<\/p>\n
Fall TV is already well underway, with a spate of nominally new projects building off old IP that includes Peacock\u2019s \u201cThe Office\u201d spin-off \u201cThe Paper,\u201d FX\u2019s \u201cAlien: Earth,\u201d<\/a> and the first half of Season 2 of Netflix\u2019s Addams Family spin-off \u201cWednesday.\u201d<\/a> Recycling works! Relatedly, CBS\u2019s \u201cGood Wife\u201d spin-off \u201cElsbeth\u201d and the \u201cMatlock\u201d reboot starring Kathy Bates both return Oct. 12.<\/p>\n Plenty of beloved feel-good shows are returning, too: Netflix juggernaut \u201cNobody Wants This\u201d returns for a second season Oct. 23, the fifth season of \u201cOnly Murders in the Building\u201d premieres Sept. 9, and ABC\u2019s \u201cAbbott Elementary\u201d returns Oct. 1. Political thrillers continue to do well: Netflix\u2019s \u201cThe Diplomat,\u201d starring Keri Russell, comes back Oct. 16, and \u201cSlow Horses\u201d returns for a new season Sept. 24 on Apple TV+. Speaking of the streaming service, \u201cThe Morning Show,\u201d a fascinatingly bad but eminently watchable show that has itself inspired glossy knockoffs about the struggles of the ultrarich, returns Sept. 17. So does Prime Video\u2019s surprisingly good spin-off of \u201cThe Boys,\u201d the college drama \u201cGen V.\u201d<\/p>\n But there are a few genuinely new shows premiering this fall. In aggregate, the fall looks a little, oh, bleak: lots of crime, betrayal and corrupt government agencies. Still, here\u2019s a list of some of the series we\u2019re most excited about.<\/p>\n Mark Ruffalo stars in HBO\u2019s latest production<\/a> from Brad Ingelsby, the creator of \u201cMare of Easttown.\u201d Ruffalo plays Tom Brandis, a Philly-based FBI agent (and former priest) heading up a task force trying to stop a spate of home invasions in Montgomery and Delaware counties. He\u2019s a tormented dad. So is the thief, Robbie Prendergrast (Tom Pelphrey). Like \u201cMare,\u201d \u201cTask\u201d feels real, lived-in; the houses feel and look like messy places people actually sleep in. The workaday miseries, too, feel modulated or perhaps just repressed, packed down deep so people can function. A strong cast includes Ra\u00fal Castillo (\u201cLooking\u201d), Fabien Frankel (\u201cHouse of the Dragon\u201d), Alison Oliver (\u201cConversations With Friends\u201d) and Martha Plimpton. (Premieres Sept. 7 on HBO Max.)<\/p>\n Sterlin Harjo, who changed TV history with \u201cReservation Dogs,\u201d<\/a> is back, this time with \u201cThe Lowdown,\u201d a noir period drama rooted in Tulsa history. Ethan Hawke (who\u2019s also executive-producing) stars as Lee Raybon, a self-proclaimed \u201ctruthstorian\u201d based loosely on a real citizen historian named Lee Roy Chapman. Kaniehtiio Horn (Deer Lady in \u201cReservation Dogs\u201d) plays his ex, and Ryan Kiera Armstrong plays his teenage daughter, who wants to follow in his footsteps. Also starring Kyle MacLachlan! (Premieres Sept. 23 on FX\/Hulu.)<\/p>\n Based on a true story, this thriller from Apple TV+ stars Jessica Chastain as an undercover \u201csavant\u201d whose job it is to monitor and infiltrate internet hate groups, particularly those consisting of white supremacists. The eight-episode drama follows her efforts to balance her work tracking planned bombings and mass shootings with being a military spouse and the mother of mixed-race children. Also starring Dagmara Domi\u0144czyk (\u201cSuccession\u201d) and Jordana Spiro (\u201cOzark,\u201d \u201cMy Boys\u201d), Nnamdi Asomugha, Cole Doman, Trinity Lee Shirley and Toussaint Francois Battiste. (Premieres Sept. 26 on Apple TV+.)<\/p>\n The sporadic homages to small-town life in \u201cThe Last Frontier\u201d sometimes scan as a nod to \u201cNorthern Exposure\u201d; the pilot even features a wandering moose. But this thriller <\/a>from Jon Bokenkamp and Richard D\u2019Ovidio features a darker and more conventional showdown between Alaskans and the Lower 48. Jason Clarke stars as Frank Remnick, an Alaskan U.S. marshal forced to deal with the aftermath of a plane crash that happened to be ferrying dangerous prisoners, some off-book. There are survivors. Haley Bennett plays a disgraced CIA officer brought back by her superior (Alfre Woodard) to clean up the mess made by the worst of them, a rogue agent known as Havlock (Dominic Cooper), while Clarke\u2019s character tries to save his town, his wife and his whole way of life. (Premieres Oct. 10 on Apple TV+.)<\/p>\n Having bidden the role of Cora Crawley goodbye in \u201cDownton Abbey: The Grand Finale,\u201d Elizabeth McGovern returns to the small screen as Helen, a recruiting agent for a secret organization dedicated to monitoring vampires, witches and demons in Anne Rice\u2019s \u201cTalamasca<\/a>.\u201d Her target, and mentee, is Guy Anatole (Nicholas Denton). Also starring Jason Schwartzman as a vampire and William Fichtner as a sinister American who has taken control of the London Motherhouse. The third TV series set in Rice\u2019s Immortal Universe, \u201cTalamasca\u201d packages gothic horror in the trappings of a spy drama. (Premieres Oct. 26 on AMC.)<\/p>\n Good news for Mick Herron fans for whom five seasons of \u201cSlow Horses\u201d simply aren\u2019t enough: Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson are starring in an eight-episode adaptation of his novel \u201cDown Cemetery Road.\u201d Wilson plays Sarah Tucker, a woman who hires a detective named Zo\u00eb Boehm (Thompson) to investigate an explosion and the subsequent disappearance of a girl from an Oxford suburb. (Premieres Oct. 29 on Apple TV+.)<\/p>\n This legal drama from Hulu and Ryan Murphy follows a renegade group of female divorce attorneys who break off from their male-dominated firms to start an all-woman firm that only serves female clients. The cast is a murderer\u2019s row of thespian powerhouses, including Naomi Watts, Niecy Nash-Betts, Teyana Taylor, Sarah Paulson and Glenn Close. (Also starring: Kim Kardashian.) Even the recurring characters feel like a delicious, nostalgic buffet, with appearances from the likes of Judith Light, Ed O\u2019Neill, Brooke Shields, Elizabeth Berkley and Jessica Simpson. (Premiering this fall on Hulu.)<\/p>\n Sarah Snook stars in this mystery thriller based on Andrea Mara\u2019s novel of the same name. Written and created by Megan Gallagher, the series follows Marissa Irvine (Snook), a mother whose life gets turned upside down when she goes to pick her son Milo up from a playdate and finds a woman she\u2019s never met there instead \u2014 who doesn\u2019t know Milo or where he might be. Unlike the novel, which is set in Dublin, the series is set in Chicago. The cast includes Dakota Fanning, Jake Lacy and Jay Ellis. (Premieres Nov. 6 on Peacock.)<\/p>\n