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This week is another great week of TV. It’s pretty amazing how much stuff the streaming services had banked/were able to finish remotely so people would have stuff to watch as the year dragged on. And there’s also stuff like The Bachelorette, which was postponed, filmed in the summer as safely as possible, and is now ready to go. To paraphrase the homie Dr. Ian Malcolm, “TV finds a way.”
Our full list of editors’ picks for the week are below, but if this isn’t enough and you’re looking for even more hand-picked recommendations, sign up for our free spam-free Watch This Now newsletter that delivers the best TV show picks straight to your inbox, or check out the best shows and movies in October on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime.
Fear the Walking Dead
Season 6 premiere Sunday at 9/8c on AMC
The Walking Dead‘s other spin-off Fear the Walking Dead — this is the old one, not the new one — is back for a new season. The premiere will show how Morgan (Lennie James) survived the near-death experience he had at the end of Season 5, and it’s a pretty exciting episode that goes to some unexpected places. Fear is inconsistent, but when it hits, it hits hard. It will be followed by the second episode of The Walking Dead: World Beyond at 10/9c.
Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts
Third and final season premieres Monday on Netflix
The good news: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, Netflix’s best family-friendly animated series, was renewed for a third season! The bad news: It’s the final season. But that means it’s not too late to get in on this highly imaginative adventure that’s sure to plaster a smile on your face. Kipo is a relentlessly positive girl in an apocalyptic future where human survivors live underground, but when she’s stuck on the surface among the ruins of civilization occupied by mutant animals, she learns a whole lot about herself and teaches a group of new friends — including a four-eyed pig, a talking bug, and two other young kids — the importance of sticking together. It’s cool too, with a diverse cast and a killer hip-hop/dubstep soundtrack that makes the action-packed sequences as thrilling as anything live-action. It’s one of our favorite shows of the year. —Tim Surette
The Bachelorette
Season 16 premieres Tuesday at 8/7c on ABC
There hasn’t been a Bachelorette season this highly-anticipated in years. Not only was this season filmed in quarantine, a unique experiment we can’t wait to see how they pulled off, the all-but-confirmed rumor is that Clare Crawley quits the show halfway through and gets replaced by Tayshia Adams. We truly can’t wait to see what happens. This franchise falls into drama when it’s not even trying to.
Welcome to the Blumhouse
Now on Amazon Prime Video
This is a collection of four horror movies from Blumhouse, an indie studio with a really impressive track record of low-risk, high-reward horror movies like Paranormal Activity, The Purge, Get Out, and Invisible Man. Welcome to the Blumhouse started last week with The Lie, which is written and directed by Veena Sud and stars Mireille Enos, Peter Sarsgaard and Joey King, and Black Box, starring Phylicia Rashad, which were released Oct. 6. They’ll be followed on Oct. 13 by Evil Eye, produced by Priyanka Chopra and starring Sarita Choudhury and Sunita Mani, and Nocturne, starring Euphoria‘s Sydney Sweeney. Just going by Blumhouse’s reputation, we’d bet at least one of these is great.
Social Distance
Thursday on Netflix
An eight-episode tragicomic anthology series about the early days of the pandemic, following people as they try to stay sane and connected to other people while in lockdown. Each remotely-shot episode is about a different person/group of people, and the cast includes Mike Colter, Oscar Nunez, and real-life married couple Dylan and Becky Ann Baker.
Helstrom
Friday on Hulu
A relatively obscure Marvel property gets its day in the sun with the premiere of this spooky-ish superhero series. Helstrom is about Daimon (Tom Austen) and Ana Helstrom (Sydney Lemmon), siblings whose father was an evil demon and whose mother has been possessed by a demon for 20 years as punishment for finding out about her husband. They inherited their father’s powers, but they don’t yet understand the full extent of them, nor are they certain they will be able to use them for good and not evil. Evil is in their blood, after all, even though they don’t want to be like their father. If this description sounds scary or heavy, in practice the show is very entertaining and fun, and makes for a very satisfying binge.
Stop searching, start watching! TV Guide’s Watch This Now! page has even more TV recommendations.