the impulse to rewatch Gilmore Girls for the 20th time at the first sign of leaves turning orange, fall is undeniably the best time of year for new TV.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]There are brand new shows that already have our tongues wagging, like Netflix’s The Perfect Couple with Nicole Kidman and Grotesquerie, a Ryan Murphy’ project featuring the NFL’s Travis Kelce. There are spin-offs from established franchises, like Marvel’s Agatha All Along and The Penguin. There are returning favorites like The Sex Lives of College Girls and Slow Horses. And shows bidding their final farewells like Cobra Kai and What We Do In the Shadows..
With so many titles vying for your attention, we’ve narrowed down the list of all the best shows coming your way this fall.
Brand new
English Teacher (FX)
Sept. 2
If you’ve spent any time scrolling your phone over the last year, you’ve probably caught yourself chuckling at one of Brian Jordan Alvarez’s carousel of characters. There’s TJ Mack, the devoted husband who can’t stop singing about his wife; Rick, the Aussie good-time guy with a penchant for “lifting heaps,” and The Studempt, a vaguely European, vaguely So-Cal student with zero problems—each defined by their own janky Instagram face filter. Now, he’s got another character to introduce us to. The English Teacher, created by and starring Alvarez, follows a young teacher navigating the world of public high school education. And if you’re wondering, there are no face filters for this one.
Read more: English Teacher Is the Year’s Best Sitcom
Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist (Peacock)
Sept. 5
A heist on the biggest fight night of the year? The conceit is a classic plot device for a reason. Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist, based on the 2020 podcast from IHeartPodcasts, tells the story of how Muhammed Ali’s 1970 return to boxing in Atlanta went from the biggest bout in the world into one of the biggest thefts in the world. The show has assembled a who’s who of iconic actors—from Samuel L. Jackson and Don Cheadle to a reunion for Hustle & Flow stars Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson. It also features Kevin Hart in a rare dramatic-leaning role.
The Perfect Couple (Netflix)
Sept. 5
Nicole Kidman seems determined to dip her toe into every streaming service with a glossy, prestige series. After appearing on HBO, Amazon Prime, BBC, and Hulu, she’s now heading to Netflix for The Perfect Couple. Kidman, who plays the matriarch of an extremely wealthy Nantucket family married to Liev Schrieber, becomes suspicious of her son’s fiancée, played by Eve Hewson. On the eve of the wedding, a body is discovered on the beach, and soon, all the family secrets buried by power, money, and NDAs start to bubble to the surface.
Three Women (Starz)
Sept. 13
Three Women has had a long road to the screen, but the adaptation of the best-selling nonfiction book by Lisa Taddeo is finally coming our way this fall. It tells the story of, you guessed it, three women, each with separate stories but with unexpected commonalities. There’s Lina, played by Betty Gilpin, a stay-at-home mom having an affair; Sloane, a successful woman navigating a happy open marriage with her husband; and Maggie, a student who accuses her English teacher of an inappropriate relationship. Their stories are told by a character played by Shailene Woodley, a proxy for the author who travels the country in a beat-up van looking for inspiration.
How to Die Alone (Hulu)
Sept. 13
Before popping up again in The White Lotus next year, Natasha Rothwell stars in How to Die Alone, a series she also created. The comedy follows a disillusioned woman who has never been in love and is coasting through her days as a bored airport worker but, after a brush with death, decides to grab life by the collar and stop letting experiences pass her by.
Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story (Netflix)
Sept. 19
After striking awards gold with the true crime series Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, Ryan Murphy is back for a second installment of his controversial anthology franchise for a trip to the ‘90s with the Menendez Brothers. The series stars Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Cooper Koch as Lyle and Erik, the nouveau riche brothers convicted of killing their parents, played by Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny, for a slice of their multimillion-dollar fortune. The trial became one of the biggest media storms of the decade, and if there’s one thing Ryan Murphy knows how to recreate, thanks to his American Crime Story franchise, it’s juicy courtroom drama.
Grotesquerie (FX)
Sept. 25
Murders, gruesome religious imagery, demonic gore, Niecy Nash-Betts—yep, it’s another Ryan Murphy extravaganza. Grotesquerie finds Murphy back in his early American Horror Story mode with this horror drama about a detective and a nun trying to solve a series of, well, grotesque satanic murders in an ominous small town. The trailer gives little away about the actual plot, but it does leave you with that instantly recognisable Murphy shiver up your spine. Oh, the trailer also gives us one second of Travis Kelce—yes, that Travis Kelce—in his actor era.
Nobody Wants This (Netflix)
Sept. 26
Great news for everyone who was radicalized by Seth Cohen on The OC in the early 2000s and has spent the last 20 years wishing Adam Brody would be in every TV show and film ever made—he’s starring in the new Netflix series Nobody Wants This. And if that wasn’t enough, it’s a rom-com too! It follows the unexpected odd-couple relationship between a rabbi and an agnostic woman. The show, created by multi-hyphenate funny woman Erin Foster, and inspired by her own life, also stars Kristen Bell and Veep’s Timothy Simons.
Social Studies (FX)
Sept. 27
Plenty of documentaries have been made about high school students navigating the throes of adolescence through the decades. In Social Studies, the lens is firmly on the role technology and the internet plays in the lives of this current crop of teenagers. Having grown up entirely with the internet within arms reach (no big computers in the family room here), the series looks at how constant access to the world of internet trends, beauty standards, and 24/7 news access is affecting kids on the precipice of adulthood in L.A.
The Franchise (HBO)
October TBA
Armando Iannucci has taken a satirical sledgehammer to the world of politics, in Veep and The Thick of It; history (The Death of Stalin) and journalism (I’m Alan Partridge). Now, he’s aiming at the world of movie-making—specifically, superhero movie-making. The Franchise, which is co-created by director Sam Mendes, follows the production of a big-budget Hollywood and all the issues that arise when you bring together a bunch of actors in spandex tights. We’re already dreading and craving the discourse in equal measure.
Disclaimer (Apple TV+)
Oct. 11
Beyond a couple of small roles in shows at the start of the decade, Cate Blanchett is a rare Hollywood A-lister who has mostly ignored the lure of prestige TV. Until now. In the psychological thriller Disclaimer, Blanchett stars as a journalist who discovers she is a prominent part of a new novel, and it exposes a secret she’s been trying to keep hidden. In typical Apple TV+ fashion, the producers roped in a celebrated auteur behind the camera, Alfonso Cuarón, which probably goes some of the way to explaining why Blanchett is finally taking the TV plunge. The show also stars Kevin Kline.
Before (Apple TV+)
Oct. 25
Billy Crystal is shedding his comedy persona for this delve into the world of psychological thrillers with Before, a series he is executive producing for Apple TV+. In it, he stars as Eli, a child psychiatrist who, after losing his wife, works with a troubled young boy who seems to have some kind of ominous connection to his past. The series also stars Rosie Perez and Judith Light as Crystal’s late wife.
A Man on the Inside (Netflix)
November TBA
Four years after wrapping up their afterlife comedy The Good Place, Ted Danson and Mike Schur are teaming up again. The series is based on the Oscar-nominated documentary The Mole Agent, and follows a retiree who answers an ad to become a mole in a secret investigation inside a retirement home. There will be a handful of familiar faces returning from the wider Schur-iverse, like Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Stephanie Beatriz and The Good Place’s Marc Evan Jackson.
Say Nothing (FX/Hulu)
Nov. 14
In recent years, we’ve had a handful of shows that have touched on the still-open wound of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. While Derry Girls and the recent Netflix series Bodkin gave them a comedic touch, Say Nothing is a murder mystery set against the backdrop of 40 years of unrest. The series, based on Patrick Radden Keefe’s award-winning 2019 nonfiction book, opens with the disappearance of a single mother in 1972, and spans the decades since as the story slowly unfolds.
Landman (Paramount+)
Nov. 17
The Taylor Sheridan TV industrial complex shows no signs of slowing down. After the enormous success of Yellowstone and its spin-offs 1883 and 1923, as well as Tulsa King and Mayor of Kingstown, Sheridan is back with Landman, a series based on the podcast Boomtown about Texas’ oil industry. Billy Bob Thornton will be bringing his Southern drawl to the upstairs-downstairs style series as a crisis executive at an oil company.
Interior Chinatown (Hulu)
Nov. 19
Charles Yu’s award-winning 2020 novel Interior Chinatown is coming to the small screen, with Yu as showrunner. The story follows Willis Wu, played in the series by comedian Jimmy O. Yang, a struggling character actor idling away in background TV work who finds himself in the spotlight after witnessing a crime in Chinatown. While navigating newfound fame, he also investigates and ends up uncovering a web of secrets beneath the vibrant neighborhood’s lights.
Senna (Netflix)
Nov. 29
Back in 2010, Asif Kapadia released his critically acclaimed documentary about the life of Brazilian race car legend Ayrton Senna. Now, Senna is getting the drama treatment in a new series that follows his racing roots from the beginning of his career to his death at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. The show was made in partnership with Senna’s family, who’ve promised there will be elements of his story that have never been heard before. Senna is played by Gabriel Leone, who is something of an old hand when it comes to playing Formula 1 drivers—he was last seen as Spanish driver Alfonso de Portago in Michael Mann’s Ferrari.
Returning
Slow Horses Season 4 (Apple TV+)
Sept. 4
The initial buzz for Slow Horses was, well, slow. But as it enters its fourth season, just about everyone who has seen it shouts that it’s the best show on TV right now. The comedic British spy thriller stars Gary Oldman and is based on a series of novels by writer Mick Herron which follow the happenings of the agents of Slough House, a purgatory for MI5 agents who haven’t been fired but have been left to waste away in administrative boredom. Already greenlit for a fifth outing, this season will delve further into the backstories of Slough House’s residents.
Selling Sunset Season 8 (Netflix)
Sept. 6
More multimillion-dollar houses, more intra-office drama in the Oppenheimer Group, more nonsensical transition music and more completely inappropriate outfits for work. What else can be said about Selling Sunset Season 8?
The Old Man Season 2 (Hulu)
Sept. 12
Jeff Bridges is back as the titular old man, although that moniker isn’t as mean as it sounds. He stars as a former CIA agent who finds himself on the run after killing an intruder in his home. Part Taken, part The Odd Couple, The Old Man’s second season sees Bridges and co-star John Lithgow attempt to save an FBI protege, played by Alia Shawcat, from the clutches of a terrorist warlord in Afghanistan.
Emily in Paris, Season 4 Part 2 (Netflix)
Sept. 12
Yes, she’s still in Paris. Emily’s latest escapades on the continent kicked off in August and, in typical Netflix fashion, will return for its second part this fall. Part 1 was a rollercoaster, with workplace assault allegations, false pregnancy tests and three seasons of sexual tension bubbling over, but Part 2 seems to suggest things could be looking up for everyone’s favorite (or not) social media guru.
Read more: Emily in Paris Is Ridiculous, But It’s Not Stupid
Heartstopper Season 3 (Netflix)
Oct. 3
It’s officially autumn when those animated Heartstopper leaves pop up on our screens again. The sickly-sweet teen series that follows the adolescent romance of Nick and Charlie and their web of queer friends is back for a third season. While its first two outings were cup mug-of-hot-chocolate levels of comforting, its third outing promises to be a bit darker, as themes like anxiety, eating disorders, and parental abandonment made their way into the last few episodes.
Read more: How Heartstopper Helped Young Fans Around the World Come to Terms With Their Sexuality
The Diplomat Season 2 (Netflix)
Oct. 31
The Diplomat’s first season ended on an explosive cliffhanger. The show follows the trials of the new U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom (Keri Russell) as she balances her tumultuous relationship with her ambitious husband (Rufus Sewell) while fending off basically every international disaster known to man, including a conspiracy that threatens to detonate geopolitics forever. Allison Janney is heading back to her The West Wing roots as she joins the second season.
The Sex Lives of College Girls Season 3 (Max)
November TBA
Mindy Kaling’s The Sex Lives of College Girls was one of those Max shows fans were scared would get the chop after its second season, but thankfully, it lives to see another day. Still, it’s not without its casualties. The show, about a group of freshmen navigating college life, stars Amrit Kaur, Alyah Chanelle Scott, Pauline Chalamet and Renée Rapp. Rapp, however, announced a few months back that she will only be returning for a handful of episodes this season before departing for good to focus on her exploding music career instead. But as anyone who experienced college will tell you, you don’t need long to make good-bad decisions!
Bad Sisters Season 2 (Apple TV+)
Nov. 13
Bad Sisters was originally intended as a standalone mini-series, but when everyone went crazy for the Irish dark comedy, producers (and co-creator and star Sharon Horgan) quickly got working on a story for season 2. The first season followed five sisters embroiled in an insurance investigation into the death of one of their abusive husbands. One of them did murder him, but the sleuths can never find that out! The second season will jump ahead two years, and while the sisters may have moved on with their lives, past truths come to light and throw them back into chaos together.
Spin-offs
American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez (FX)
Sept. 17
If there’s a shocking American story dripping in tragedy and public scandal, you best believe Ryan Murphy will be there adapting it for the screen. As an offshoot of his American Crime Story franchise, American Sports Story will kick off with the story of Aaron Hernandez, the NFL player convicted of the murder of his sister-in-law’s fiancé. Rather than land us in the courtroom, the series, which stars Josh Andrés Rivera, will dissect the power of football in American culture and the tragedy of Hernandez’s place in it, especially regarding the brain-altering CTE he was found to suffer from posthumously.
Agatha All Along (Disney+)
Sept. 18
After more than a handful of name changes, it really was Agatha All Along. The breakout star of Marvel’s pandemic sensation WandaVision, Katherine Hahn plays Agatha Harkness who, after managing to escape Wanda’s simulated town of Westview, has to face the trials of the Witches’ Road with the help of a ragtag new coven of witches. The series co-stars the legendary Broadway star Patti Lupone, as well as Aubrey Plaza and Heartstopper’s Joe Locke.
The Penguin (HBO)
Sept. 19
While it’s still up in the air whether we’ll get another Robert Pattinson-led Batman after his 2022 outing, the Bat universe is being kept alive by Colin Farrell in a heaping pile of prosthetics. Farrell showed up as the legendary gangster Oswald “The Penguin” Cobblepot in Matt Reeves’ film, and this spin-off will dig deeper into his origins in the festering underbelly of Gotham.
Dune: Prophecy (HBO)
November TBA
Are Dune’s Bene Gesserit a group of ladies we’d like to get spicy margs with after work? Not really. But they are arguably the most compelling aspect of the epic’s sprawling universe we only get a glimpse of in Denis Villeneuve’s big-screen adaptations. Dune: Prophecy tracks the powerful sisterhood’s origins 10,000 years before the events of the film. It will follow the Bene Gesserit’s founding sisters Valya and Tula Harkonnen, who establish a lineage of women who obtain superhuman abilities to influence humanity for centuries to come, and stars Emily Watson and Olivia Williams.
Yellowstone Season 5 Part 2
Nov. 10
The linchpin in the Taylor Sheridan small-screen cinematic universe is set to conclude this fall…maybe. After a great deal of reported drama behind the scenes, the hugely popular Kevin Costner-led epic was widely assumed to be ending, though earlier this week Deadline reported that stars Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser are negotiating a sixth season.
Final seasons
My Brilliant Friend Season 4 (HBO)
Sept. 9
HBO’s adaptation of Elena Farrante’s best selling series of novels has picked up a devoted set of fervent fans since it launched in 2018. The Italian story follows Lila and Lenù from coming-of-age teenagers to middle-aged women, tracing the ups and downs of their friendship as their lives diverge into adulthood. The fourth season will be its last and will wrap up in the 1980s.
What We Do in the Shadows Season 6 (FX)
Oct. 21
Nothing can live forever, not even immortal vampires who’ve been walking the earth for hundreds of years. The fan favorite What We Do in the Shadows, the spin-off to the indie darling film made by Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement in 2014, is closing its Staten Island doors for the final time with its sixth season. While most of the plot is under wraps, the final season will make good on wrapping up the quest of Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) to find his place in the world of darkness.
Somebody Somewhere Season 3 (HBO)
Oct. 27
Somebody Somewhere is a love letter to community. The series follows Sam, played by Bridget Everett, who moves home to small-town Kansas after the death of her sister and has to help her alcoholic mother and struggling father. It’s not a barrel of laughs but it drips with sweet, sentimental humour as Sam finds her people amidst the fog of her concerns.
Cobra Kai Season 6, Part 2 of 3 (Netflix)
Nov. 15
Netflix has made a habit of splitting its shows into two parts for the past few years, but with the sixth and final season of Cobra Kai, it has gone the extra mile by eking it out into three chunks. The first installment of the series kicked off in July and then its final episodes will drop in 2025. The show, which has been streaming since 2018, is a sequel to the iconic The Karate Kid (1984) and brought together classic film enemies Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence, played by Ralph Macchio and William Zabka.
