Each week our staff of film and TV experts surveys the entertainment landscape to select the ten best new/newish shows available for you to stream at home. We put a lot of thought into our selections, and our debates on what to include and what not to include can sometimes get a little heated and feelings may get hurt, but so be it, this is an important service for you, our readers. With that said, here are our selections for this week.
20. Platonic (Apple TV Plus)
From the outside, you may think that you know where this series is going, but the show promises to be even more chaotic than you expect. Rose Byrne and Seth Rogen play old friends who reunite after people grow apart (as they do), and it soon grows apparent that he shakes up her little world. Fortunately, she does appear to be happily married, and her husband approves of (and, in fact, encourages) this rekindled friendship — at least, until the horse tranquilizers come into play. It happens.
19. Run Rabbit Run (Netflix)
Succession’s Sarah Snook is back on our screens in what looks like an ultra-tense psychological thriller/horror film complete with a creepy kid, creepier paper masks, and even creepier crayon drawings. Also, there’s a rabbit. Which is VERY CREEPY. We don’t know if this is going to be the rare scarer that hits with audiences, but we know Snook always delivers a powerhouse performance that’s worth the price of admission… and this is Netflix, so there is not really a price of admission. So… win-win?
18. Hijack (Apple TV)
Hijack asks a question that has been on all of our minds for over a decade now: What if we took 24, with its real-time running clock playing out over the course of a full season, but instead it was seven hours and with Idris Elba and on an airplane? Okay, maybe you weren’t asking that exact question for the last 10 years. But you probably are now. Which is okay, seeing as that’s basically what Hijack is. Look at us, solving little problems we didn’t even know existed. It’s not as dramatic as, say, thwarting terrorists in the skies, to choose an example at random, but still. Not too shabby.
17. I’m A Virgo (Amazon Prime)
The last time we checked in with Boots Riley, he was taking us on a deeply wild ride with Sorry to Bother You. Well, he’s back, and deeply wild again, this time with a new series about a 13-foot-tall man named Cootie who has a bunch of interesting experiences out in the world, delving into everything from love to friendship to… actually, you should just watch this one to find out. Our words can’t do it justice. Especially not for the thing where Walton Goggins shows up as a character named The Hero. This is a weird one, to be sure but it’s a weird one in the best way possible.
16. The Walking Dead: Dead City (AMC Plus)
All hail the never-ending franchise’s new spinoffs, which begin with Manhattan-bound misadventure to reinforce what a bad idea it is to head into cities with zombies afoot. Fortunately, this is a thrilling throwback, in which Maggie pretty much forces Negan to help her rescue Hershel Rhees, son of Glenn and Maggie, obviously. Hey, Negan owes her one, so let the walker variants roll
15. Secret Invasion (Disney Plus)
Nick Fury is having a not-so-great time with the “one last job” trope as he heads back into MCU hijinks for what might be his “one last fight.” We do live in unusual Hollywood times, and with Captain Marvel, the Skrulls somehow became the good guys, so we’ll see how Talos fares in this standalone series. Not only are Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn onboard, but Emilia Clarke and Olivia Colman also formally enter the MCU with this show, and we will apparently see some Rhodey on this “crossover event series,” too. Only enough, there’s some eye-patch-less Fury in the mix, so I hope we get some more Goose to add even more context.
14. My Adventures With Superman (Max)
The world isn’t lacking for Supermen. Some people still can’t let go of Henry Cavil, we just saw his replacement get cast (David Corenswet), saw tributes to past Supers galore in The Flash (in addition to Sasha Calle co-starring as Supergirl) and there’s Superman And Lois on the CW with Tyler Hoechlin donning the red cape. Despite the familiarity, though, we’re pumped for a new animated adventure that promises to stand apart from the field by leaning into an anime style and focusing on the awkward phase of Superman’s (and Clark Kent’s) life when he was still finding himself as a hero and intern at the Daily Planet.
13. The Horrors of Dolores Roach (Amazon Prime)
Three things are true here:
- This is a show about a woman who gets out of prison and starts making empanadas in her stoner friend’s basement
- The empanadas are filled with meat from humans she has killed
- The show is actually pretty fun
Lot going on here. Worth checking out, if only out of curiosity.
12. Extraction 2 (Netflix)
Here’s what we know about Extraction 2: It sees Chris Hemsworth returning to action as the left-for-dead mercenary-turned-hero Tyler Rake (still a terrific name) who’s tasked with saving more people in peril. Here’s what we don’t know about Extraction 2: How the hell this movie got made. The stunt list alone should’ve had insurance companies running for the hills. There’s talk that Hemsworth is lit on fire at one point. There are dizzying car chases filmed on a continuous loop. Just 20-minute-long car chases, people! Helicopters are out here landing on moving trains. Who let these men do this?
11. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Paramount Plus)
What we have here is a spinoff of one show (Star Trek: Discovery) that was itself a prequel to another show (the original Star Trek), now in its second season. We are deep into the lore here. But that’s okay. It’s a fun little ride, good for both diehard fans of the franchise and newbies trying to dip their toes in a little. You could use a little galactic escape sometimes. We all can.
10. Warrior (Max)
Warrior is back for a third season, still starring Andrew Koji as Ah Sahm and still set in 19th century San Francisco and still based on the writings of Bruce Lee, but now it’s on Max, which was previously known as HBO Max, after originally debuting on Cinemax back in 2019. There’s a lot going on here, most of it involving some usage of the letters m-a-x, but the bottom line remains the same: it’s a good show that’s full of action and cool fights scenes and sometimes that’s exactly what you need when it starts getting hot outside.
9. Wham! (Netflix)
Much like The Beastie Boys (only not like them at all), this duo began their journey as high school pals who decided, what the hell, let’s form a pop band. Soon enough, they became a global sensation, and this documentary promises to pluck a few heartstrings while looking back at George Michael (RIP) and Andrew Ridgeley’s personal trove of footage along with previously unrevealed discussions from both pop stars.
8. Jack Ryan (Amazon Prime)
John Krasinski is back for another run as Jack Ryan, the Tom Clancy character who has been saving the world for the last 30 or 40 years, played by everyone from Harrison Ford to Chris Pine. Wendell Pierce is in there, too. It’s kind of wild to think about, really, this thing where Jim from The Office and Bunk from The Wire have been running around for a few seasons now saving the world on a show made by the same company that ships vitamins and kitchen utensils to your house in 48 hours. But it’s happening. The future is pretty weird!
7. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FXX/Hulu)
It’s the 16th season of It’s Always Sunny and if you’re not already endlessly in love with this gang of moronic miscreants and their low-rent misadventures I don’t know that you can be saved. For those who have fallen off a little over the years, though, please allow us to reassure you that the show is as good, chaotic, vile, silly, and subtly smart as ever, trading international hijinks in Ireland during part of last season for a back to basics approach. In just the first two episodes we’ve seen Mac, Charlie, Dee, Dennis, and Frank giving us a cliffs notes understanding of inflation and crypto (as only Always Sunny can), revelations about Charlie and Frank’s cramped apartment, a crazy family road trip, and a whole lot of casual gunplay. And that’s just the first two episodes. We can’t wait to see the rest.
6. The Out-Laws (Netflix)
Hey, do you wanna spend like 90 minutes this weekend watching a movie that stars Adam Devine and Nina Dobrev as a young married couple and Pierce Brosnan and Ellen Barkin as her parents who might also secretly be bank robbers? Before you answer, please remember that it is 8000 degrees outside and you probably have air conditioning in your room. And that any movie where Pierce Brosnan plays a maybe secret thief is a solid summer watch. Okay, now you can answer.
5. Black Mirror (Netflix)
Can the bleak freaky award-winning anthology series and buzz machine from a few years ago still scare the piss out of audiences now that the world has been brought closer to some of its popular themes about metaverses, AI everywhere, neural implants, evaporating privacy protections, and the malignancy of loneliness and hollowness of digital interactions? We’re about to find out with five new star-studded episodes that beg for our attention while it’s still ours to control.
4. Muscles & Mayhem: An Unauthorized Story of American Gladiators (Netflix)
American Gladiators exists at the intersection of cheesy ’80s and early ’90s WWF/WWE wrestling, pro football, and action films like Running Man, a former weekend TV staple and likely forgotten piece of pop culture ephemera trapped in a time capsule that just got busted open for a new Netflix docuseries. What’s inside? A whole lotta spandex and tales of pumping up, sex, drugs, and mayhem, feeding Where Are They Now fascinations around larger-than-life one-named stars like Gemini, Ice, and Blaze. Oh, and there’s a behind-the-scenes power player who dressed up like Elvis.
3. The Witcher (Netflix)
Henry Cavill has one foot out the door of this franchise, which is unfortunate, but we’ll see what Liam Hemsworth brings to the table in the future. Further, this season will apparently bring us (from the looks of the above teaser) plenty of banger-filled Jaskier with newfound eyeliner. Ideally, this means that the show will go ahead and declare Jaskier canonically bisexual because they’ve been dancing around the issue long enough. And god only knows that the Netflix franchise has tweaked Andrzej Sapkowski books and the video games enough over the years already, so what’s one more time?
2. The Bear (FX/Hulu)
The first season of The Bear was often chaotic and intense in the very best of ways. But while season two doesn’t move fully away from that formula, it all feels a little more slow-burn and structured as it seeks to tell a story about what happens when you dare to take a chance and change things up. How discombobulating it is and how the universe reacts. We thought last season was a main course, but it was apparently just an appetizer.
1. The Righteous Gemstones (Max)
The super-rich mega-church proprietors are back and they’re ready to step into a new chapter that sees patriarch Eli Gemstone ceding control to his kids. Shades of Succession? In some surface ways, sure, but Gemstones is its own swirl of chaos and genius, and this new season goes all in on family feuds while adding monster trucks, romantic entanglements, backwoods survivalists doing that thing they do, and an all-new Baby Billy scheme.