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Spring 2023 TV Preview: 14 Must-Watch Shows

See which of your favorite series are returning and get the inside scoop on what’s brand new and buzzy


spinner image Toni Colette in Power, Brian Cox in Succession, Olivia Colman in Great Expectations
(Left to right) Toni Collette in “The Power”; Brian Cox in “Succession”; Olivia Colman in “Great Expectations”
Katie Yu/Prime Video; David Russell/HBO; Pari Dukovic/FX

Spring is not just about warm breezes and fresh blossoms — it’s also about great new TV shows arriving on the networks and on streaming giants like Netflix, HBO Max and Apple TV+. Whether it’s the series finale of Succession or a juicy new Bridgerton prequel, we’re talking must-watch TV. Don’t miss a thing with our preview.

Yellowjackets, Season 2 (Showtime, March 24)

In the hotly awaited return of the dazzling show about teen survivors of a 1996 plane crash and their traumatized life today, Melanie Lynskey’s Shauna regrets killing the nice boyfriend she mistook for a blackmailer, and Lauren Ambrose joins the cast as her old teammate Van, a character who sounds a bit like Ambrose’s Six Feet Under heroine. Co-showrunner Jonathan Lisco told Entertainment Weekly that Van is “both a serious-minded person and extremely glib, sarcastic, funny, and lovable all at the same time.”

Succession, Season 4 (HBO/HBO Max, March 26)

In the final-season premiere of TV’s most cynically realistic hit, thundering potty-mouthed patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox) celebrates his birthday without the children he recently betrayed before they could betray him. But who will take over their megacorporation? And who gets shivved by Shiv (Sarah Snook), Roman (Kieran Culkin), Kendall (Jeremy Strong) and/or dad?

Great Expectations (FX/Hulu, March 26)

Not since The Favourite has Olivia Colman had a role as terrifying and promising as this: the rotting, jilted bride Miss Havisham, bitterly scheming to destroy the happiness of young Pip and his beloved (Fionn Whitehead and Shalom Brune-Franklin) in this six-part miniseries adaptation of Dickens’ ripping yarn.

The Power (Prime Video, March 31)

Toni Collette plays the mayor of Seattle in a world where teen girls discover they can electrocute people with their fingertips, and show older women how, so women aren’t scared of men anymore. Alas, not a documentary.

Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies (Paramount+, April 6)

Why see a Grease prequel set in 1954? Because nobody’s told a story about the Pink Ladies, the real teen girl gang that helped inspire the 1978 hit film, and because the funniest of grumps, Jackie Hoffman, 62 (Only Murders in the BuildingGlass Onion), plays their assistant principal.

Transatlantic (Netflix, April 7)

This blockbuster miniseries is a fiction based on the true story of American journalist Varian Fry (Cory Michael Smith), who led a team in 1940s Marseilles that smuggled thousands of Jewish refugees out from Nazi clutches, including painter Max Ernst (Alexander Fehling).

The Last Thing He Told Me (Apple TV+, April 14)

In this thriller miniseries, Jennifer Garner’s Hannah has to befriend her teen stepdaughter to find out why her husband (Game of Thrones’ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) vanished into thin air.

Barry, Season 4 (HBO/HBO Max, April 16)

Don’t miss the final season of the smart, funny/scary show about a hit man (Bill Hader) transformed by the acting class of a has-been actor (Henry Winkler) — but not necessarily done with murdering.

Mrs. Davis (Peacock, April 20)

A nun (Betty Gilpin, GLOW), battles an artificial-intelligence robot that many people regard as godlike, plus Nazis, in a loudly buzzed, doubtless entirely bizarre extravaganza apt to be another hit from Damon Lindelof (Lost, The Leftovers). Margo Martindale, 71, plays her Mother Superior.

Dead Ringers (Prime Video, April 21)

Academy Award-winner Rachel Weisz, 53, plays identical-twin gynecologists who share drugs and lovers, including a movie-star patient who may not be able to tell them apart. But unlike Jeremy Irons in the creepy 1988 original, they’re out to save women’s health care too.

Love & Death (HBO Max, April 27)

In Big Little Lies auteur David E. Kelley’s latest crime miniseries, Elizabeth Olsen plays a 1980s Texas housewife whose life needed … something more. So she befriended a neighbor, bedded her husband and was charged with axing her 41 times. It’s based on a true story (also seen in Hulu’s 2022 series Candy, with Jessica Biel and Melanie Lynskey).

Tom Jones (PBS, April 30)

This four-part adaptation of Henry Fielding’s 1749 novel packs in more plot than the 1963 film could, with House of the Dragon’s Solly McLeod as randy Tom; Bridgerton’s James Fleet, 71, as his adoptive father; Downton Abbey’s Alun Armstrong, 76, as bibulous Squire Western; and Ted Lasso’s Hannah Waddingham as lascivious Lady Bellaston.

Fatal Attraction (Paramount+, April 30)

Not just a repeat of 1987’s boiled-bunny tale, this show is about a guy (Joshua Jackson) cheating on his wife (Amanda Peet) with leather-clad Alex (Lizzy Caplan). Years later, he tries to prove he didn’t kill Alex and win parole.

Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (Netflix, May 4)

This is the origin story of Bridgerton’s haughty queen (Golda Rosheuvel as a grownup, India Amarteifio as a youngster) and her marriage to King George III (Corey Mylchreest) almost immediately after meeting him.

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