The 30 Most Anticipated Fall TV Shows

“Incorporated”
Synopsis: In a near-future run by corporations, a young executive betrays his company to save the woman he loves.
What You Need To Know: A decade ago, the tremendous “Battlestar Galactica” suggested that Syfy was going to be a home for really smart, provocative genre fare. But for the most part, the network has failed to deliver since the show wrapped up, with only the promising-but-flawed “The Magicians” and “The Expanse” starting to right the ship. But could “Incorporated” be their first real crossover hit in a while (outside of “Sharknado,” obviously)? Produced by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, their first foray into TV since the short lived “Push, Nevada” a decade ago, it’s a futuristic dystopia in a way that seems fairly familiar, but at least is selling an intriguing enough mystery in its trailers. And while David and Alex Pastor, who write and direct, don’t have great previous credits (they penned Ryan Reynolds vehicle “Self/Less”), you could say the same about the Duffer Brothers, who did “Stranger Things.” Sean Teale, Allison Miller, Julia Ormond, Dennis Haysbert and Damon Herriman lead the cast.
Airdate: September 30th on Syfy.

“Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life”
Synopsis: Nearly a decade after we last saw Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, we return to Stars Hollow to see how the two are getting on across a year in their life.
What You Need To Know: Though it was never a ratings monster, “Gilmore Girls” has in the nine years since it initially concluded become a seminal show, a mid-’00s staple immortalized in a thousand Buzzfeed quizzes and Tumblr memes. The show’s final season was never a fan favorite, as creator Amy Sherman-Palladino exited beforehand, so news that Netflix had commissioned four 90-minute-films, each themed around a season, to reunite the characters, was greeted ecstatically by fans and critics. Aside from Edward Hermann, who sadly passed away at the end of 2014, almost every major cast member is coming back for the new episodes (including major movie star Melissa McCarthy). Beyond that, little’s been revealed beyond a teaser that sees Rory and Lorelai talking about Amy Schumer, adorably. But how much do you need to know? If you’ve seen more than one episode of the original, you’ll likely be itiching for this.
Airdate: November 25th on Netflix

“Search Party”
Synopsis: A group of twentysomething Brooklynites try to track down a former college classmate who’s gone missing.
What You Need To Know: It’s interesting to note how Peak TV is seeing networks re-brand themselves. To begin with, only the usual suspects were making good shows, but now you can find quality TV on Lifetime, on the USA Network or on WGN America. The latest making a concerted effort to rebrand is TBS, traditionally a home for sitcom repeats that has, since Conan O’Brien went over to the network, been aiming for a slightly hipper shows than before, with Rashida Jones’ delightfully silly police spoof “Angie Tribeca” as the best of the fictional bunch so far. But “Search Party” marks a shift even further —it’s more “Girls” than “Cougar Town,” coming from hip filmmakers Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers, the team behind 2014’s SXSW Grand Jury winner “Fort Tilden.” A sort of hipster spin on the mystery genre, this show toplines Alia Shawkat in the lead role, with rising stars like John Early, Griffin Newman and Meredith Hagner in support, and could well be a breath of fresh air, not least because it was shot as an independent pilot before selling to the network.
Airdate: The entire first season will air Thanksgiving week, with double-bills every night on TBS from November 21st.

“The Young Pope”
Synopsis: The story of Lenny Belardo, a youthful Cardinal who becomes Pius XIII, the youngest pope in history.
What You Need To Know: A few years ago, Ridley Scott directed a Showtime pilot called “The Vatican” starring Kyle Chandler that ultimately didn’t move forward, depriving us of the chance to see some machinations within the Roman Catholic Church on the small screen. Fortunately for anyone wanting to scratch that itch, 2016 brings “The Young Pope,” from Oscar-winner Paolo Sorrentino. His “Youth” might have been disappointing last year, but “Il Divo” and “The Great Beauty” mean we’ll always be interested in what Sorrentino does, and this HBO/Sky Atlantic/Canal+ co-production is certainly interesting, particularly as it seems to step away from the excess of his last few pictures to a more serious-minded (though still visually lavish) examination of religion and faith. Jude Law, in his first TV role as a star, takes the title role, with Diane Keaton as a nun, James Cromwell, Scott Shepherd, Cécile de France and Ludivine Sagnier among the cast.
Airdate: None announced yet, but it’s airing its first couple of episodes at the Venice Film Festival in a few weeks, so we’d expect to hear something firm after that.

“Transparent” Season 3
Synopsis: The continuing information of the Pfeffermans, as they continue to deal with the ripples of their patriarch Maura transitioning into becoming a woman.
What You Need To Know: If you’re not aware already, “Transparent” is the best show on TV. Jill Soloway’s comedy-drama has across its first two seasons become a flagship show for Amazon, has won Emmys and helped in no small way to make the issues of trans rights more prominent. But it’s also just a beautiful, often very funny show. There aren’t many details on the third season yet, though co-star Judith Light has promised further flashback on Pfefferman history, and interestingly Caitlyn Jenner will be making an appearance, while we imagine Angelica Huston will be back for more this time around. We’d be lying if we said that we weren’t slightly afraid that Soloway might be letting her focus drift —another Amazon pilot, “I Love Dick,” debuts this month, and she’s also prepping a movie, “Ten Aker Wood,” for the company too. But with the show already picked up for a fourth season, we don’t imagine there’s much reason to fear a drop-off.
Airdate: TBD, but it’ll probably be December, the time of year when the first two seasons debuted.

“The OA”
Synopsis: Tightly, tightly under wraps.
What You Need To Know: There aren’t that many shows we’d put in our top 10 without knowing anything about the logline, but given that “The OA” comes from Zal Batmanglij and Brit Marling, we have no problem doing so. Their first collaboration, the terrific, rich, low-budget, sci-fi-tinged cult drama “The Sound Of My Voice” was one of the most striking debuts of recent years (famously, it premiered at Sundance the same year that Marling also co-wrote and starred in another genre-y indie, “Another Earth”), and followup “The East” was rather underrated. Netflix won a bidding war for this show (produced by Brad Pitt’s Plan B), which Batmanglj and Marling have written together; he will direct and she will star. Word’s been quiet on this (something that tends to benefit some of these Netflix shows: the under-the-radar ones are often the best), but we do know that the cast also includes Will Brill (“Not Fade Away”), Patrick Gibson (“What Richard Did”) and veteran Scott Wilson (“In Cold Blood”), and that the whole thing’s being shot by the excellent Lol Crawley (“45 Years,” “The Childhood Of A Leader”).
Airdate: Nothing confirmed, so we’d thought that it might slip into 2017, but “Stranger Things” creators the Duffer Brothers said in a recent interview that the show will bow in December.

What else is coming up? Quite a lot, really. A third season of “Chef’s Table” hits Netflix on September 2nd, while motorcycle miniseries “Harley & The Davidsons,” starring “Game Of Thrones” actor Michel Huisman, begins September 5th. Crackle‘s evil-Bitcoin series “StartUp” with Martin Freeman and Adam Brody kicks off Sept 6th, “Masters Of Sex” returns September 11th, “American Horror Story” comes back September 14th (hopefully the “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” prediction will come true and it’ll be “American Horror Story: Ghost Bus”), while HBO will bring weed-dealing web series “High Maintenance” back on September 16th.

“Brooklyn Nine Nine” returns September 20th, as does “Agents Of SHIELD” (now with added “Ghost Rider,” for some reason) and “New Girl,” along with new drama “This Is Us,” while “Black-ish” and “Empire” come back September 21st, the same day as the “Lethal Weapon” TV series and well-reviewed family sitcom “Speechless” also debut. The “MacGyver” reboot begins on September 23rd, while the same day sees the debut of Syfy’s new “Van Helsing” show, which for some reason is written and directed by Neil LaBute, of all people.

“Last Man On Earth” returns September 25th, as does Brit crumpet-fest “Poldark.” Hayley Atwell-led legal procedural “Conviction” begins October 3rd along with time-travel drama “Timeless,” while “The Flash” returns on October 4th, the same day that “The Mindy Project” comes back to Hulu. “Arrow” is back on October 5th, paired with the small-screen transfer of Dennis Quaid vehicle “Frequency,” while the second half of the first season of “The Ranch” hits Netflix October 7th.

“Supergirl” moves to the CW on October 10th, a YouTuber gets their own Netflix show with “Haters Back Off” on October 14th, a day that by contrast also sees the series adaptation of Aussie horror movie “Wolf Creek” debut on Pop. CW faves “Jane The Virgin” and “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” come back on October 17th and 21st respectively, while “The Walking Dead” returns on October 23rd and you can find out who’s on the other end of that baseball beating.

Matt LeBlanc returns to screens with “Man With A Plan” on October 24th, while “The Great Indoors” with Joel McHale, Stephen Fry and Christopher Mintz-Plasse is one of the starrier multi-cam comedies to come along in a while: that show hits CBS on the 27th. Wyatt Cenac finally gets a vehicle with “People On Earth” on October 27th, while USA will debut supernatural thriller “Falling Water” on October 13th, Billy Bob Thornton, Maria Bello and William Hurt star in Amazon and “Ally McBeal” creator David E. Kelley‘s legal drama “Goliath” from October 14th, and Norwegian remake “Eyewitness” starring Julianne Nicholson on the 16th.

Amazon’s teen comedy “Red Oaks” returns for a second run (with half the episodes directed by Hal Hartley!) on November 11th, Michelle Dockery tries to shake off her “Downton Abbey” image with con-woman thriller “Good Behavior” on TNT on November 15th, and Sophie Okonedo and Adrian Lester headline Brit export “Undercover” on BBC America on November 17th, the same day that the new series of “Scrotal Recall,” now retitled “Lovesick,” bows on Netflix.

“The Affair” returns to Showtime for a third outing on November 20th, while Jeffrey Donovan headlines Hulu’s “Shut Eye” on December 7th, Benedict Cumberbatch is Richard III in “The Hollow Crown” on PBS on December 11th, and Amazon’s hit ‘The Man In The High Castle” debuts its second run on December 16th.

Anything else you’re looking forward to? Big it up in the comments.