All Her Fault
When: Available now
Where: Peacock
What It Is: Based on a 2021 novel of the same name by Andrea Mara, the story centers on Marissa Irvine, who goes to pick up her son, Milo, up from a playdate. The woman who answers the door has never seen or heard of either Marissa or Milo. The resulting search for her son tears Marissa’s life apart at the seams.
Why It’s Worth a Look: Sarah Snook stars in the series in her first post-Succession TV role, opposite Dakota Fanning. Ideal viewing for Big Little Lies or Gone Girl fans—or anyone who likes to kick the colder seasons off with a gripping mystery.
Death by Lightning
When: Available now
Where: Netflix
What It Is: This four-part miniseries stars the other half of the TomShiv romance, with Matthew Macfayden as an assassin chasing after Michael Shannon’s 20th U.S. President, James A. Garfield. With equal parts eccentricity and historical heft, the show depicts a little-known upset in the American political machine.
Why It’s Worth a Look: Nick Offerman rounds out the trio of madmen with beards here, and Macfayden delivers a performance that prompted The Guardian to proclaim: “absolutely nobody plays losers like Matthew Macfadyen.” The show is worth watching for the acting alone, but the stranger-than-fiction plot is pretty good too.
Pluribus
When: Available now, airing weekly through Dec. 26
Where: Apple TV+
What It Is: Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul creator Vince Gilligan reunites with Kim Wexler actor Rhea Seehorn in this dark sci-fi comedy. When an extraterrestrial virus joins humanity in a single, peaceful hive mind, the few holdouts, including Seehorn, are targeted for assimilation.
Why It’s Worth a Look: Seeing Gilligan and Seehorn back in action together is enough of a draw for Breaking Bad stans (or for X-Files fans who want to see Gilligan reunited with aliens), but Pluribus has plenty of gen-pop appeal. Its exploration of our divided, misanthropic times is both prescient and hilarious.
Palm Royale (Season 2)
When: Available now, airing weekly through Jan. 14
Where: Apple TV+
What It Is: In season one, Kristin Wiig starred as Maxine Dellacorte-Simmons, an outsider striving to break into the ranks of Palm Beach’s high society in the 1970s. An exclusive country club, the Palm Royale, became the focus of her machinations. Now, Dellacorte-Simmons is looking to overcome the litany of public scandals she sparked last season.
Why It’s Worth a Look: Early reviews for season two promise enough meaty plot to balance the stunning visuals of the slow-paced earlier episodes. If you watched season one for the period fashion alone, or skipped entirely, expect to find plots rife with sex, murder, and betrayal here.
The Beast in Me
When: Available now
Where: Netflix
What It Is: It’s been done before, but Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys do it well. Danes is the depressed author looking for inspiration. Rhys is the accused murderer next door who becomes the subject of her next book, leading the two into a tête-a-tête that plumbs the secrets of both their lives.
Why It’s Worth a Look: The psychological thriller has already prompted a litany of “is he the killer” and “ending explained,” articles, dissecting a plotline that dropped only a week and some change ago. We’re betting you’ll want to get in on any future discussions of this sharp limited series.
A Man on the Inside (Season 2)
When: Premiering Nov. 20
Where: Netflix
What It Is: Ted Danson received a Golden Globe nom for his work on the first season of this show, where he stars as a winsome retiree that goes undercover at a retirement home, shaking things up by working as a P.I. In his second outing, Danson instead goes undercover as a visiting professor at a university where a laptop worth $400 million has gone missing.
Why It’s Worth a Look: The darker reality gets, the more feel-good TV we seem to be receiving on the airwaves. This is worthwhile fare, lifted on the back of Danson’s seemingly endless charm and amusing run-ins.
Fallout (Season 2)
When: Premiering Dec. 17, airing weekly
Where: Prime Video
What It Is: Two centuries after the Great War of 2077 led to a nuclear holocaust, humanity is living underground or scrounging around on a desolate surface. In season one, Ella Purnell, Aaron Moten, Kyle MacLachlan, and Walton Goggins all came together to expose the cracks in the new world order. In season two, the characters venture to Las Vegas to wreak further havoc.
Why It’s Worth a Look: I suppose it’s time to stop being surprised when shows based on video games are good. Fallout has an only vaguely RPG feeling, and expands its source material into an immersive apocalyptic universe packed with career-high performances from several of its leads.
The Night Manager (Season 2)
When: Jan. 11, airing weekly
Where: Prime Video
What It Is: In 2016, the first season of The Night Manager was nominated for 36 awards, winning 11. Tom Hiddleston starred as the manager of a luxury hotel in Cairo, recruited to aid in an investigation into illegal arms sales. In season two, the moody British crime drama wraps Hiddleston back into the action after he spots an old mercenary walking the streets of London.
Why It’s Worth a Look: Sweeping shots of the skyline, women in red dresses, people making out in the trailer: The Night Manager has everything one might expect of a Bond-esque thriller made for TV. But Hiddleston and Olivia Colman ground the drama in performances that push this project out of clichés and into must-binge territory.
Steal
When: Premiering Jan. 21
Where: Prime Video
What It Is: Sophie Turner stars as a grunt worker at Lochmill Capital, a pension fund investment company, alongside Archie Madekwe. When a band of thieves show up, the duo are forced to carry out their increasingly alarming demands.
Why It’s Worth a Look: Who would steal ordinary people’s pensions? That is the question investigator Jacob Fortune-Lloyd is looking to answer in this new British miniseries, a dive into the potential collapse of a flawed system we know all-too-well on either side of the pond.
in your life?
