The 24 Most Anticipated TV Shows of Fall 2019

As the weather cools down, television will heat up. This fall will see the rise of several new streaming television platforms, including Disney+ and Apple+, to compete with streaming giant Netflix. Each has announced a slew of shows to premiere this fall. Where to spend your streaming dollar depends on your tastes. If you want to watch the Marvel and Star Wars sagas continue offscreen, Disney+ is a good bet. (See a full list of the upcoming Marvel TV shows here.) Apple’s first major launch, Morning Show, relies heavily on A-list talent, namely Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carrell.

Of course, the preexisting streaming services are vying to retain their share of your downtime. Netflix will launch its first show with prolific creator Ryan Murphy, The Politician, this fall, while Amazon is ramping up its fantasy content to try to attract Game of Thrones fans, beginning with Carnival Row. And traditional television networks won’t let you forget about them either: the CW is launching a Nancy Drew series that looks an awful lot like its megahit, Riverdale, and HBO’s extremely buzzy Watchmen adaptation from Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof is sure to dominate the pop-culture conversation when it debuts.

That’s all to say that there are a lot of television shows on this list because there is, arguably, too much TV. We’ve chosen Labor Day Weekend as the unofficial cutoff between summer and fall, though popular, prestige shows like HBO’s Succession and Netflix’s Mindhunter that would have traditionally launched the fall season are vying for caché by returning to television in the dog days of summer (August 11 and August 16, respectively).

Once you’ve binged those dramas, there’s plenty to keep you occupied through the holidays. Here are all the new shows and shows in their final seasons hitting streaming services or traditional, old TV this fall.

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (Aug. 30 on Netflix)

Just in time for the long weekend, Netflix is launching a prequel series to Jim Hensons’ cult classic puppet fantasy film, The Dark Crystal. A ridiculously stacked cast will lend their voices to the puppets, including Taron Egerton, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nathalie Emmanuel, Mark Hamill, Keegan-Michael Key, Simon Pegg, Alicia Vikander, Andy Samberg, Helena Bonham Carter, Lena Heady, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Nathalie Dormer, Mark Strong, Awkwafina and Sigourney Weaver.

Carnival Row (Aug. 30 on Amazon)

Amazon is making a big bid for fantasy-lovers: They reportedly spent $250 million just for the rights to make a Lord of the Rings TV series. But first, they’ll offer a fantasy noir show, Carnival Row. Cara Delevigne stars as a mythical creature who has fled her war-torn homeland to a Victorian city populated by humans. As tensions rise between the mythical immigrants and the humans, she meets a police inspector (Orlando Bloom) tasked with solving the murder of a faery showgirl.

Unbelievable (Sept. 13 on Netflix)

The new miniseries Unbelievable is based on a true, Pulitzer-Prize winning story about a teen named Marie Adler (Booksmart’s Kaitlyn Dever) charged with making a false rape accusation when the police in her town come to doubt her story. But in another state, two police detectives (Toni Collette and Meritt Wever) begin to investigate a series of rapes that share eerily similar details to Adler’s story. The show’s impressive creative team includes Susannah Grant (Erin Brockovich) and novelists Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman.

Prodigal Son (Sept. 23 on Fox)

Greg Berlanti, the super-producer behind Dawson’s Creek, Riverdale and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, is bringing a new serial killer series to television. Michael Sheen plays a mass murderer whose son (Tom Payne) joins the NYPD to solve a series of copycat killings.

Mixed-ish (Sept. 24 on ABC)

The Black-ish universe expands with a prequel set in the 1980s when Bo’s family moved from a hippie commune to the suburbs. Tracee Ellis Ross, who plays adult Bo on the main series, will appear in some episodes, but the new show will focus on Tika Sumpter and Anders Holm as young versions of the character’s hippie mom and dad, along with Gary Cole playing the role of her grandfather.

Stumptown (Sept. 25 on ABC)

Cobie Smulders has starred in two of the biggest franchises of the last decade, How I Met Your Mother and the Avengers. Now she’ll headline her own show based on a graphic novel about a Marine vet-turned-Portland Private Investigator named Dex Parios. At Comic-Con, Smulders promised that the script mimics the complexity of the graphic novel, including dealing frankly with Parios’ bisexuality as well as the character’s PTSD.

The Good Place (Sept. 25 on NBC)

Michael Schur’s twisty comedic masterpiece about the afterlife enters its fourth and final season with stars Kristen Bell, Ted Danson, William Jackson Harper, Jameela Jamil, D’Arcy Carden and Manny Jacinto all returning. Schur has said that after the show was picked up for a second season, the writers’ room plotted out four seasons’ worth of plot. It sounds like the series will be ending on its own terms, which is good news considering that it’s drawn inspiration from shows like Lost. Hopefully, the Good Place can better stick the landing.

Evil (Sept. 26 on CBS)

Robert and Michelle King elevated the network drama with The Good Wife and have been diligently producing a worthy successor, The Good Fight, on CBS All Access for the past several years. So there is reason to hope that their new psychological drama, Evil, about a clinical psychologist (Katja Herbers) who teams up with a priest-in-training (Luke Cage‘s Mike Colter) to investigate supposed miracles and demonic possessions can develop into something more than “exorcism of the week.”

The Politician (Sept. 27 on Netflix)

Glee, Pose and American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy’s first Netflix show is an over-the-top satire starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Jessica Lange and Benjamin Platt. The occasionally musical dramedy focuses on a wealthy teen with ambitions to become the president of the United States (Platt) who employs national campaign-level tactics as he runs for student body president of his high school.

Transparent (Sept. 27 on Amazon)

Transparent will end its five-season run with an unconventional finale: A musical. The show faced an uncertain future after its star Jefferey Tambor was accused of harassment, launching an internal investigation at Amazon. But creator Jill Soloway has killed off his character and written one, final dance-filled entry into the saga of the Pfeifferman family. Judith Light, Gaby Hoffman, Jay Duplass and the rest of the cast will return.

Godfather of Harlem (Sept. 29 on Epix)

Oscar winner Forest Whitaker is taking his talents to TV. He stars as real-life 1960s crime boss Bumpy Johnson, who operated against the backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement. The infamous gangster struggles to retake the streets of Harlem, after he is released from prison, in a battle that brings him into contact with Malcolm X (Nigel Thatch) and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (Giancarlo Esposito).

Batwoman (Oct. 6 on the CW)

Orange Is the New Black star Ruby Rose will play television’s first openly lesbian superhero as the star of Batwoman. The show, which will join The Arrow, Supergirl and several other DC superhero shows airing on the CW, focuses on Bruce Wayne’s cousin, Kate Kane, who takes over as the caped crusader when Batman disappears.

Mr. Robot (Oct. 6 on USA)

Academy Award Winner Rami Malek returns one last time to the show that first thrust him into the limelight, Sam Esmail’s Mr. Robot, the twist-heavy series about an anarchist hacker (Malek) who has a complicated relationship with his father (Christian Slater). Since the first season, the stakes of the show have become apocalyptic. It’s unclear whether in the final season, Malek;s Elliot will save the world or destroy it.

Nancy Drew (Oct. 9 on the CW)

Riverdale and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina fans, rejoice. Another beloved old-school character is getting a gritty update: Nancy Drew. In this version, teenage sleuth Drew is working in a diner shortly after the death of her mother when curiosity about her town’s mysteries get the better of her. The story will get supernatural: While the 1930s version of Nancy Drew tended to uncover the real criminals trying to scare her away with smoke and mirrors, in the TV show she will confront actual ghosts.

Living With Yourself (Oct. 18 on Netflix)

Paul Rudd takes a break from playing Ant-Man to star in this comedic miniseries about a man who undergoes a new type of treatment in hopes of becoming a better person. Though it’s comedic, the show gets heady when it asks what being better actually means, and what its characters are willing to sacrifice in order to achieve that goal.

Looking for Alaska (Oct. 18 on Hulu)

The duo behind The O.C. and Gossip Girl, Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, are bringing John Green’s young adult novel, Looking for Alaska, to the small screen. The story centers on Miles “Pudge” Halter, who quickly falls for a mysterious girl named Alaska Young after enrolling at boarding school. This being a Green novel, there are life lessons to be learned and tears to be shed. Charlie Plummer and Kristine Froseth star.

Watchmen (Oct. 20 on HBO)

Damon Lindelof, of Lost and The Leftovers fame, will not be adapting, but rather remixing, the famed graphic novel Watchmen. Everything that happened in the 1980s-set novel, Lindelof has explained, is canon. But this is an updated story that takes place in a modern era that looks to be more than a little inspired by the rise of the alt-right in Trump’s America. In the trailer, we see a group of people have taken up the mask of the right-wing vigilante character Rorschach, and the cops are hiding their faces too. It also looks like older versions of the antiheroes from the book, including Doctor Manhattan, Ozymandias and Laurie Jupiter, will make appearances in the show. The show stars Regina King, Jeremy Irons, Hong Chau and Jean Smart.

The Morning Show (Nov. 1 on Apple+)

Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston are co-producing and starring in a series that will go behind the scenes of a morning news show. At an Apple event the duo said that the show won’t be afraid to tackle the conversations that people have “behind closed doors.” Steve Carrell, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Billy Crudup and Mark Duplass will also star.

His Dark Materials (Nov. 4 on HBO)

HBO is ready to fill the Game of Thrones-sized hole in your heart: The network has teamed with BBC to adapt Philip Pullman’s beloved fantasy novels with a budget to accommodate an all-star cast (including James McAvoy, Ruth Wilson, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Logan’s Dafne Keene) as well as an armored bear. Keene plays Lyra, a girl caught in a battle between religious zealots and scientists in a fantastical but dangerous world.

Back to Life (Nov. 10 on Showtime)

The British comedy that critics are comparing to Fleabag follows a woman named Miri (Daisy Haggard) who returns to her home in Kent after serving an 18-year prison sentence and is not greeted kindly by those who greet her there. The dramedy in which Miri attempts to restart her life is wrapped inside a mystery of what actually happened on the night of her arrest.

The Mandalorian (Nov. 12 on Disney+)

Disney+ is launching its streaming service with a splashy debut: The first live-action Star Wars TV series ever made. Game of Thrones actor Pedro Pascal stars as the titular Mandalorian, a gun fighter who hails from Mandalore (the home of fan favorite bounty hunter Boba Fett) and operates at the outer edges of the galaxy between the fall of the Empire (in Episode VI) and the rise of the First Order (in Episode VII). The story will exist in the same universe as the Star Wars movies but, as far as we know, characters like Rey and Han Solo will not appear in the show. Carl Weathers, Gina Carano, Werner Herzog, Nick Nolte, Giancarlo Esposito and Taika Waititi will round out the cast of the series, written by Iron Man and The Lion King director Jon Favreau.

The Crown (Nov. 17 on Netflix)

Okay, we’re cheating by adding The Crown to this list of debuts and final seasons, as it has already aired two seasons on Netflix. But the show will essentially become a wholly new piece of art when an entirely new cast takes over the roles, including recent Oscar winner Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth II. The next two seasons will cover the years 1964-1970, during which Elizabeth’s sister Margaret (now played by the legendary Helena Bonham Carter) reportedly began an affair and Elizabeth’s son Prince Charles (Josh O’Connor) met his eventual second wife, Camilla (Emerald Fennell). Season 3 certainly promises the potential of more palace intrigue than ever before.

The Witcher (Dec. 20 on Netflix)

The Polish fantasy series The Witcher has already been adapted into an uber-popular video game. Now Superman himself (Henry Cavill) is bringing the monster-hunting hero Geralt of Rivia to the small screen. The story will center on Geralt, a princess named Ciri and a sorceress named Yennefer.

The New Pope (TBA on HBO)

Paolo Sorrentino reteams with Jude Law for a sequel series to the HBO show The Young Pope. Little is known about the series except that there will be two popes, one played by Law and another played by John Malkovich. (Not to be confused with the upcoming Netflix movie about Popes Benedict and Francis, The Two Popes.) Marilyn Manson and Sharon Stone will also appear in the miniseries.