Embedded Files
After a remarkably off year in 2023 for FX, the critically beloved network returned to form this year with 3 new series making my top 10, including the #1 spot.
Additionally, I've observed a notable increase in quality of new Netflix originals in 2024. Despite the largest number of new shows being produced every year, last year's edition of this list gave only 3 of the 23 spots to Netflix shows. This year, they earned 8 spots, including 3 in the top 10. Their best limited series of the year reached #3, the highest spot on my list since The Queen's Gambit in 2020.
On the contrary, HBO had a significant off-year for new tv series (which to be fair, may be made up for by their returning series). Since I have been making these lists in 2018 they almost always always have the most shows in the top 10. The only other year they did not receive a single top 10 spot was 2022, the year they put all their dragon eggs into the House of the Dragon basket. Coincidentally, this year they released the 2nd season of House of the Dragon and again dropped the ball on new series. (Although I did not watch The Penguin, so perhaps that was supposed to be their contribution.)
About this list
As with all my annual "Best New Shows" lists, a series is included if:
Its first (or only) season aired this year
It has more than 1 episode (i.e. no TV Movies)
I watched every episode of the season
SIMILAR POSTS
Annual "Best New Shows"
24. Criminal Record
Apple TV+ | Paul Rutman
In the heart of London, an anonymous phone call draws two brilliant detectives -- a young woman in the early stages of her career and a well-connected man determined to protect his legacy -- into a fight to correct an old miscarriage of justice.
Genre: Crime Drama
Time Investment: 8 episodes x 50 min
Continuation: Renewed for a 2nd season
Must-watch if you like: Peter Capaldi
23. Dark Matter
Apple TV+ | Blake Crouch
Professor Jason Dessen is abducted into an alternate version of his life. In a labyrinth of realities, he embarks on a harrowing journey to get back to his true family.
Genre: Sci-Fi Drama
Time Investment: 9 episodes x 55 min
Continuation: Renewed for a 2nd season
Must-watch if you like: Counterpart, Dark, 12 Monkeys
22. Monsieur Spade
AMC | Scott Frank & Tom Fontana
The year is 1963, and the legendary Detective Sam Spade is enjoying his retirement in the South of France.
Genre: Neo-noir Crime Drama
Time Investment: 6 episodes x 60 min
Continuation: Limited Series
Must-watch if you like: Black Mirror, Rashida Jones
21. Sunny
Apple TV+ | Katie Robbins
Living in Kyoto, Japan, a woman's life is turned upside down after her husband and son disappear in a mysterious plane crash. As consolation, she receives Sunny, a domestic robots made by her husband's electronics company.
Genre: Dark Comedy, Sci-Fi Thriller
Time Investment: 10 episodes x 30 min
Continuation: Cancelled
Must-watch if you like: Black Mirror, Rashida Jones
20. The Long Shadow
ITV / AMC+ | George Kay & Lewis Arnold
Between 1975 and 1980, police found 13 women murdered in Yorkshire and Manchester, horrifying the nation and plunging society into a period of darkness and fear.
Genre: True Crime Drama
Time Investment: 7 episodes x 50 min
Continuation: Limited Series
Must-watch if you like: Serial killer investigations
19. The Sympathizer
HBO | Park Chan-wook & Don McKellar
Near the end of the Vietnam War, a spy who was embedded in the South Vietnam army flees to the United States and takes up residence in a refugee community, where he continues to gather intelligence and report back to the Viet Cong.
Genre: Period Spy Drama
Time Investment: 7 episodes x 60 min
Continuation: Limited Series
Must-watch if you like: Robert Downey Jr. or Park Chan-wook films
18. Nobody Wants This
Netflix | Erin Foster
An agnostic sex podcaster and a newly single rabbi fall in love; discovering if their relationship survive their wildly different lives and meddling families.
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Time Investment: 10 episodes x 25 min
Continuation: Renewed for a 2nd season
Must-watch if you like: Basically any Rom-Com
17. Rivals
Disney+ | Dominic Treadwell-Collins
Follows Rupert Campbell-Black and Tony Baddingham as they have a longstanding rivalry that comes to a head.
Genre: Period Drama
Time Investment: 8 episodes x 50 min
Continuation: Renewed for a 2nd season
Must-watch if you like: David Tennant, Mad Men meets Bridgerton
16. Baby Reindeer
Netflix | Richard Gadd
Dealing with a female stalker, a man is forced to face a dark, buried trauma.
Genre: Drama, Dark Comedy
Time Investment: 7 episodes x 30 min
Continuation: Limited series
Must-watch if you like: You, I May Destroy You
15. The Gentlemen
Netflix | Guy Ritchie
When aristocratic Eddie inherits the family estate, he discovers that it's home to an enormous weed empire, and its proprietors aren't going anywhere.
Genre: Dark comedy, Crime Drama
Time Investment: 8 episodes x 50 min
Continuation: Renewed for a 2nd season
Must-watch if you like: Snatch, Peaky Blinders, the 2019 film of the same name
14. Fantasmas
HBO | Julio Torres
Writer, director and comedian Julio Torres spins a fantastical six-part tale depicting his loss of a gold oyster earring.
Genre: Surrealist comedy
Time Investment: 6 episodes x 30 min
Continuation: Limited series
Must-watch if you like: SNL, Adult Swim
13. Black Doves
Netflix | Joe Barton
Helen, wife of the UK Secretary of State for Defence, learns that her secret identity as a Black Dove is in danger after her lover is killed by London's underworld.
Genre: Spy Drama
Time Investment: 6 episodes x 55 min
Continuation: Renewed for a 2nd season
Must-watch if you like: Slow Horses, Ben Whishaw
12. 3 Body Problem
Netflix | David Benioff, D. B. Weiss, & Alexander Woo
A fateful decision in 1960s China echoes across space and time to a group of scientists in the present, forcing them to face humanity's greatest threat.
Genre: Sci-Fi Drama
Time Investment: 8 episodes x 60 min
Continuation: Renewed for a 2nd and 3rd season
Must-watch if you like: The Expanse, Foundation
11. Fallout
Amazon Prime Video | Graham Wagner & Geneva Robertson-Dworet
In a future, post-apocalyptic Los Angeles brought about by nuclear decimation, citizens must live in underground bunkers to protect themselves from radiation, mutants and bandits.
Genre: Post-apocalyptic Sci-Fi Drama
Time Investment: 8 episodes x 60 min
Continuation: Renewed for a 2nd season
Must-watch if you like: The Last of Us, Silo, the Fallout video games
10. The Sticky
Amazon Prime Video | Brian Donovan & Ed Herro
A Canadian maple syrup farmer finds her farm is under threat and plots to steal millions of dollars of maple syrup as revenge.
Genre: Dark comedy, Crime drama
Time Investment: 6 episodes x 50 min
Continuation: Not yet renewed
Must-watch if you like: Margo Martindale, Fargo
9. A Gentleman in Moscow
Paramount+ | Ben Vanstone
After recently returning to Russia from Paris, aristocrat Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov spends decades banished to an attic hotel room following the October Revolution, after being sentenced to house arrest by a Bolshevik tribunal.
Genre: Period Drama
Time Investment: 8 episodes x 50 min
Continuation: Limited series
Must-watch if you like: Ewan McGregor, The Great
8. English Teacher
FX (Hulu) | Brian Jordan Alvarez
Evan Marquez is an English teacher in Austin, Texas, who often finds himself at the intersection of the personal, professional and political aspects of working at a high school.
Genre: Comedy
Time Investment: 8 episodes x 25 min
Continuation: Not yet renewed
Must-watch if you like: The Office, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Abbott Elementary
7. Kaos
Netflix | Charlie Covell
A darkly comedic and contemporary re-imagining of Greek mythology, exploring themes of gender politics, power and life in the underworld. Six humans learn that they are component parts of an ancient prophecy.
Genre: Mythology, Dark Comedy
Time Investment: 8 episodes x 50 min
Continuation: Cancelled
Must-watch if you like: Good Omens, Greek mythology in general, Jeff Goldblum
6. A Man on the Inside
Netflix | Michael Schur
A retired professor gets a new lease on life when a private investigator hires him to go undercover inside a San Francisco retirement home.
Genre: Comedy
Time Investment: 8 episodes x 30 min
Continuation: Renewed for a 2nd season
Must-watch if you like: The Good Place, Brooklyn Nine-Nine
5. Mr Bates vs The Post Office
ITV | Gwyneth Hughes
The extraordinary story of the greatest miscarriage of justice in British legal history, where hundreds of innocent sub-postmasters and postmistresses were wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting due to a defective IT system.
Genre: Historical Drama
Time Investment: 4 episodes x 50 min
Continuation: Limited series
Must-watch if you like: A Very English Scandal, It's a Sin, This is Going to Hurt
4. Say Nothing
FX (Hulu) | Joshua Zetumer
The series follows the lives of people growing up in Belfast in the 1970s, 80s and 90s during The Troubles, as well as their involvement in the Irish Republican Army, and inquiries into the Disappeared and particularly the murder of Jean McConville. Based on a true story.
Genre: Historical Drama
Time Investment: 9 episodes x 45 min
Continuation: Limited series
Must-watch if you like: Belfast (2021 film), The Crown, Chernobyl
3. Ripley
Netflix | Steven Zaillian
A wealthy man hires down-on-his-luck grifter Tom Ripley to travel to Italy to urge his vagabond son to return home; Tom's acceptance of the job is the first step in a life of deceit, fraud and murder.
Genre: Neo-noir, Psychological Thriller
Time Investment: 8 episodes x 60 min
Continuation: Limited series
Must-watch if you like: Andrew Scott, The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Night Of
2. Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Amazon Prime Video | Francesca Sloane & Donald Glover
Two strangers land jobs with a spy agency that offers them a life of espionage, wealth, and travel. The catch: new identities in an arranged marriage.
Genre: Dramatic Spy Comedy
Time Investment: 8 episodes x 45 min
Continuation: Renewed for a 2nd season. (Likely an anthology)
Must-watch if you like: The Americans, Black Mirror, Killing Eve
1. Shōgun
FX (Hulu) | Rachel Kondo & Justin Marks
Set in Japan in the year 1600, Lord Yoshii Toranaga is fighting for his life as his enemies on the Council of Regents unite against him, when a mysterious European ship is found marooned in a nearby fishing village.
Genre: Period Drama
Time Investment: 10 episodes x 60 min
Continuation: Renewed for a 2nd and 3rd season
Must-watch if you like: Game of Thrones, Pachinko, Black Sails
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