With Chad Powers, Hulu has its answer to Ted Lasso. Glen Powell’s football comedy is the latest addition to our list of the best shows to watch on Hulu right now. It joins other recent additions like The Lowdown, an Oklahoma-set noir that stars Ethan Hawke as a journalist in pursuit of the truth, and Alien: Earth, a blockbuster sci-fi drama that brings xenomorphs to the small screen. The rest of the list highlights other favorites like Only Murders in the Building, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, King of the Hill, and more. If you’re looking for something good to watch, Hulu has it for you.
There’s a method to our madness when it comes to our picks for this list. Our selections are focused on new releases, original shows from Hulu and FX, and critical hits you can’t stream anywhere else, as well as a handful of underrated favorites you might not find on other lists. These are the best shows to watch on Hulu right now.
More on Hulu:
Last updated Oct. 8; newer additions are at the top.
Chad Powers
Hulu watched Apple make a sports comedy based on a made-up character and turn it into more than 60 Emmy nominations and 13 wins, and figured, “We can do that.” Chad Powers is based on a prank sketch comedy character created by two-time Super Bowl winner Eli Manning, who donned prosthetics to change his appearance and tried out for Penn State as a walk-on for Manning’s web series Eli’s Places. In Hulu’s take, Hollywood It Guy Glen Powell plays Chad, a disgraced college football quarterback who takes a second chance at stardom by adopting a new persona and appearance to try to make a Southern football team. Steve Zahn co-stars as the team’s coach. –Tim Surette [Trailer]
The Lowdown
The great Ethan Hawke stars in this noir homage from Reservation Dogs creator Sterlin Harjo, who’s also great. Hawke plays Lee Raybon, a “truthstorian,” rare book dealer, and freelance journalist with a knack for finding the exact stories the powers that be in his hometown of Tulsa don’t want exposed — which, as you can see in the photo above, gets him in big trouble with people who are not afraid to give him the beatdown. As he follows the money, he finds out that this story goes everywhere. “At its heart, The Lowdown is a story that wants the viewer to care about the truth as much as its main character does,” Allison Picurro writes in her 9.5/10 review for TV Guide. “It’s fearless and gonzo, easily one of the best new shows of the year.” -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
Only Murders in the Building
Only Murders in the Building is at the center of an unlikely but wonderful Venn Diagram. It’s got sleuthing, Steve Martin and Martin Short, Selena Gomez, jokes about podcasts, fake Broadway musical flops, and Sting. The comedy-crime-farce hybrid follows a trio of neighbors — an actor with one long-ago TV hit (Martin), a washed-up Broadway director (Short), and an enigmatic artist (Gomez) — who come together to investigate murders in their building. It’s an old-school mystery about three lonely people with secrets that gets both deeper and sillier as it goes. And cast list keeps ballooning with big names — the new season features Academy Award winners Christoph Waltz and Renée Zellweger — as new seasons premiere every late summer/early fall like clockwork. –Kelly Connolly [Trailer]
The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox
The murder trial and conviction of college student Amanda Knox — and subsequent exoneration a few years later — fascinated observers in America, Knox’s home country, and Italy, where the crime took place, in the 2000s and 2010s. Knox was accused of killing her roommate, and didn’t get a fair trial amidst a judgmental media circus. This limited series tells the story from Amanda’s perspective as she fights for her freedom, with Grace Van Patten playing Knox. Knox and Monica Lewinsky are executive producers, with Knox co-writing the finale with creator K.J. Steinberg. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
Alien: Earth
Xenomorphs have been running around drooling on people for more than 45 years, but never like this. Fargo‘s Noah Hawley reimagines Alien for TV with this smart and surprising franchise expansion. Sydney Chandler stars as Wendy, the first human-synthetic hybrid, a girl whose consciousness was uploaded to a powerful humanoid robot body. As she comes to terms with what she is, she has to decide how human she wants to be. Meanwhile, the aliens — Xenomorphs and Facehuggers, of course, but also a squid-like eyeball monster that takes over its host’s body and brain in gross, terrifying fashion — have crash-landed on Earth, and the Prodigy corporation can only contain them for so long. It’s a large-scale, ambitious show with timely themes of AI questions and corporations (and individuals) with too much power. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
King of the Hill
Mike Judge and Greg Daniels’ cult favorite Texas-set animated sitcom is back for a new season, 15 years after the last one. Bobby Hill (Pamela Adlon) is grown up now, and his father Hank (Judge) and his mother Peggy (Kathy Najimy) are older, but it’s still the same satirical but warm-hearted slice of American life. The world has gotten stranger, and Hank is increasingly befuddled by it, but he loves his family, even if that boy still ain’t right. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
Washington Black
Based Esi Edugyan’s 2018 novel of the same name, Washington Black is a globe-spanning coming-of-age story. Unlike the book, the limited series is split between two timelines, with the first following the young George Washington “Wash” Black (Eddie Karanja) as he escapes enslavement in Barbados and travels the world with the plantation owner’s brother, Titch (Tom Ellis). The series also jumps ahead to find an older Washington (Ernest Kingsley Jr.) living in Nova Scotia, where he’s mentored by town leader Medwin Harris (Sterling K. Brown), a Black refugee with his own traumatic past. –Kelly Connolly
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is the highest form of escapist humor on TV, like if the average person’s id was in control of a long-running cable comedy. Following the daily lives of a morally bankrupt, self-absorbed, clinically insane, often irredeemable foursome who own and operate a bar in Philadelphia, Sunny is the kind of series that delights in refusing to let its characters grow as people. As a unit, the gang has only succeeded in becoming more narcissistic and clueless to the world around them as the seasons have stretched on. They continue to behave terribly and never learn from their mistakes… but in a really funny way, thanks to the beauty of the 30-minute sitcom format, which allows the show to blow itself up every week and reset the clock in the next episode. –Allison Picurro [Trailer]
The Bear
The Bear is one of FX and Hulu’s signature shows because it’s unlike anything else on TV. It’s a dramedy about a chef (Jeremy Allen White, who has won two Emmys and counting for his performance) who returns home to Chicago to take over the family restaurant after his beloved but troubled brother (guest star Jon Bernthal) takes his own life. He turns the greasy sandwich shop into a fine dining establishment, but at great psychological cost. It’s a show about grief and dysfunctional families that’s shot with the energy of a Scorsese movie and the visual panache of an indie movie. It’s also one of the premier entries in the genre of shows about people who need therapy made by people who have gone to therapy. Season 4 is out now. –Liam Mathews [Trailer]
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is juicy gossip in TV form. The hit reality series (it’s Hulu’s most-watched unscripted series ever, even bigger than The Kardashians) follows a group of Mormon moms who are TikTok influencers and get up to all kinds of drama, like “soft-swinging” and erroneously claiming to be related to Ben Affleck (Jen Affleck wasn’t lying, exactly; it’s more that she was misinformed and exaggerating). It’s really…something. #Momtok is a lion’s den. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
ER
If you fell into The Pitt and are craving more high-intensity medical procedural action, you’re in luck, because there are over 300 episodes of ER for you to watch next. The Pitt‘s Noah Wyle started his career on ER, which premiered in 1994 and ran until 2009, and The Pitt actually was originally conceived of as an ER revival before it evolved into its current form. ER is the ultimate show about emergency room doctors saving lives while having trouble managing their own, and over the course of its run, its cast included George Clooney, Julianna Margulies, Anthony Edwards, Eriq La Salle, and many others. It’s the best in its class. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
The Handmaid’s Tale
Who needs escapism when you can have the least escapist show on TV? The Handmaid’s Tale has developed a reputation for being a huge downer as real life has inched closer to life in Gilead, the totalitarian theocracy the series imagines as the future of America. But the refusal to offer easy relief can be cathartic in its own way, and The Handmaid’s Tale‘s one-step-forward, two-steps-back revolution makes every rare moment of real progress hit harder. Over the span of the series, June (Elisabeth Moss) has gone from trying to survive in Gilead to fanning the flames of rebellion — and potentially getting a little too caught up in her quest for revenge. The complete series is streaming now. –Kelly Connolly [Trailer]
Dying for Sex
Michelle Williams doesn’t do a lot of comedy, but when she does, you know it’s gonna be sad. Funny, but also sad. She stars in this based-on-a-true-story limited series dramedy as a woman who, when diagnosed with terminal cancer, leaves her husband to explore sexual possibilities she never got to experience. Helping her along the way is her best friend, played by Jenny Slate in the best role of her career so far. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
Mid-Century Modern
Nathan Lane, Matt Bomer, and Nathan Lee Graham star as three gay men of a certain age who are best friends who live together at Bunny Schneiderman’s (Lane) mother’s house in Palm Springs. Bunny’s mother is played by legendary Alice star Linda Lavin, who sadly passed while Mid-Century Modern was in production. The show is not shy about being a riff on The Golden Girls, though the jokes are more direct than they were on that sitcom or on Will & Grace, which was also created by Max Mutchnick and David Kohan. It has a laugh track, which is unusual for a Hulu original, but Mid-Century Modern is proud of its old-fashioned style. The series is directed by legendary sitcom director James Burrows and counts Ryan Murphy as an executive producer. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
Deli Boys
Brothers Mir and Raj couldn’t be more different. Mir is bent on being the successor of his father’s Philadelphia-based convenience store business, while Raj couldn’t give a damn. But when their father dies in an accident and the dark reality of how he amassed his wealth is unearthed (hint: It’s not through delis), Mir and Raj must throw any existing plans out the window. Bold and irreverent, Deli Boys follows the two brothers as they take up a life of crime. The cast features Asif Ali as Mir, Saagar Shaikh as Raj, Iqbal Theba as their father, and Poorna Jagannathan as their father’s right-hand woman, Lucky. -Kat Moon
A Thousand Blows
Steven Knight, the creator of Peaky Blinders, isn’t a stranger to staging big fights in old-timey England in his shows. But his new series, A Thousand Blows, is almost exclusively about fisticuffs, as Knight explores the world of underground bare-knuckle boxing in 1880s London. The series follows a pair of Jamaican immigrants (Malachi Kirby and Francis Lovehall) who get sucked into unsanctioned scrappin’ by the leader of the Forty Elephants (Erin Doherty) and go up against a veteran boxer (Stephen Graham) who isn’t keen on giving up his crown. -Tim Surette [Trailer]
Paradise
This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman and star Sterling K. Brown reunite for this twisty thriller that’s what you get when you combine the emotional drama of This Is Us with the puzzle box sci-fi mystery of Lost. Brown stars as Xavier Collins, a Secret Service agent investigating the murder of the President (James Marsden) inside of a post-apocalyptic bunker where the 10,000 people who are what remains of America live. There are a lot of variations on “What happened?” that need to be answered, and Fogelman and Brown are capable hands guiding you through them. It’s an entertaining show that expertly walks the fine line between serious and silly. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
Say Nothing
A thoughtful dramatic adaptation of Patrick Radden Keefe’s acclaimed nonfiction book of the same name, Say Nothing tells the story of a group of Northern Irish IRA fighters over the course of decades, as they change from young radicals who will do anything for their cause into weary middle-aged people wondering if any of the violence was worth it. The subject matter is heavy, but the show never feels like homework, thanks to its cast of compelling characters (led by fiery Lola Petticrew as the complex IRA figure Dolours Price) and the empathy and humanity it grants every one of them. -Liam Mathews [Trailer | Review]
Tell Me Lies
This scandalous college drama is Hulu’s sexiest show. Based on a novel by Carola Lovering, Tell Me Lies follows the twisted relationships between students at Baird College in the late 2000s, paying particular attention to Lucy (Grace Van Patten) and Stephen (Jackson White), TV’s most toxic couple of the moment. The show premiered in 2022, but the second season took the sex, backstabbing, and psychological torment to another level, as the show became one of the most talked about shows in group chats across the nation. –Liam Mathews [Trailer]
Futurama
Futurama is getting a bit long in the tooth these days after numerous cancellations and revivals since it original premiered back in 1999, but this animated sci-fi sitcom will always hold a warm place in our hearts for the way the adventures of Fry, Leelah, Bender, and their pals introduced so many heady and interesting science-fiction concepts in such an accessible and fun way — Rick and Morty, for one, would not exist if Futurama hadn’t paved the way more than a decade earlier. -Phil Owen [Trailer]
Shoresy
Shoresy creator, star, and bona fide TV genius Jared Keeso took the formula he crafted that made Letterkenny so popular and applied it to a serialized comedy about a bunch of hockey doofuses in northern Canada that shows the true love of sport and team camaraderie better than any sports comedy before it (looking right through you, Ted Lasso). There aren’t many shows that can start with gags about taking a crap in a lake (an “aquadump,” in the show’s parlance) and then leave you bawling as an epic season on the rink comes to a close. All of Shoresy‘s juvenile humor wouldn’t mean much without what truly scores for Shoresy: the unfettered appreciation of emotion, whether it be the anticipation of the drop of the puck, the adrenaline of an on-ice brawl, or the swell of a town rallying around a squad of toothless goons. –Tim Surette [Trailer]
Welcome to Wrexham
If Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac were both real-life Ted Lassos, but they were the owners instead of the coach — so basically, if they were both Rebecca Welton — the documentary about them would be Welcome to Wrexham. This FX docuseries follows Reynolds and Mac’s purchase of a struggling Welsh football club, Wrexham A.F.C., in 2020, and their thus-far-successful attempts to turn its fortunes around while learning the ropes. –Kelly Connolly [Trailer]
Line of Duty
This British cop drama, which premiered in 2012, is all about an anti-corruption unit aimed at rooting out dirty police, and it’s the show’s commitment to detail and its noir-like mystery structure that make it worth your time. Each season begins with a seemingly simple investigation that is slowly unraveled over a half-dozen episodes into some kind of conspiracy — and like The Shield did so brilliantly a decade earlier, Line of Duty remembers every old story thread and resurfaces that baggage whenever possible. –Phil Owen [Trailer]
Under the Bridge
Under the Bridge is a based-on-a-true-story limited series about Reena Virk, a 14-year-old Indian-Canadian girl who was murdered by a group of her schoolmates in British Columbia in 1997. In real life, the situation sparked a moral panic about kids these days being more savage than they used to be, but the truth was always a lot more complex than that. This series stars Lily Gladstone as a local cop and Riley Keough as a local writer, and as the two uncover the truth about Reena’s death and life, things get intense in ways you’d never expect. -Phil Owen [Trailer]
Shōgun
The novel Shōgun, by James Clavell, is a classic for a reason, and FX’s big-budget adaptation of this story of violent political intrigue in feudal Japan — led by the always-excellent Hiroyuki Sanada as Lord Yoshii Toranaga — has both the support from the bosses and the vision from co-creators Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks to deliver a series that’s more than worthy of the name. While FX has never quite had the clout or prestige of HBO — though we all know its shows are on par — Shōgun is just the latest great FX series to demonstrate that you can get pay cable quality from a basic cable network. –Phil Owen [Trailer]
Extraordinary
Somehow among the glut of superhero shows, Emma Moran has created a comedy about people with superpowers with a unique twist: In a world where everyone gets suped up on their 18th birthday, 25-year-old Jen (Máiréad Tyers) still has yet to discover her superpower, leaving her feeling left out and cranky. But with the help of her friend Carrie (Sofia Oxenham), who can channel the dead, and a cat named Jizzlord, she navigates the professional and romantic life of a powerless Gen Z-er. Extraordinary is the fresh, funny face of a generation that can’t be bothered, and Tyers and Oxenham are absolutely delightful. –Tim Surette [Trailer]
Letterkenny
Canada is well known for its feel-good comedies like Schitt’s Creek and Kim’s Convenience, in which characters grow and learn lessons about life through their experiences with each other. Letterkenny is not that. The cult comedy about a small Canadian town full of hicks, tweakers, hockey players, burly natives, and not much else is mostly conversations about genitalia, drinking, fighting, and whatever else goes on inside the minds of these Canucks, but don’t let the subject matter fool you. Letterkenny, which has now wrapped up with its twelfth and final season, is one of the smartest shows around, with rapid-fire dialogue and wordplay that’s essentially Shakespeare on speedballs. You’ll be quoting this show nonstop to your friends after one episode. –Tim Surette [Trailer]
Such Brave Girls
“Mom, she’s talking about her mental health again” is just one of the life-denying quips you’ll find in this British A24-produced comedy from creator and star Kat Sadler. Let’s hear how she describes the series: “I wish I could say this is a heartwarming show about overcoming trauma, but that would be a lie. It’s about three toxic, damaged egomaniacs manipulating the world and each other for their own personal gain, vengeance, and glory… just like in Little Women.” Sadler stars as a young woman who lives with her sister and single mother in what could be described as a dysfunctional relationship where bad decisions and disaster wait around each corner while depression, threats of suicide, and taking advantage of abandonment are embraced. It’s also blisteringly funny. –Tim Surette [Trailer]
Reservation Dogs
Now that it’s ended, it’s official: Reservation Dogs is one of the best TV series of this decade. The teens at its center (played by D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Devery Jacobs, Paulina Alexis, and Lane Factor) begin the show looking for a way out of their rural Oklahoma reservation after the death of their friend. But what stars as a chill hangout comedy about friends getting into scrapes turns into a deep examination of community, trauma, and healing — without sacrificing its clever sense of humor or its vibrant pop culture homages. Created by Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi, Reservation Dogs is brought to the screen by an all-Indigenous lineup of writers, directors, and stars, who build an authentic world that feels loved and lived-in from the start. –Kelly Connolly [Trailer]
Abbott Elementary
Abbot Elementary is a mockumentary in the vein of The Office or Parks and Recreation about an underfunded public elementary school in Philadelphia, where the teachers try to provide for their students as best they can without getting burnt out by the lack of resources, respect, or administrative support, not to mention the difficulty of the job itself. Each week, idealistic second grade teacher Janine Teagues (series creator Quinta Brunson) tries to go above and beyond the call of duty, with alternately triumphant or humbling results. The show has a sweet-and-salty sense of humor and a cast of characters who feel like people who could actually exist in real life. We’ve all relied on commiseration with competent coworkers to help us endure bad bosses like Ava Coleman, the preening and vindictive principal hilariously played by Janelle James. In 2022, we called Abbott Elementary the best show on TV for a reason, and now we even have some well-deserved Emmy wins to back us up. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
Atlanta
Donald Glover’s genre-defying, TV form-redefining comedy series is one of the most artistically daring shows in TV history. It will be a long time before we ever see anything like this provocative, idiosyncratic, and unpredictable FX show ever again. It made stars out of Brian Tyree Henry), Darius (LaKeith Stanfield), and Van (Zazie Beetz) and turned Glover from a likable sitcom actor into an artist. The one-sentence description is that it’s about an underachieving young man working as the manager for his cousin, an ascendant rapper, but that’s inadequate to capture the whole range of what Atlanta’s about. It’s really about the surreal experience of being a Black person in a world that’s very weird about Black people. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
The Americans
One of the best TV shows of the last decade, The Americans stars Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell as Soviet spies living undercover as Americans in Virginia in the 1980s during the height of the Cold War, while raising their none-the-wiser children as regular Americans and befriending the FBI agent (Noah Emmerich) who lives next door. It only won four Emmys during its six-season run, but it should have won about 20 more. It’s near-perfect television, with one of the best series finales of all time. –Tim Surette [Trailer]
Pose
How wrong we were to believe we’d seen a full, three-dimensional representation of the LGBTQ community on TV before Pose arrived in 2018. The FX series, set decades ago in the New York City ballroom community, has served to show us how much we don’t know and haven’t seen. In this heartwarming and often hilarious drama, the trans women who started the ballroom scene — the scene that’s made Black/Latinx gay lingo like “slay,” “read,” and “spill the tea” mainstream — get their due, making them the subject of the story instead of the afterthoughts. Through characters Blanca (Mj Rodriguez), Elektra (Dominique Jackson), Angel (Indya Moore), and Pray Tell (Billy Porter), we befriend queer people of color who’ve banded together for survival, for love, and the pursuit of happiness. It’s radical for humanizing trans people and portraying their unique experiences with compassion, but it shouldn’t be: It’s fundamentally an engrossing, uplifting show stuffed with drama and heart. Consider it essential viewing. –Malcolm Venable [Trailer]
Better Things
For five seasons, Pamela Adlon’s bittersweet comedy was the most human show on TV by a mile. It’s all because Better Things, following the daily life of Sam Fox (Adlon), a single mother of three and a working actor, found the joy in celebrating the mundanity of existence. From its lovingly shot cooking scenes to the casual way it examines the daily sacrifices parents make for their kids, this is a show about the little moments that make us who we are and make life worth living. –Allison Picurro [Trailer]
This Way Up
In a perfect world, someday we’ll talk about This Way Up with as much reverence as we talk about Fleabag. Created by and starring Aisling Bea, the dark comedy begins in the aftermath of a depressive episode; when we meet Áine (Bea) at the beginning of Season 1, she’s recently out of rehab for “a teeny little nervous breakdown.” The comedy and the tragedy of the show comes out of Áine’s interactions with the people in her life — the ways she tries to keep the depths of her suffering from her protective older sister, Shona (Sharon Horgan); her fledgling, potentially romantic connection with Richard (Tobias Menzies); and her tragic friendship with Tom (Ricky Grover). It’s a snapshot of a life in the process of being rebuilt, of what it’s like to not simply ignore but actually live with mental illness. It’s messy and chaotic and hilarious in all the best ways. You will also absolutely walk away with “Zombie” by the Cranberries stuck in your head, and that’s part of the charm. –Allison Picurro [Trailer]
Bob’s Burgers
Bob’s Burgers is one of the best family comedies, not to mention one of the best comedies about working-class characters, on TV right now. The Fox sitcom follows the Belcher family, whose burger restaurant is an all-hands-on-deck job that even the kids get roped into. The show is straightforward about their constant financial stress, which leads to some of the family’s best hijinks but also highlights how hard they work to care for each other. Parents Bob (H. Jon Benjamin) and Linda (John Roberts) have an enviably healthy marriage, and each Belcher kid is encouraged to be as delightfully weird as they want. Bob’s also serves up some of the best puns in the game. –Kelly Connolly [Trailer]
Devs
After movies like Ex Machina and Annihilation, Alex Garland is proving to be one of sci-fi’s most exciting creators, and his TV debut features all his trademarks. Devs is packed with philosophy and intellectual discussions about existence, technology’s place in society’s advancement, and the dire consequences of tinkering with fate, almost to the point that it’s too cerebral. But take it slow and you’ll find a beautifully filmed single-season series that has big points to make about the dangerous precipice advanced computing has us inching toward. –Tim Surette [Trailer]
The Eric Andre Show
It’s hard to describe The Eric Andre Show in a way that makes any kind of sense. Presented in the style of low-budget public access TV, it could technically be called a talk show. It’s hosted by noted purveyor of chaos Eric Andre, who plays a hyper-fictionalized version of himself, and he’s joined by his detached co-host/straight man, Hannibal Burress. Every episode begins with Andre violently destroying his set, and his eventual monologue usually spirals into a series of dark musings dragged out from the depths of his mind. He invites celebrities, who are sometimes real and sometimes intentionally bad impersonators, into the mess. The guests typically come in blissfully unaware of what is about to happen to them, which is clear from their often shocked, furious, and terrified faces. Andre’s host spares no one and never acknowledges that anything is out of the ordinary, even as things get progressively more bizarre, like the time live rats were released on Stacey Dash’s feet. This show is definitely not for everyone, but I can guarantee is that it’s not like anything else you’ll ever watch. –Allison Picurro [Trailer]
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
One of the greatest sitcoms of all time, The Mary Tyler Moore Show is so packed with first-rate funny people that it launched three spin-offs: Valerie Harper’s Rhoda, Cloris Leachman’s Phyllis, and Ed Asner’s Lou Grant. But the heart of the classic comedy series is Mary Tyler Moore’s Mary Richards, who’s “making it after all” as a producer at a low-rated Minneapolis news station. As an unmarried woman focused on her career, Mary was a rarity on television, opening doors for women who came after. Still, being groundbreaking was never the only thing that made The Mary Tyler Moore Show — or Mary Richards — great. The show has endured because it’s laugh-out-loud hilarious, the story of coworkers who unexpectedly begin to cherish each other. –Kelly Connolly [Trailer]
Fargo
Noah Hawley’s comical crime anthology series based on the vibes of the Coen Brothers is set in and around the titular Midwestern city across various decades, multiple crime families, and multitudes of bad luck. But what’s always consistent — besides the accent and the incredible character names — is the quality of the casts, which have included Jean Smart, Ewan McGregor, Billy Bob Thornton, Chris Rock, Martin Freeman, Juno Temple, Jon Hamm, and many more. Seasons 1 and 2 are the show at its best — violent, hilarious, and thematically off-the-wall — and Season 5 is a return to form. –Tim Surette [Trailer]
Freaks and Geeks
It’s always a big deal when Freaks and Geeks, the short-lived cult-classic dramedy that aired on NBC from 1999-2000, returns to streaming after a stay in DVD-only exile. What’s even more exciting is that Hulu shilled out the cash to keep its original classic rock soundtrack fully intact, meaning fans can jam out while watching Lindsay Weir (Linda Cardellini) and her slacker pals navigate high school in 1980, just as creator Paul Feig intended. Freaks and Geeks‘ cast — which also includes Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, Busy Philipps, John Francis Daley, James Franco, and Martin Starr — makes it the ultimate “before they were famous” throwback. Plus it’s just brilliant. –Kelly Connolly [Trailer]
Justified and Justified: City Primeval
One of Elmore Leonard’s literary characters became television legend with FX’s Justified, arguably the best adaptation of Leonard’s work on any screen. U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, brought sexily to life by the sexy Timothy Olyphant, watches over the backwoods of Harlan County in Kentucky, cutting down fugitives with firepower and insults, both of which bad guys never recover from. It has the best dialogue of any TV show ever (my opinion), with poetic prose Leonard himself would chuckle at, and a rotating cast of criminals with more personality than most shows’ main characters. Also, Walton Goggins! As an added bonus, Olyphant kindly dusted off his big ol’ hat for the limited series spin-off City Primeval, which finds Raylan facing off with a violent criminal called the Oklahoma Wildman (Boyd Holbrook) in Detroit. Most comebacks don’t work out well, but this one was very welcome. –Tim Surette and Allison Picurro [Justified Trailer] [City Primeval Trailer]
Superstore
For six seasons, Superstore was one of network TV’s hidden treasures, a sweet, clever comedy with a surprising rebellious streak. The show uses its setting in a Midwestern box store to dig into issues like unionizing, healthcare, and immigration that rarely get this kind of coverage on television, especially network sitcoms. These aren’t Very Special Episodes: They’re just facts of life for the show’s characters, so the topical storylines feel as natural as the jokes. But while Superstore may be honest, it’s the furthest thing from a drag; it’s also got cute workplace romances and a perfectly weird sense of humor. –Kelly Connolly [Trailer]
