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. The Golden Bachelor (Hulu)
What we have on our hands here is a Bachelor spinoff about an older gentleman looking for love from a group of similarly aged ladies. Which is… honestly kind of adorable. Good for them. And good for us, too, especially if one of the episodes features a date where they eat dinner at a diner at 4:45 and then go watch an episode of Columbo in matching recliners. This was written as a joke but honestly sounds kind of wonderful. That’s true love right there, people.
19. Pete Holmes: I’m Not For Everybody (Netflix)
Some comics want to watch the world burn, others are so in their own heads that it makes us feel like we’re sitting in on a therapy session. And that’s okay. There are many roads to Giggletown. But for Pete Holmes, the path to funny weaves through a world filled with fun weirdos and micro-annoyances. So if you’re looking to avoid the dreaded discourse for an hour, mentally touch some grass, and play with an amiable giant who favors quirky interactions with cashiers and knows that the pathway to oblivion is sprinkled with Dorito dust, then Holmes’ Netflix special might be for you.
18. The Morning Show (Apple TV Plus)
Is The Morning Show the best drama on TV in a world absent Better Call Saul and Succession? Well, no, but it’s definitely the dramaest drama on TV, leaning on its star power to cut through moments that might be eye-roll-inducing if you weren’t so captivated by the screen presence of Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Billy Crudup, and Jon Hamm, who joins this season as a handsome version of Elon Musk. Backstabbing, front-stabbing, walk and talks, politics, high tension, and ripped-from-the-headlines storylines all come together, yet again, with our news and media power players moving more fully toward the game of mergers, acquisitions, and boardroom battles where the real prizes can be found.
17. The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon (AMC Plus)
The only “solo” spinoff of AMC’s post-apocalyptic world is upon us. Daryl is most entertaining character to send to France, and he’s also the least religious of the bunch, which makes it awfully funny to see him hanging with a bunch of nuns after waking up in France like “WTF?” Most of all, though, Daryl earns his “Big Ass Kicker” nickname and we also get a lovely character study of the most loyal and industrious survivor of Rick’s old bunch. The action also delivers, so get ready for crossbows and total chaos at Parisian landmarks. Pssst, we also chose the most essential to watch before this spinoff.
16. Upload (Amazon Prime)
Welcome to the third season of Upload, a fun little science fiction-y comedy from the creator of The Office, Greg Daniels, that is set in 2033 in a world where humans can — you guessed it — upload themselves into a virtual afterlife when they die. The show follows Nathan, a guy who dies young under potentially mysterious circumstances and tries to sort things through from a very fancy new virtual community. It sounds strange. We promise it’s pretty fun.
15. Boogeyman (Hulu)
This 2023 movie goes back to the 1973 short story by Stephen King as the perfect streaming lead-in to nightmares about Halloween season. This is not a true tale, but perhaps thinking of it that way can increase the terror. The story explores the enduring Boogeyman/Bogeyman folklore that has persisted around the globe for centuries. We’ve got a distracted father not paying enough attention to a pair of sisters, who begin to experience horrors that could trigger any lingering fears you’ve ever had about monsters lurking in your bedroom closet. The cast includes Sophie Thatcher, David Dastmalchian, and Chris Messina.
14. Goosebumps (Disney Plus)
RL Stine’s Goosebumps series was the catalyst for plenty of children’s nightmares in the 90s and Disney+ is hoping to continue that reign of terror with their latest reboot. The kids have aged up – they’re high schoolers with hormonal angst seeping from their pores now. And the mystery isn’t anthologized, instead spread out over the course of 10 episodes. But you can still feel Stine’s evil genius working as murder investigations and suspicious parents and cursed artifacts open up a bigger world of supernatural secrets.
13. Lessons in Chemistry (Apple TV)
Brie Larson has never shied away from speaking out for feminist causes, and in this series, she stars in the adaptation of Bonnie Garmus’ bestselling novel, Lessons In Chemistry. Garmus became an overnight “a literary rock star” at age 66 for this impressive debut novel that is all the rage in book clubs everywhere. That will give the show a built-in audience as Larson portrays a brilliant chemist who is fired for a sexist double standard. This leads to an unexpected career change as a cooking show host. This high-profile new platform allows her to sandwich in other nuggets of wisdom for housewives as well as demonstrating how to bake yummy cookies.
12. Living for the Dead (Hulu)
Kristen Stewart’s gay ghost hunting show has everything: slayances, spook-kikis, haunted strip clubs, and comedian Roz Hernandez snacking on donuts while she yells at homophobic poltergeists. The group – a hodgepodge of paranormal experts that includes a psychic, a witch, and a tarot card reader – road trips across the country in this docuseries produced by the Queer Eye creators, chatting it up with demonic entities and benevolent spooks to get to the root of some very real, very human problems. If there’s a better way to spend your weekend than watching a group of well-dressed Queer spiritualists commune with the dead while cracking jokes and busting stereotypes, we don’t want to know about it.
11. Life On Our Planet (Netflix)
Three things you need to know here:
- This is kind of like if Planet Earth had been executive producer by Steven Spielberg, who does executive produce this
- The official description is as follows: “The story of life’s epic, 4 billion-year journey on Earth, told through its ruling dynasties, its underdogs and the cataclysmic events that reshaped it”
- This sucker is narrated by Morgan Freeman
Settle deeeeep into your couch and turn off the lights and enjoy.
10. Gen V (Amazon Prime)
Come for the dong jokes, and stay for the dong jokes. Much like The Boys, this spinoff does not skim on the raunch, and it also gives us a whole new roster of Supes who might feel differently about Vought International’s motives. This series seemingly pulls off the impossible by managing to be as appealing as the flagship series without the presence of its most shining and degraded beacon, Homelander. This franchise shows no sign of wearing out or fatiguing its audience as both the MCU and DCU have managed to do, which might be the most heroic feat of all in the present entertainment realm.
9. If You Were The Last (Peacock)
A rom-com in space? Sure, why not? There’s likely no better way to kill some time on a doomed ship that will never make its way back to Earth than to, you know, consider the “if you were the last person…” scenario that comes to life. Actually, damn, this is dark stuff! It’s a good thing that Anthony Mackie is over there making flirty eyes at Zoe Chao. Very distracting.
8. Five Nights at Freddy’s (Peacock)
Have you ever been convinced that the animatronics at Chuck E. Cheese are freaking evil? Welcome to Five Nights At Freddy’s. In this adaptation of the wildly popular video game, Josh Hutcherson stars as Mike Schmidt, a security guard who’s about to seriously regret his new job. Tasked with keeping an eye on Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza joint, Mike quickly learns that the night shift is a terrifying hell ride as the pizzeria’s animatronic creatures come to life with a task of their own: Kill. Like the game, Mike will have to do everything in his power to survive the night and elude the dead-eyed mechanical monsters hunting him down.
7. Loki (Disney Plus)
When we last left Loki, the title character (Tom Hiddleston) had traveled to an alternate version of the Time Variance Authority where no one remembers him and there are statues of Kang (Jonathan Majors) everywhere. This second season picks up where we left off, only Loki soon discovers he’s being thrust back and forth not to an alternate timeline, but the past and present of his current timeline. Seeking the help of the present-day Mobius (Owen Wilson, the past’s version doesn’t know Loki) the two seek out Ke Huy Quan’ Ouroboros (or OB for short), a fellow who has been around a long time and seems to know how to do everything, to stop Loki from doing these involuntary jumps back and forth through time.
Also, Loki and Mobius are charged with finding one of Kang’s variants, for reasons that are too complicated to explain here. So the pair travel to 19th-century Chicago to find an inventor and con man named Victor Timely. The problem is other people with the ability to jump through time are also after Timely and his fate has repercussions on multiple timelines.
This show is a lot, which is by design, but it’s still a lot. The first season played as good fun, and this second season is also fun, though maybe just a little less so (at least through four episodes), but while watching it’s hard to forget the real world where one of the main cast members is on trial for assault.
6. Rick and Morty (Adult Swim)
Rick and Morty used to take notoriously long breaks between seasons, but not this time. Season seven of the animated sci-fi comedy series returns less than a year after the season six finale. There have been big changes behind the scenes, however: co-creator Justin Roiland, who also voiced the title characters, was fired from the show. Tricky line to straddle going forward, but the show has rarely let us down before.
5. Pain Hustlers (Netflix)
Emily Blunt portrays a down-on-her-luck single mom who launches a new career alongside Chris Evans’ pharmaceutical sales rep. Not a great idea, ultimately, given that she becomes involved in a racketeering scheme. And of course, she begins to realize that this company’s success is coming at a ghastly price for humanity. This is a dramatized version of the rise and fall of Insys Therapeutics, which no longer exists, and yeah, you will definitely find out why.
4. Our Flag Means Death (Max)
Hey, here’s a fun one. We’ve got Rhys Darby and Taika Waititi and everyone is a pirate and most of them are gay. This show has been an unexpected blast for a while now and it’s always nice when those are in our lives. Treat yourself. Have some fun. Watch some gay pirates on the high seas. You deserve it.
3. Big Mouth (Netflix)
The seventh season of Big Mouth ties Orange is the New Black and Grace and Frankie as Netflix’s longest-running scripted series (it will break the record in its eighth and final season). Not bad for an animated show about horny teenagers and hormone monsters. Guest stars this season include Megan Thee Stallion, Lupita Nyong’o, and Pulitzer Prize winner Lin-Manuel Miranda as a pubic hair. Good show.
2. The Fall of the House of Usher (Netflix)
Mike Flanagan fans, get ready. The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass showrunner is back along with Carla Gugino, who will spook your soul right out of your bod and deliver a “consequential” evening to “a collection of stunted hearts” that is the Usher family. Yikes. Do not expect a literal adaptation of the Edgar Allen Poe short story. The story focuses here on the hell created by ruthless siblings Roderick and Madeline Usher, who built Fortunato Pharmaceuticals into an empire of wealth, privilege, and power. Horrible secrets shall surface when the heirs to the Usher dynasty start dying at the hands of a mysterious woman, portrayed with glee by Gugino.
1. No Hard Feelings (Netflix)
No Hard Feelings is more than just the scene of Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence beating up teenagers while naked. I mean, it’s that, but it’s also a breezy R-rated comedy with some genuine moments of heart. Lawrence and co-star Andrew Barth Feldman have strong chemistry, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Natalie Morales, and Kyle Mooney show up in funny supporting roles. If every movie is going to be based on an existing property, forget comic books — make more Craigslist ad comedies.*