The best new TV shows of October 2024

ABOUTOctober for you’re scaring yourself stupidand the month’s best new TV shows provided plenty of opportunities to do just that. Among the best horror offerings is Peacock’s memoir of the Satanic Panic. Hysteria! and the unconventional story of a serial killer, Sweet peasfrom Starz. Apple TV+: Highlights Where’s Wanda? wrings dark comedy out of every parent’s worst fear. Even Hulu Rivals could scare you with the depth of depravity of its amorous characters. And if all this anxiety-inducing TV is making you too nervous, a week before the anxiety-inducing viewing elections? Switch to PBS Documentary Series Citizen of the Nation witness a less stressful manifestation of democracy.

Citizen of the Nation (PBS)

A documentary series about contemporary American politics that doesn’t make you sick? A week before the presidential election, which resulted in an alleged comedian appearing at one candidate’s campaign rally. calling to Puerto Rico “Garbage Island”? Could such a show really exist? Believe me. Four-part PBS document Citizen of the Nation follows high school students and their teachers from across the country as they compete in a national civic competition called “We the People.” From competing teams—one privileged, one an underdog—in Wyoming, from working-class kids in rural West Virginia to champions in Richmond, Virginia, director Singley Agnew and creator Bret Sigler capture teenagers and teachers of varying demographics and political persuasions. thinking and speaking seriously. but politely about the most controversial issues of our time.

This is a compelling premise, supported Citizen of the NationWise choice of topic. In Las Vegas, we meet the daughter of Nigerian immigrants whose father, a history professor, served two years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. In Wyoming, a tireless teacher inspires even the most disengaged students to learn about their rights and responsibilities as Americans. A Virginia teenager is competing for a state championship with a team coached by his father, who is also a local politician. While the series feels relevant to current crises such as the epidemic of mass shootings, the politicization of teaching, and the financial burdens facing college-bound children, my biggest takeaway was the sense of hope generated by watching young people conscientiously interact with politics and ideas that will shape their future.

Hysteria! (Peacock)

During the 1980s, under Reagan and the liberation movements of the previous two decades in decline, respectable society lost its collective wisdom. Rumors of satanic cults spreading across the country were amplified by television news personalities such as Geraldo Rivera and is considered a serious threat by the FBI. Kindergarten teachers have been embroiled in absurd and highly publicized ritual child abuse cases. Such harmless forms of teenage rebellion as heavy metal fandom or Dungeons and Dragons one could brand the child a cultist…if not a murderer. This multi-year wave of mass hysteria became known as satanic panic. The witch hunts were not based on any actual occult violence. And yet, as Hugh Downes noted in a silly piece in 1985. 20/20 segment titled “Devil Worshippers”: “There’s no doubt that there’s something going on there.”

What exactly is this anything turned out to be a central concern Hysteria!a fun, educational, and sometimes scary coming-of-age horror series. The story takes place in a small Michigan town called Happy Hollow, where, as one character puts it, “you’re either one or the other” in the late ’80s. The story begins with a masked assailant breaking into the bedroom of two teenagers. I’m going to connect. As the quiet residential neighborhood slumbers, Faith (Nikki Khan) and Ryan (Brandon Butler) fight for their lives like excited children in Halloween. That night, both disappear, but only Ryan, the star quarterback, attracts the breathless attention of the local media. There are rumors that Satanists are to blame. (Read full review.)

Rivals (Hulu)

With so many dark, sad comedies out there, we really need more light, fun dramas to balance out the atmosphere. Rivals is an all-too-rare show that lives up to that description, and should especially please fans of British television. Doctor Who And Broadchurch star David Tennant And Aidan Turner aka Ross Poldarkin key roles. Just don’t wait for anything polite enough to air. Masterpiece. In this adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s best-selling satirical novel, set in the world of 1980s British television, Tennant plays Lord Tony Beddingham, the new head of an independent commercial station who lures a feisty Irish reporter (Turner’s Declan O’Hara) away from the BBC . and broadcasts his battle interviews live, with the assistance of a ruthless American producer (Cameron Cook of Nafessa Williams), whom Beddingham is also fucking. Fueling this bold power play is Baddingham’s rivalry with Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell), a sexually voracious blue-blooded politician. The O’Haras happened to move next door to him.

Frothy and often dirty, but not brainless (send thanks across the Atlantic for that good British dialogue), it’s the right kind of escapism. The excesses of the ’80s are on point, from the maximalist cocktail outfits to the mile-high club meeting in the Concord bathroom that opens the series. There are chaotic dinner parties, torrid romances, a nude tennis match. Old money versus new money, journalistic ethics versus small-screen spectacle, pompous hypocrisy versus lustful hedonism are all themes. But more expensive is a vacation. Rivals relieves you of everyday reality.

Sweet peas (Starz)

Consider the bully. This juvenile sadist makes a hobby out of humiliation, intimidation, and inflicting pain, both physical and emotional. In many cases, they are effective enough at gaslighting to avoid punishment amounting to even detention. Adults console young victims with the reassurance that bullies live out their glory days in the locker room and have nothing to look forward to but misery. But what’s a person to do when she grows up, stuck in the claustrophobic city where she was an outcast teenager, takes a soul-crushing job, watches her family fall apart around her… and her bully, still thriving, just keeps making things worse?

That’s the mystery facing Rhiannon Lewis, the nasty anti-hero of a dark and funny British thriller. Sweet peas. She was played with nervous intensity by Ella Purnell, a shining star. Yellow Jackets And Fall outRhiannon works as a secretary at the local newspaper, where she is so invisible, the editor (Jeremy Swift from Ted Lasso) throws a coat over her head as he enters the office. Her interest in an open junior reporter position is taken as a joke. And her personal life is an even bigger disaster. Deprived of friends and romantic prospects, she watches helplessly as her ailing father dies in hospital. Then her sister Serene (Alexandra Dowling) arrives from abroad for the funeral with a plan to sell the family home out of Rhiannon’s control. The real estate agent she chose turned out to be the person most responsible for Rhiannon becoming such a meek and depressed person: her school bully Julia (MoodNicole Leckie). (Read full review.)

Where’s Wanda? (Apple TV+)

Apple’s first German-language series is a poignant black comedy about a 17-year-old girl whose disappearance drives her parents to despair. This is wrong sound kind of a predicament that makes you want to laugh, but a big part of the appeal Where’s Wanda? is owned by creator Oliver Lansley (Flack) savvy in crime drama clichés (this is a series that, for example, knows everything about Missing White Woman Syndrome) and how well it handles complex tonal combinations.

The series follows Dedo and Carlotta Klatt (Axel Stein and Heike Makács) several months after Wanda (Lea Drinda) goes missing as the police investigation collapses and the pair become increasingly convinced that if she is to be found, they will be the ones who have to do it. do it. When a clue suggests she hasn’t made it far, the Klatts hatch a plan to spy on their neighbors. Jokes, put-downs and juicy revelations that have nothing to do with Wanda’s whereabouts follow their inept execution in sequences punctuated by touching, believably sudden scenes of premature grief. Where’s Wanda? is a gem that Apple has been able to create lately only in its foreign language products (see also: La Maison), so we’re hoping to learn more about where this came from. (For another recent subtitled breakthrough, try Hulu’s La Maquinawhich reunites And your mom too The main roles in the crime boxing drama are played by Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna.)