66 TV shows to watch in 2016

last updated 28 April 2016

We're deep into the era of "peak TV," and even the most dedicated viewer can have a hard time keeping track of the shows on in a single evening — let alone a single year. With old favorites returning for another run, promising new shows arriving all the time, and entire seasons arriving on a variety of streaming services, how can you keep up?

I've done my best to sort through every possible option and winnow it all down to the most interesting TV shows of 2016, so you can pick and choose the ones that most appeal to you. These shows have been listed in the order they'll premiere, and I'm only including shows with a set release date. As other great TV shows lock down their premiere dates, I'll update accordingly.

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Last year, the HBO fantasy series ended on a buzzy cliffhanger that guaranteed even the most jaded fans would tune in for another season. But while Game of Thrones remains one of TV's most durable hits, there's an intriguing new wrinkle to season six. The TV series has officially caught up with its literary source material, which remains unfinished, and author George R.R. Martin recently confirmed that the next book won't be published before the sixth season premieres. In short: For the first time ever, fans of the books don't know what's coming next.

Silicon Valley might be the most stressful sitcom on television — but if you're willing to laugh and bite your nails at the same time, you'll find plenty to admire about it. The series, which follows a scruffy group of programmers (led by Thomas Middleditch) navigating the high-stakes world of the tech boom, keeps one-upping itself, as new allies and competitors arrive to give or claim millions of dollars from the show's hapless leads.

HBO's terrific political satire (and reliable Emmy darling) suffered a blow when showrunner Armando Ianucci stepped down at the conclusion of last year's fourth season. Fortunately, the network locked down a capable replacement: David Mandel, best known for his work on Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Last year's season finale offered a cliffhanger that left the political career of Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) in question, and by extension the fate of the United States — so it should be a blast watching Veep untangle this particular knot.

Showtime's stylish horror drama can get bogged down in its own lurid plotting, but it has one undeniable asset: star Eva Green, delivering a powerful and deeply committed performance as a woman plagued by the devil himself. Penny Dreadful's mash-up approach to gothic horror means that legendary characters like Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway), Mina Harker (Olivia Llewellyn), and Abraham Van Helsing (David Warner) have put in appearances; season three will add Dr. Jekyll (Shazad Latif) to the show's mix.

Person of Interest first premiered way back in September 2011, but CBS isn't exactly giving the sci-fi thriller a rousing sendoff for its final season: The remaining episodes will be burned off with pretty much no fanfare, with two episodes airing per week until the series finale airs. But the network's shoddy treatment of Person of Interest doesn't mean you should avoid toasting the show's final season, which sees stars Jim Caviezel and Michael Emerson taking The Machine on one last run.

Having found a successful formula with The Walking Dead, AMC is doubling down on its investment in buzzy adaptations of bloody comic-book franchises with Preacher, which follows a violent, superpowered priest (Dominic Cooper), his ex-girlfriend, and a vampire on a quest to find and confront God. The Preacher comics were long thought too blasphemous and profane for anything but a totally bastardized adaptation, but an early screening of the pilot left fans buzzing that the series had arrived on the small screen, rather remarkably, with all that adults-only storytelling intact.

Anyone who stuck with last year's "event series" Wayward Pines was treated to one of the most out-and-out bonkers stories to air on network television in recent years. The series — which follows a Secret Service agent who wakes up in a bizarre town full of creepy people and creepier mysteries — packed in as many twists as you'd expect from a show executive produced by M. Night Shyamalan. But the biggest twist of all may be the series' unexpected return for a second season, which takes on the challenge of picking up after last year's characteristically oddball ending. Wayward Pines' second season will also introduce several new protagonists, including a historian played by Djimon Honsou.

We're in the midst of an unlikely David Schwimmer renaissance, and AMC's new dramedy Feed the Beast aims to pick up where American Crime Story: The People vs. O.J. Simpson left off. A loose adaptation of the Danish series Bankerot, Feed the Beast follows a hard-luck sommelier (Schwimmer) and his chef buddy (Jim Sturgess) as they attempt to open a restaurant in Brooklyn while dodging a gang of mobsters, whom they owe a considerable financial debt.

Lifetime built its name on a series of gloriously cheesy made-for-TV movies, and until recently, it seemed fairly comfortable staying within that niche. But last year's new original drama UnREAL — which chronicles the behind-the-scenes production turmoil at a Bachelor-esque reality show — represented a colossal leap forward for the network, delivering a femme-centric antihero story that could go toe-to-toe with the kind of thing you'd see on the prestige networks. Season two introduces B.J. Britt as the new bachelor at the heart of the show-within-a-show, alongside an all-new cast of hopeful contestants for UnREAL's protagonists to manipulate.

TV doesn't exactly have a shortage of shows about middle-aged, middle-class white people navigating life and love — but if you're up for another binge-watch, Casual is one of the good ones. The first season established the foibles of the talented multigenerational cast: newly divorced Valerie (Michaela Watkins), as well as her mother (Frances Conroy), rakish younger brother (Tommy Dewey), and teenaged daughter (Tara Lynne Barr).

Yes, yes — another O.J. Simpson series. But even if you've devoured every episode of American Crime Story: The People vs. O.J. Simpson, you'll get a totally different experience out of O.J.: Made in America. The ambitious new series is a documentary, not a drama, and it takes a broader scope of Simpson's life and career, beginning with his childhood and ending with today, as he sits in prison after a 2013 conviction for armed robbery.

Earlier this year, Netflix made a near-unprecedented decision to renew the prison dramedy Orange is the New Black for a fifth, sixth, and seventh season — and all before the fourth season had even premiered. What inspires that level of confidence in a TV series? It probably has something to do with Orange's continued commitment to telling deeper, smarter, more diverse stories than you'd find in any other series — and now that we know it will be around for at least a few more years, the show's creative team can start laying the groundwork for the seasons to come.

A passion project from writer/director Cameron Crowe (who could really use a hit right now), Roadies promises a behind-the-scenes look at a rock band on tour, as told by the grunts who make the show happen. All the usual Cameron Crowe tropes are there — a sprawling ensemble cast, corny philosophizing, Pearl Jam — but at a time when so many prestige TV shows are built around damaged antiheroes, it's refreshing to see a network like Showtime push a series with such warm-hearted optimism.

Still bummed about True Detective's laughable second season? You might be able to get your crime drama fix from The Night Of, an HBO miniseries based on BAFTA-winning British series Criminal Justice. The Night Of begins in the immediate aftermath of the murder of a young woman in New York City's Upper West Side, chronicling the various people who become involved in different aspects of the investigation and subsequent trial. Stars include John Turturro, Riz Ahmed, and Michael K. Williams.

If you're looking for evidence that a single TV show can change the face of a network, look no further than Mr. Robot — the twisty, stylish thriller that single-handedly obliterated USA's reputation for blandly disposable procedurals. Mr. Robot's second season aims to broaden the scope of the show's paranoid narrative, with protagonist Elliot (Rami Malek) adjusting to a new world order — and increasingly doubting his own sanity — in the wake of last year's climactic finale.

Netflix's new original series is still largely shrouded in mystery — there's not even a trailer yet — but what we do know sounds intriguing. The story follows Joyce (Winona Ryder), a woman attempting to uncover what happened to a young boy who inexplicably disappeared. A Netflix press release reveals that the series will have supernatural elements, so it's probably safe to assume that Stranger Things will take the viewer to some pretty strange places over its eight-episode first season.

HBO's newest comedy, which follows a pair of vice principals gunning for the principal job at a midwestern high school, has two ideal leads for this kind of over-the-top comic premise: Danny McBride and Walton Goggins. Vice Principals was co-created by McBride and Jody Hill — and given that their previous HBO series was the no-holds-barred satire Eastbound & Down, you can safely expect a full season of raunchy one-upmanship.

Netflix continues to broaden its slate of originals with The Get Down, a period musical drama co-created by Baz Luhrmann and Shawn Ryan. The series follows a group of teenagers growing up in the 1970s, against a musical backdrop tracing the rise of disco and funk in the South Bronx. The young cast features a slew of promising unknowns, with talented characters actors like Giancarlo Esposito and Jimmy Smits playing supporting roles.

It's not exactly difficult to find a sitcom that explores the travails of modern dating — but if Man Seeking Woman isn't the first, it's definitely the weirdest. In a series of vignettes, protagonist Josh (Jay Baruchel) sees his desperate search for a girlfriend thwarted by a series of surreal mishaps: an encounter with Adolf Hitler, a trip to hell, a misplaced penis. Almost by definition, Man Seeking Woman is uneven, but when it works, it hits an ideal combo of surprising and hilarious.

Between American Horror Story, True Detective, and Fargo, the anthology series has been on an unexpected but welcome comeback tour — and ABC's own variation, American Crime, has similarly high ambitions. The first season chronicled the aftermath of a murder in California. Season two shifts to Indiana to tell the story of a high schooler who accuses his basketball teammates of drugging and sexually assaulting him. It's sobering material, but a capable cast — including season one alums Felicity Huffman, Timothy Hutton, and Regina King, playing all-new characters — give American Crime the appropriate weight to match.

David Cross' zany, densely plotted comedy series returns for an exceedingly unlikely third season, following a second season finale that saw the titular character unintentionally bring about the destruction of the planet. It's a tall order for a quasi-reboot, but Todd Margaret's structure is goofy enough to sustain any kind of narrative trickery — particularly with a ringer like Jack McBrayer joining the cast.

Last summer, USA redefined its brand with the excellent hacker thriller Mr. Robot, which showed infinitely more ambition and daring than fluff like Suits or Royal Pains. Colony clearly aims to be phase two of USA's aim to court a younger and more devoted TV audience, casting Josh Holloway (Lost) and Sarah Wayne Callies (The Walking Dead) in a dystopian sci-fi narrative about life in a police state run by alien invaders.

Rashida Jones stars in this Police Squad!-esque cop show spoof about a tough-as-nails cop who plays by her own rules. TBS clearly believes that Angie Tribeca can attract a loyal cult following; the network will air all 10 episodes of the first season in a single, binge-watch-friendly bloc on January 17, with a second season set to premiere just a week later (on a more conventional weekly schedule).

ABC's unjustly underappreciated Marvel series finally returns for a second season. The terrific Hayley Atwell stars as Peggy Carter, onetime ally and love interest to Captain America, as she adjusts to life post-World War II while working for an early version of what will eventually become S.H.I.E.L.D. The second season moves the action from New York City to Los Angeles, but otherwise, fans can expect the same delightful mix of action, fashion, snappy dialogue, and retro-cool spy gadgets.

Starz has a lot of faith in its ambitious pirate drama; a fourth season has already been ordered, and the third is only premiering now. Black Sails offers a mix of fact and fiction, interlacing an original prequel to Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island with real-life figures like Anne Bonny, Charles Vane, and Jack Rackham. This season promises to introduce one of the most notorious pirates of all: Blackbeard, played by Rome alum Ray Stevenson.

At this point, it would probably be faster to rattle off the cult TV shows that aren't being rebooted or revived for modern audiences — but the ahead-of-its-time The X-Files is unusually ripe for this kind of treatment. Though the TV show went off the air in 2002, it never really resolved its various mysteries in a satisfying manner (and a dismal 2008 movie sequel only made things worse). And with original stars Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny returning, alongside fan-favorite characters like Skinner and The Cigarette Smoking Man, this six-episode miniseries is a welcome chance to end one of TV's most beloved cult series on the high note it deserved.

Don't be fooled by the dumb title — this musical comedy, which aired its first eight episodes last fall, is anything but a lazy cliché. As a young woman who abandons her life in New York and moves to California after a chance encounter with an ex, Rachel Bloom is phenomenally multifaceted, remaining intensely likable while embracing the characters' uglier side. And the musical interludes are perfectly calibrated, balancing catchy tunes and witty lyrics that also provide genuine insights into the characters.

Lev Grossman's sci-fi/fantasy novel gets the small-screen treatment in The Magicians, which offers a kind of adult-oriented mashup between Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia. As the series begins, protagonist Quentin (Jason Ralph) is thrilled to begin a new life at a secret Hogwarts-esque school for magicians — only to discover that the real-life problems of adulthood can't be waved away by a wand.

Lucifer is the rare TV show that managed to alienate two intensely opinionated groups before airing a single episode. One Million Moms launched a petition urging Fox not to air a TV series that casts Satan as a hero working alongside the L.A.P.D., eventually securing 130,000 signatures. Meanwhile, fans of this particular take on Lucifer — which originated in Neil Gaiman's brilliant comic series Sandman — are skeptical of what looks like a very, very loose adaptation of the source material. Will the TV show be any good? There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical, but either way, it'll be fascinating to watch the cultural sparks fly when it's actually on the air.

WGN America continues to reshape itself into a home for top-shelf prestige television with Outsiders, a grim drama about a tight-knit family living off the grid in the Appalachian mountains. As the series begins, patriarch Big Foster (David Morse) declares war on a collective of police officers and businessmen bent on securing control of the mountain for lucrative redevelopment. Think Sons of Anarchy by way of Winter's Bone and you'll be in the right ballpark.

This oddball British import is a sci-fi dramedy with an unusually high concept: By the end of its 10-episode run, Earth will have been destroyed by a comet. From there, You, Me, and the Apocalypse jumps from location to location — Berkshire, New Mexico, Washington, D.C., and the Vatican — as we get to know the various characters who will somehow end up in a bomb shelter together by the end of the series. Stars include Rob Lowe as a priest and Jenna Fischer and Megan Mulally as a pair of escaped inmates.

ABC's much-discussed relaunch of The Muppets was correctly pegged as one of the biggest disappointments of the fall TV season — a crass, strangely cynical series that bore little resemblance to the characters longtime fans have come to know and love. But if you're one of the people who tuned out The Muppets this fall, it's worth giving it one last chance after the midseason break. The Muppets will return in a kind of "reboot," with Kristin Newman — a writer/producer with credits on shows like How I Met Your Mother, The Neighbors, and Galavant — taking over for departing showrunner Bob Kushell.

Riffing on the format of Ryan Murphy's hit TV series American Horror Story for an anthological true-crime tale, creators Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski have assembled a formidable cast to tell a fictionalized version of one of the most infamous and polarizing trials in modern history. Cast members include John Travolta as defense attorney Robert Shapiro, Sarah Paulson as prosecutor Marcia Clark, and Cuba Gooding, Jr. as plaintiff O.J. Simpson.

A special event airing over two consecutive evenings, Madoff casts Richard Dreyfuss as the infamous stockbroker behind the biggest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history, now serving a sentence of 150 years in prison. It's a story that will be very, very familiar to anyone who has followed the news cycle over the past decade, but those who can stomach an in-depth look at Madoff's crimes will find no shortage of drama to explore.

HBO gets back into the quirky animated comedy game with Animals, a series of shaggy sketches centered on the problems of unusually chatty rats, cats, and pigeons attempting to survive in New York City. Animals' exceedingly loose format has enabled a who's-who list of modern comedians to make time to voice an animal: the first three episodes contain work from Aziz Ansari, Ellie Kemper, Adam Scott, Chelsea Peretti, and Nathan Fielder, among many others.

AMC's unstoppable zombie juggernaut continues to chug along with no end in sight. The zombie drama tested critics' patience by pretending to kill off a major character, but ratings have remained sky-high. And fans of the original Walking Dead comic-book series based have an extra reason to tune in for the back half of season six: the long-awaited introduction of Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), the TV show's most notorious villain.

Hulu's newest and biggest original series is clearly designed for maximum buzz: A historical sci-fi thriller based on Stephen King's bestselling novel of the same name, produced by J.J. Abrams and starring James Franco. The series follows a time traveler (Franco) attempting to prevent Lee Harvey Oswald from assassinating President Kennedy. It's a hoary premise, but Stephen King worked wonders with it, giving the TV show a promising blueprint to make 11.22.63 shine.

Last year, AMC's Breaking Bad prequel/spin-off Better Call Saul overcame some very understandable skepticism to emerge as a top-notch drama in its own right. The second season promises to take Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) further down the road to corruption that eventually sees him remake himself as Saul Goodman, the sketchy-but-savvy lawyer who becomes one of Walt and Jesse's key allies in Breaking Bad.

History's Norse period drama often flies under the radar, but Vikings has achieved a devoted cult following on the back of its distinctive blood-and-grit visual style and intriguingly unconventional narrative rhythm. For the fourth season, History is doubling down on Vikings with a whopping 20 episodes — half to air now, half to air later this year. Let's hope they can maintain the show's overall quality at the accelerated pace.

Judd Apatow co-created this Netflix original, which follows a man (Paul Rust) and a woman (Gillian Jacobs) who befriend each other as they explore love and life in Los Angeles. It's a typically low-key Apatow premise, but his work tends to be most compelling when his characters are given room to grow, and it'll be interesting to see how that approach plays out in a binge-friendly 10-episode format.

Girls' timeslot partner earns just a fraction of its ratings — but Togetherness offers an equally insightful look at a quartet of adults who are struggling to find happiness as they settle into middle age. Mark Duplass — pulling quadruple duty as co-creator, co-writer, co-director, and star — has assembled a terrific ensemble cast that also includes Melanie Lynskey, Amanda Peet, and Steve Zissis.

Over the past few years, SundanceTV has quietly grown into one of the most reliable homes for top-notch TV dramas, and Hap and Leonard boasts a similarly promising pedigree. Based on novels by Joe Lansdale, the series follows the titular duo (played by James Purefoy and Michael K. Williams, respectively) in a twisty crime narrative set in 1980s Texas. The series is helmed by Nick Damici and Jim Mickle, who previously collaborated on the excellent Lansdale adaptation Cold in July, so they clearly have the right touch for this material.

If you tuned out of Marvel's first big superhero drama during its rocky first year, it's time to tune back in. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has grown more confident with each season, and the front half of season three saw the show break format for its best-ever episode, which stranded one character on an alien planet for a gripping and emotionally fraught hour. The new run of episodes will pick up where the old ones left off, as the team squares off against both a sinister government mucky-muck (Powers Boothe) and a body-snatching alien threat.

WGN America's Underground is a period drama centered on a group of slaves who resolve to flee a plantation via the Underground Railroad. It's a powerful narrative from an exceedingly dark chapter in American history, and Underground promises to explore it from every angle: the plantation owners, the people who sheltered the runaway slaves, and the people who did — and didn't — manage to escape.

Netflix's gritty take on the popular Marvel superhero returns for another batch of episodes with a couple of new fan-favorites in the mix. Élodie Yung will debut as the ultra-lethal assassin Elektra, who was previously played by Jennifer Garner on the big screen, and Jon Bernthal will debut as the Punisher, a brutal antihero whose goals seem to conflict with Daredevil's. And hey — given how closely interrelated Marvel's Netflix shows are intended to be, there's always a chance Luke Cage or Jessica Jones might pop in.

AMC's other zombie drama returns after an abbreviated freshman season last year for a full order of 15 episodes. Fear is a slower, denser series than the flagship Walking Dead, but an earlier place in the overarching timeline and a new Los Angeles location helps it feel fresh, and last season's ending — which implied that the survivors might be fleeing onto a yacht off the coast — could make for an intriguing new scenario.

You'd probably expect the story of a young woman (Ellie Kemper) resuming her life after 15 years as a captive to a cult leader to be a grim, harrowing drama. But Netflix's Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt took this difficult material and turned it into one of the cheeriest, most buoyant sitcoms to premiere in 2015. Netflix will drop all 13 episodes of season 2 on April 15, and the biggest challenge will be holding back from watching them too fast.

Scott Meslow is the entertainment editor for TheWeek.com. He has written about film and television at publications including The Atlantic, POLITICO Magazine, and Vulture.

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