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# The 31 Most Anticipated TV Shows of Fall 2020
by
[Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)
## Eliana Dockterman
Correspondent
Updated: Dec 12, 2023 5:31 PM UTCPublished: Aug 25, 2020 3:24 PM UTC
Sarah Paulson in Ratched, Chris Rock in Fargo, Michelle Yeoh in Star Trek: Discovery, Baby Yoda in Mandalorian, and Issa Rae in Coastal Elites
Sarah Paulson in Ratched, Chris Rock in Fargo, Michelle Yeoh in Star Trek: Discovery, Baby Yoda in Mandalorian, and Issa Rae in Coastal ElitesSaeed Adyani—Netflix; Elizabeth Morris—FX; Michael Gibson—CBS; Disney+/Everett Collection; HBO
by
[Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)
## Eliana Dockterman
Correspondent
Updated: Dec 12, 2023 5:31 PM UTCPublished: Aug 25, 2020 3:24 PM UTC
This spring, [COVID-19](https://time.com/5879086/us-covid-19/) brought about an [industry-wide shutdown](https://time.com/5801956/events-canceled-coronavirus/) of television production. But enough was already in the can—or has recently been able to safely wrap—to make for a rich and compelling slate of new and returning shows hitting the airwaves and [streaming services](https://time.com/5703656/best-streaming-services/) this fall.
New shows will arrive from some of the biggest names in the business: Ridley Scott returns to TV as a director for the first time in 50 years with _Raised by Wolves_; _Sex and the City’_s Darren Star is showrunner for _Emily in Paris;_ and [Ryan Murphy](https://time.com/5667752/ryan-murphy-netflix/) is debuting _Ratched_, based on the iconic character from _One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest_. The likes of [Nicole Kidman](https://time.com/collection/most-influential-people-2018/5217547/nicole-kidman/), Chris Rock and Queen Latifah will all be in front of the camera on new shows.
And while fans will have to wait a little longer for the much-anticipated [_Falcon and the Winter Soldier_](https://time.com/5646870/disney-plus-marvel-tv-shows/), which was originally set to drop on Disney+ in August but now has been delayed indefinitely, they will get to spend more time with [Baby Yoda](https://time.com/5731562/baby-yoda-memes-explained/) in a second season of [_The Mandalorian_](https://time.com/5717734/mandalorian-star-wars-timeline/).
Here are the buzziest shows set to debut or return in fall 2020.
## _Raised by Wolves_ (Sept. 3 on HBO Max)
Though he’s worked on the small screen as a producer of shows like _The Good Wife_ and _The Man in the High Castle_, Ridley Scott hasn’t directed television since 1969\. Now, the _Alien_ director returns for a sci-fi series about two androids, named Mother and Father, who are tasked with raising a colony of human children. The show takes place on a mysterious planet that, as it turns out, is threatened by some pretty scary looking creatures.
## _Away_ (Sept. 4 on Netflix)
Hilary Swank stars as an astronaut who is leaving behind her husband (Josh Charles) and teenage daughter (Talitha Bateman) for three years for a mission to Mars. The trailer suggests the show will offer the excitement of a movie like _Gravity_ and the tear-jerker moments of dramas like _Friday Night Lights_ (which _Away_ producer Jason Katims also executive produced).
## _The Boys,_ Season 2 (Sept. 4 on Amazon)
Aya Cash in The Boys Amazon
Giancarlo Esposito (_Breaking_ _Bad_) and Aya Cash (_You’re the Worst_) join the cast of the irreverent, obscene and ridiculously bloody superhero series that deconstructs the genre that has come to dominate pop culture.
## _Pen15_, Season 2 (Sept. 8 on Hulu)
Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle in Pen15 Alex Lombardi—Hulu
The wonderfully awkward middle school drama created by and starring Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle returns for a slightly darker second season, which explores how the friends handle the divorce of Anna’s parents.
## _Woke_ (Sept. 9 on Hulu)
_New Girl_ star Lamorne Morris plays a cartoonist who experiences a rude awakening about racism after an encounter with police officers. The dramedy is based on the real life and work of artist Keith Knight.
## _Coastal Elites_ (Sept. 12 on HBO)
Issa Rae in Coastal Elites HBO
It was only a matter of time until we got narrative content about life under quarantine: _Coastal Elites_ is a comedy with a stacked cast (Issa Rae, Dan Levy, Sarah Paulson, Kaitlyn Dever and Bette Midler) who all play, well, coastal elites dealing with their own set of pandemic-related frustrations—trying to continue filming their YouTube meditations, talking virtually with their therapists, etc.—with varying degrees of competence.
## _The Third Day_ (Sept. 14 on HBO)
Jude Law, Naomie Harris and Katherine Waterston star in a mystery about an island off the British coast with some seriously creepy _Midsommar_ vibes. The trailer doesn’t give away much about the show except that the series is divided into two parts, “Summer” and “Winter.”
## _We Are Who We Are_ (Sept. 14 on HBO)
_Call Me By Your Name_ director Luca Guadagnino tackles another coming-of-age story, this time about two American teenagers who live on an American military base with their families in Italy. The series explores issues of identity and the messiness of first love.
## _Ratched_ (Sept. 18 on Netflix)
Sarah Paulson has long been a regular in Ryan Murphy’s projects, including his eerie _American Horror Story_ series. Now the two are re-teaming for an origin story of one of the most iconic characters in pop culture: _One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest_ villain Nurse Ratched. Cynthia Nixon, Sharon Stone, Corey Stoll and Vincent D’Onofrio join the cast of a show that looks at once fun and foreboding.
## _Filthy Rich_ (Sept. 21 on Fox)
Kim Cattrall’s new show is a soapy succession drama that owes its twists (and accents) to _Dallas_. Cattrall plays the wife of a wealthy televangelist who dies in a plane crash. When the lawyers review the famous man’s will, they find that he fathered three children outside his marriage and left a hefty sum for each. Skirmishes over the fortune ensue.
## _Utopia_ (Sept. 25 on Amazon)
_Gone Girl_ author Gillian Flynn ventures into sci-fi with _Utopia_, a new drama about a group of graphic novel fans who realize that the conspiracy outlined in their favorite comic are real—and it’s up to them to save the world. _Say Anything_‘s John Cusack, _The Office’_s Rainn Wilson and _American Honey_ breakout Sasha Lane star.
## _Fargo_, Season 4 (Sept. 27 on FX)
Chris Rock in Fargo Matthias Clamer—FX
The fourth installment in the anthology series, originally set to debut in the spring but delayed because of coronavirus, will be set in Kansas City in 1950\. Chris Rock plays the head of a Black crime family whose uneasy alliance with the Italian mafia gets disrupted. As usual, _Fargo_ attracts an impressive cast, which this time around includes Jason Schwartzman and Ben Whishaw. The show will be available to stream on Hulu the next day.
## _The Comey Rule_ (Sept. 27 on Showtime)
Just in time for the height of election coverage, Jeff Daniels stars as James Comey and Brendan Gleeson as Donald Trump in a two-night drama based on the former FBI director’s memoir, _A Higher Loyalty._ Showrunner Billy Ray (_Richard Jewell_) [has said](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/07/the-comey-rule-trump-brendan-gleeson-jeff-daniels-tv) he believes that the political series will irk those on both the right and the left side of the aisle. The all-star cast includes Holly Hunter as Sally Yates, Michael Kelly as Andy McCabe and Kingsley Ben-Adir as Barack Obama.
## _The Good Lord Bird_ (Oct. 4 on Showtime)
Ethan Hawke will play abolitionist John Brown in a limited series based on the James McBride novel of the same name about his raid of Harper’s Ferry in 1859\. The story will be told from the point of view of an enslaved child named Onion (Joshua Caleb Johnson) and aims to challenge the typical white-savior narrative of antebellum stories.
## _The Walking Dead: World Beyond_ (Oct. 4 on AMC)
_The Walking Dead_ has been on the air for so long (10 seasons and counting) that the latest spinoff focuses on a new generation of children who have grown up knowing nothing but the zombie apocalypse. Think: _Walking Dead_ meets the world of dystopian young adult fiction.
## _Soulmates_ (Oct. 5 on AMC)
Sarah Snook and Kingsley Ben-Adir in Soulmates Jorge Alvarino—AMC
This anthology series is set 15 years in the future, when scientists have created a test that tells each person their soulmate (a premise reminiscent of the [_Black Mirror_ episode](https://time.com/5048852/black-mirror-season-4-review/) “Hang the DJ”). Each entry follows a different person as they decide to discover (or opt out of discovering) their match and learn how their choice impacts their relationships. _Succesion’_s Sarah Snook, _Stranger Things’_ Charlie Heaton and _High Fidelity’_s Kingsley Ben-Adir star.
## _The Right Stuff_ (Oct. 9 on Disney+)
Leonardo DiCaprio is producing this National Geographic series about the Cold War space race based on Tom Wolfe’s 1979 book of the same name. (Phil Kaufman’s Oscar-winning 1983 movie of the same name was also based on Wolfe’s book.) The show, which will focus on the men recruited to test the first experimental space aircraft, has all the makings of classic adventure tale.
## _Star Trek: Discovery_, Season 3 (Oct. 15 on CBS All Access)
David Ajala and Sonequa Martin-Green in Star Trek: Discovery CBS All Access
The series is jumping far into the future—930 years, to be exact—freeing the starship Discovery and Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) from the burden of past _Star Trek_ stories to create its own future.
## _Helstrom_ (Oct. 16 on Hulu)
With many of the planned Marvel movies and TV series on pause (Disney+’s _The Falcon and the Winter Soldier_ had to pause filming because of COVID-19), _Helstrom_ will scratch an itch for comic fans. The horror series follows the adult children of a serial killer who have become detectives and hunt down murderers and demons.
## _The Queen’s Gambit_ (Oct. 23 on Netflix)
Coming off an impressive performance in this year’s Jane Austen adaptation _Emma._, Anya Taylor-Joy stars in another stylized period drama. Based on Walter Tevis’ 1983 novel, the series is about an orphan girl in Kentucky who aspires to rise through the ranks of the male-dominated world of competitive chess. But as she ascends, she struggles with a growing addicting to the tranquilizing drugs that were given to her and other orphaned children when they were wards of the state.
## _The Undoing_ (Oct. 25 on HBO)
Writer David E. Kelley (_Big Little Lies_) teams up with Nicole Kidman and HBO once more for this limited series, which centers on a New York therapist, played by Kidman, and her husband, played by Hugh Grant. The couple’s seemingly perfect lives begin to fracture when they are faced with a very violent and very public death.
## _The Mandalorian_, Season 2 (October on Disney+)
This image provided by Disney Plus shows a scene from "The Mandalorian." Disney+––AP
The hotly-anticipated second season of the first _Star Wars_ live-action television show is set to return in October. Last we saw Pedro Pascal’s Mando and the adorable Baby Yoda, they were in search of Baby Yoda’s home with Giancarlo Esposito’s villainous Moff Gideon in hot pursuit. Many mysteries surrounding Baby Yoda, as his powers and his origins have yet to be revealed. Let’s just hope he hasn’t aged a day between seasons.
## _The Crown_, Season 4 (Nov. 15 on Netflix)
Olivia Colman in The Crown Sophie Mutevelian—Netflix
Princess Diana finally arrives in _The Crown’_s fourth season. Emma Corrin will play the princess whose vibrant life and tragic end enraptured the world. Meanwhile, the legendary Gillian Anderson will tackle the role of the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher. The show promises to get juicier as the events covered by the series inch closer and closer to modern day.
## _Genius: Aretha_ (TBA on National Geographic)
L to R: Cynthia Erivo as Aretha Franklin, Rebecca Naomi Jones as Carolyn Franklin and Patrice Covington as Erma Franklin in National Geographic's GENIUS: ARETHA. Richard DuCree—National Geographic
Cynthia Erivo has quickly jumped from lauded stage actor and musical artist to Hollywood star with her roles in _Widows_ and _Harriet_. Now, she will play the iconic queen of soul Aretha Franklin in National Geographic’s _Genius_ series.
## _Grand Army_ (TBA on Netflix)
Netflix is adapting Katie Cappiello’s hit 2013 play _Slut_ into a drama with a new name. The play and series center on a 16-year-old named Joey Del Marco, who is sexually assaulted by three life-long friends. The story then spins out to tell a broader tale of the lives of a group of New York City teens who attend school near Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza and the repercussions of that night on the people in their community.
## _Emily in Paris_ (TBA on Netflix)
Lily Collins in Emily in Paris Paramount Network
Remember the Paris jaunt at the end of _Sex & The City_? Now you can watch an entire series on dating in the city of lights. Lily Collins (_Les Misérables_) stars in a romantic comedy created by Darren Star (_Sex & The City_, _Younger_) about a Chicago marketing executive who lands her dream job in Paris but struggles to adjust to a new social life in a foreign city.
## _The Equalizer_ (TBA on CBS)
Queen Latifah is seen onstage during Lifetime's TCA Panels on January 18, 2020. Michael Kovac—Getty Images for Lifetime
Queen Latifah is starring in the reboot of the action franchise _The_ _Equalizer_, which ran as a show on CBS in the 1980s and was adapted into a film by Antoine Fuqua starring Denzel Washington in 2014\. Latifah will play a woman who markets herself as a guardian-angel-for-hire.
## _The Haunting of Bly Manor_ (TBA on Netflix)
The Haunting of Hill House Steve Dietl—Netflix
Netflix is turning its smash-hit horror show _Haunting of Hill House_ into an anthology series. Rather than continuing to follow the Crain family, creator Mike Flanagan will focus on a new ghost story with a new set of characters. This new installment will take inspiration from Henry James’ classic gothic novel _Turn of the Screw_, which centers on a young governess who moves into an estate to care for two orphaned children.
## _Law & Order: Organized Crime_ (TBA on NBC)
Christopher Meloni in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit NBC
This [may not feel like the moment](https://time.com/5857064/defunding-police-superheroes-onscreen/) to be greenlighting [more cop shows](https://time.com/5850877/perry-mason-hbo-detective-shows/), but onetime _Law & Order: Special Victims Unit_ star Christopher Meloni is getting his own spinoff nonetheless. _Organized Crime_, which has promised plenty of crossover episodes with Mariska Hargitay-led _SVU_, will center on Meloni’s Elliot Stabler as he returns to the NYPD after a decade away from the force to fight organized crime after a personal loss.
## _Supermarket Sweep_ (TBA on ABC)
Leslie Jones at the 2018 Emmy Awards Getty Images
Now that finding cleaning supplies in the supermarket can feel like a competition (or at least it did, did some months ago), ABC is bringing back _Supermarket Sweep_. _Saturday Night Live_ star Leslie Jones will host the beloved 1960s and 1990s game show that’s equal parts quiz show and race down the aisles.
## _A Teacher_ (TBA on FX)
Kate Mara attends LA special screening of A24's "Skin" at ArcLight Hollywood on July 11, 2019 in Hollywood, California Rodin Eckenroth—FilmMagic via Getty Images
Kate Mara stars as a high school teacher accused of having a sexual relationship with her underage student, played by Nick Robinson (_Love, Simon_). The series is based on creator Hannah Fidell’s 2013 Sundance film of the same name, which gained new traction in the past several years after the #MeToo movement shone a new light on issues of power and consent.
Fall TV 2020: Schedule and What's Worth Watching
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