The 6 must-watch new TV shows this fall
FX / Showtime / Paramount+ / Hulu Juno Temple in 'Fargo'; Sinclair Daniel in 'The Other Black Girl'; Jonathan Bailey in 'Fellow Travelers'; Jeon Jong-Seo in 'Bargain'
Neither rain nor snow nor heat nor gloom of a double strike in Hollywood will stop the TV industry from flooding your screens with new shows this fall. But there's no need to dive in blind; start with this sampler of six EW-approved new series, ranging from a no-holds-barred Korean survival drama to a sexy and heartrending period romance. And who knows? By the time you've watched all of them, maybe the actors and writers will finally be back at work.
The Other Black Girl (Streaming now, Hulu)
Wilford Harwood/Hulu Ashleigh Murray, Sinclair Daniel, and Amber Reign Smith on 'The Other Black Girl'
Based on Zakiya Dalila Harris' 2021 bestselling novel, this brisk and bingeable comedy-mystery follows Nella Rogers (Sinclair Daniel), an aspiring editor at Wagner Books in New York City. As the only Black woman in the office, Nella feels alternately patronized and alienated by her white peers and high-strung boss, Vera (Bellamy Young). When Wagner hires Hazel (Riverdale's Ashleigh Murray) — another accomplished, Black editorial assistant — Nella is thrilled, but she slowly comes to realize that her new friend has a mysterious and unsettling agenda. Co-starring Will & Grace's Eric McCormack as the head of Wagner books and Garcelle Beauvais as a pioneering novelist Nella idolizes, The Other Black Girl brings page-turner energy to a multi-layered story about racism in corporate America, the importance of personal identity, and what it really takes to succeed.
Found (Oct. 3, NBC)
Matt Miller/NBC Kelli Williams, Shanola Hampton, Gabrielle Elise Walsh, and Karan Oberoi on 'Found'
Found looks like a typical crime procedural, but a cuckoo-banana-pants twist makes it anything but. Created by Nkechi Okoro Carroll (All American), the drama stars Shanola Hampton as Gabi Mosely, a PR specialist who runs an agency dedicated to finding missing people who the authorities overlook. An abduction survivor herself, Gabi has assembled a team of experts — a behavioral specialist (Kelli Williams), a brilliant law student (Gabrielle Walsh), a tech whiz (Arlen Escarpeta), and a dogged investigator (Karan Oberoi) — who all have personal experience with the trauma of kidnapping. Sounds straightforward, right? Yeah, well, how about this: GABI IS KEEPING HER KIDNAPPER, PLAYED BY MARK-PAUL GOSSELAAR, CHAINED UP IN THE BASEMENT SO HE CAN HELP HER SOLVE CRIMES! (Sorry for yelling, but man, that really threw me.) Not only does Gabi's sinister secret make her far more interesting as a procedural protagonist, but it also proves once and for all that MPG makes everything better.
Bargain (Oct. 5, Paramount+)
TVING Co/Paramount+Hyung-soo
Korean survival dramas go hard, so if "body horror meets escape thriller meets disaster movie meets no-holds-barred satire about class inequality" doesn't sound appealing, keep scrolling. Noh Hyung-soo (Jin Sun-kyu) arrives at a remote hotel in the mountains thinking he's meeting alluring high school student Park Joo Young (Jeon Jong-Seo) for sex. Nope! He's stumbled into an organ-harvesting ring, and it isn't long until a group of strangers are bidding on his kidneys. That's when things get really intense. After an earthquake leaves the hotel half-destroyed, Hyung-soo and Joo Young — and a handful of bidders, including the desperate Geuk-ryul (Chang Ryul) — must scramble to escape while being pursued by the operation's cold-blooded boss (Park Hyoung-soo) and demented henchmen. Everyone's hustling each other as they hustle for their lives, which makes Bargain a darkly funny binge filled with hold-your-breath suspense.
Fellow Travelers (Oct. 29, Showtime)
Ben Mark Holzberg/SHOWTIME Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer on 'Fellow Travelers'
When Hawkins Fuller (Matt Bomer), a dashing State Department staffer, meets Tim Laughlin (Jonathan Bailey), a shy congressional aid, they fall hard for each other. It would all be very romantic, but Fellow Travelers — based on Thomas Mallon's 2007 novel — takes place in 1950s Washington, D.C., just as spotlight-stealing Senator Joe McCarthy (Chris Bauer) and his legal enforcer Roy Cohn (Will Brill) are leading a corrosive campaign against the perceived threats of Communism and homosexuality. Blending historical intrigue with deep longing and bittersweet passion, Fellow Travelers chronicles Hawk and Tim's tumultuous relationship over several decades. Bomer and Bailey bring the poignancy of their characters' forbidden love story to heartrending life, though at times their combined physical beauty onscreen is almost too much to bear. Almost.
All the Light We Cannot See (Nov. 2, Netflix)
Atsushi Nishijima/Netflix Nell Sutton (as young Marie-Laure) and Mark Ruffalo in 'All the Light We Cannot See'
With its extravagant production values and efficient four-hour run time, this adaptation of Anthony Doerr's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel feels like an intriguing throwback to classic miniseries of yore. Newcomer Aria Mia Loberti stars as Marie-Laure LeBlanc, a bright and charming blind girl who flees Paris with her father, Daniel (Mark Ruffalo), after the Nazis invade. They ultimately settle in the seaside city of Saint-Malo with Marie-Laure's uncle Etienne (Hugh Laurie), a traumatized World War I veteran. At the same time, a brilliant German orphan named Werner Pfenning (Louis Hofmann) is enlisted against his will to serve the Third Reich as a radio operator. All the Light follows the teens' separate-yet-connected experiences through the first four years of the war, which will ultimately bring them together during the Battle of Saint-Malo. Much like Doerr's novel, the miniseries unspools a gripping tale of wartime brutality while highlighting the humanity and hope that broke through amid the horror. And the image of Hugh Laurie gunning down Nazis is undeniably good for the soul.
Fargo (Nov. 21, FX)
Michelle Faye/FX Richa Moorjani in 'Fargo'
After an ill-conceived detour to 1950s Kansas City, Noah Hawley's cheerfully violent crime anthology is back home in Minnesota, circa 2019. Dot Lyon (Ted Lasso's Juno Temple) lives a quiet life in Scandia, MN, with her gentle husband, Wayne (David Rysdahl), and spirited daughter, Scotty (Sienna King). An unexpected fracas at the town's school board meeting puts Dot on the wrong side of the law, and soon her past — personified by steely South Dakota Sheriff Roy Tillman (Jon Hamm) — is back with a literal vengeance. As level-headed Deputies Indira Olmstead (Richa Moorjani) and Witt Farr (Lamorne Morris) try to sort out the ensuing chaos, Wayne's wealthy mom, Lorraine (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and Tillman's cocky son, Gator (Joe Keery), each execute their plans to bring Dot down. Steeped in the suburban anxieties of an increasingly polarized America, season 5 lets Fargo go back to its bleak and brutally funny basics.
Make sure to check out EW's Fall TV Preview cover story on Gen V — as well as all of our 2023 Fall TV Preview content, releasing through Sept. 21.
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