With subscriptions to a half-dozen streaming services, I’ve got nearly more television shows than I can handle nowadays. Amidst the heady barrage of streaming options, it’s easy to lose track of which shows you’d been following, and an upcoming season that you may have been anticipating can easily be forgotten. Given an understandable forgetfulness bourne of inundation, I thought I’d take this opportunity to review ten streaming shows I enjoy to which I’m anticipating future seasons. In fairness, my initial list was longer, but I trimmed out shows like Invincible and Daredevil: Born Again to keep it down to ten, which I’ve ordered according to my own preference. I created the list with no idea of when new seasons might be arriving, so let’s dig into this together and get answers.
10. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
I wasn’t sure initially how I felt about this Middle Earth spinoff. But I’ve enjoyed every bit of it as I’ve watched. The uncertainty regarding the identity of The Stranger, the plight of the Harfoots, and the unearthing of the Balrog are all amazing to watch.
It looks like we’ll be getting a third season in November, which is nearly here, and the showrunners are already working on Season four.
9. Alien: Earth
Adaptation of an IP as lauded as this could have easily could have become a real mess. Luckily, what we got was a show with an excellent grounded aesthetic and a setting that very much felt like the original Ridley Scott film. The addition of the hybrids adds a new augmented human to the mix, alongside the synthetics we’ve seen in so many Alien films, and cyborgs which I don’t believe have appeared in the franchise until now.
Alien: Earth sees not just the same xenomorphs that haunted earlier franchise films, but additionally a number of other alien species, a few of which seem equally threatening. Given what’s happening, it does feel as if there’s a real threat of humanity on Earth being wiped out entirely.
It’s been nearly a year since Alien: Earth was renewed for a second season, but I’ve not been able to find any word about the show’s production. So while it is coming, I wouldn’t hold your breath for a new season.
8. Peacemaker
John Cena’s irreverent and hilarious superhero show is an entry in a mainstream superhero franchise with occasional scenes that could understandably be termed pornography. Certainly it isn’t the first program to be subject to that criticism – cough, cough, Game of Thrones – but this character shares screen space with Superman, having had on-screen dialogue with Lex Luthor.
Vigilante, a character who somehow remains loveable despite being an absolute psychopath, is my favorite character in the show. The insane dialogue that he and other characters in the show is exactly the kind of absurdist humor I love.
A third season of Peacemaker has not yet been confirmed or mentioned anywhere. It certainly isn’t off the table, but as of now, there’s no indication that it will happen.
7. Plur1bus
Vince Gilligan’s show Pluribus is an invasion of the bodysnatchers type tale with a twist: the aliens have only goodwill towards the few humans left untouched by their bodysnatching. Once the hive mind aliens have taken over all of humanity, what’s next? A further twist is the impending famine brought about by the fact that these “plurbs” have an extreme do-no-harm attitude which prevents them from even harming plants by harvesting crops.
When the first season ended, the wild premise and cliffhanger ending left an audience hungry for more. But Vince Gilligan and his crew were unprepared to start a second season, and so while it’s coming, it’s not headed our way very quickly. Still, Pluribus is Apple TV’s most-watched series ever, surpassing Ted Lasso and Severance. The second season has been written, and filming should be starting soon.
6. Widow’s Bay
Widow’s Bay caught me by surprise. When I hear comedy horror, I tend to think of over-the-top fare, like The Monkey or Tucker and Dale vs Evil. Widow’s Bay is understated. It dryly ignores its own jokes, achieving hilarity but never acknowledging it. It presents a monster-of-the-week, yet somehow never falls victim to that trope. Mostly, the show has good characters. I’ve watched the entire show more than once, and I can’t wait for another season.
Production for a second season won’t begin until March, so we’ll be waiting a while for a second season.
5. Avatar: The Last Airbender (Netflix live action)
I’ve never made it a secret that the original animated Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of my favorite shows of all time. When Netflix first released its live action adaptation, I’d feared it would be like the M.Night Shymalan abomination. Luckily, it’s far better. The Aang actor nailed the role, and the Sokka actor was exceptional. I was again astonished when the second season released and despite the fact that the Aang actor had aged and no longer looked the part, he was able to retain the character despite the disadvantage of having experienced puberty.
Although season three has already been filmed, everything I’m finding indicates that it might be a year or more until the conclusion to the trilogy is released. At least we won’t have to worry about the actors aging any further.
4. For All Mankind
For All Mankind has got to be my favorite currently-airing TV show. I’ll grant you that the first two seasons were by far the best bits of the show, but I’m still very much enjoying the later seasons.
Season six, which will be For All Mankind‘s last season, is set to air sometime in 2027.
3. White Lotus
I was a latecomer to White Lotus, only starting the show after the third season released. In the end, each season is a mostly self-contained, well-written story with good characters. And each season has an entirely new cast, mostly. And these casts are very good. Jennifer Coolidge, Steve Zahn, Aubrey Plaza, Jason Isaacs, Walton Goggins, F. Murray Abraham, Sam Rockwell, Scott Glenn. And Parker Posey as the wildest American stereotype.
Season Four, which should be out in 2027, should include Laura Dern, who “appeared” previously in the show only via voice, on the phone to her cheating husband.
2. 3 Body Problem
Netflix’s adaptation of The Three Body Problem, styled simply as “3 Body Problem“, is a good adaptation of the book. I’ve read all three books in Cixin Liu’s series, and it’s been difficult to imagine how an adaptation might work, given that the book series is very event-focused rather than character-focused, taking place across thousands of years.
The Netflix adaptation takes a story that had been very China-centric, and spreads it out to a group of characters spanning most of the world. Rosalind Chao, John Bradley, and Liam Cunningham are all excellent, and I’ll watch Benedict Wong in pretty much anything. I do find it interesting that David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the show’s creators, had previously adapted George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire to television for HBO, and they retained both John Bradley and Liam Cunningham for their new project.
I watched the Chinese adaptation of the book on Amazon, where it’s titled simple Three-Body, and I enjoyed it despite the subtitles. This version was both truer to the original, retaining the chain smoking detective and the all-Chinese cast, and it was also very long, weighing in at more than 20 episodes.
The second season of 3 Body Problem, which I assume will contain the remainder of the events in the book The Dark Forest, is scheduled to release in 2026, meaning that we’ve only got a few months left. I think it’s entirely possible that the Netflix series will end after this second season, and that they’ll opt not to adapt Death’s End.
1. Severance
I love Severance. It’s weird, it’s science fiction, it makes me laugh, and there are some really well-done scenes. The premise is simple enough – what if you could “sever” your consciousness such that when you’re at work, you can’t recall anything about your home life, and when you leave work, you can’t remember anything that happened inside your place of employment? Simple enough premise. From there, the show does what all great science fiction does – it explores that concept in-depth.
The severance procedure, in a way, creates two separate people. The “innie” you, who only knows life at work, and the “outie” you who lives a life without working. Layer atop this the Lumen corporation’s cult-like culture, and you’ve got a truly bizarre situation.
Season three of Severance is supposed to be out in 2027, although Apple has yet to give us an exact date.
