Betting on which pilots will actually yield good shows is a fools’ errand: On network, quality shows might just disappear in two weeks, while on cable or streaming, they might devolve into something far more average over the length of their respective runs. But it’s hard to shake the back-to-school-season hope that a whole slate of new shows brings, and easy to forget that pilots are not always indicative of a show’s long-term quality. (Comedies in particular tend to grow into themselves in their first year.) Based solely on promise, then, these are the shows you ought to check out this fall—ranging from a horror reboot to several raucous family comedies, and from 1960s New York to small-town Mississippi to heaven, or something like it.

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