From the biggest streaming services to the most reliable broadcast networks, there are so many shows vying for your time and attention every single week. Lucky for you, the Paste Editors and TV writers sort through the deluge of Peak TV “content” to make sure you’re watching the best TV shows the small screen has to offer. Between under-the-radar gems and the biggest, buzziest hits, we keep our finger on TV’s racing pulse so you don’t have to.
The rules for the Power Rankings are simple: any current series on TV qualifies, whether it’s a comedy, drama, news program, animated series, variety show, or sports event. It can be on a network, basic cable, premium channel, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, YouTube, or whatever you can stream on your smart TV, as long as a new episode was made available within the past week (ending Sunday)—or, in the case of shows released all at once, it has to have been released within the previous four weeks.
Below is what we’re enjoying right now. Happy viewing!
Best TV Shows for the Week of July 22:
Honorable Mentions: The Gilded Age (HBO Max), The Sandman (Netflix), The Summer I Turned Pretty (Prime Video)
5. Resident Alien
Network: Syfy/USA Network Last Week: Honorable mention This Week: Still one of TV’s most compelling under-the-radar gems.
Resident Alien not getting the audience it deserved on SYFY for its first two seasons was—to quote displaced alien Harry Vanderspiegel (Alan Tudyk)—some serious bullshit! Gratefully, in early 2024, Netflix streamed the exceptionally funny series and immediately broadened its audience and made it a ratings hit. For the uninitiated, this nutty yet poignant dramedy revolves around an alien who was on a mission to destroy Earth. Instead, it crash landed its spaceship in the Colorado mountains and hid its presence by replicating the guise and identity of rural physician, Dr. Vanderspiegel. In the subsequent three seasons, alien Harry has had to learn how to be human(ish) as the town doctor and has mostly assimilated into this town of misfits through the tutelage of Asta Twelvetrees (Sara Tomko), the clinic’s physician assistant.
Resident Alien remains one of TV’s funniest and heartfelt shows. It feels like Sheridan is moving towards a more definitive wrap up for this world and its characters based on the real-world limits of cable-based television these days. If that happens, Sheridan and his writers have earned my trust in them bringing it in for a landing in ways that I’ll howl with laughter and sob like a baby. Not many shows can do that in equal measure and if this is the last season for Resident Alien, everything in the set up of Season 4 points to it going down as one of those all-timer sleeper shows that found the audience flowers that it deserves. —-Tera Bennett [Full Review]
Network: Hulu Last Week: 5 This Week: The second season of this underrated British comedy is even more delightfully unhinged than its first.
Such Brave Girls is not a series for the faint of heart. The story of a dysfunctional family wrestling with mental health issues, relationship drama, financial woes, and lingering abandonment issues, the series is bleak, biting, and uncomfortably cringe by turns. Its leads are often (possibly even most of the time) deeply unlikeable people. Its humor is frequently uncomfortable, crude, and even downright cruel. Yet, there’s also nothing else like it on either side of the pond: Brutally honest, narratively unhinged, and utterly fearless in every way that counts, it’s a coming-of-age story that skewers everything from feminism and self-help platitudes to sisterhood and mental health services.
The series’ six-episode second season takes everything that was both shocking and profound about its first and turns it up to eleven. Deb, who opens first episode by reminding her daughters that the family motto is “Ignore. Repress. Forget,” is busy trying to stay on top of all the lies she’s told her boyfriend, Dev (Paul Bazely), a widower with an allegedly “massive house” who’s meant to be their meal ticket out of the financial troubles that have befallen the family ever since the girls’ father disappeared. Kidnapped and forced to marry the boyfriend she only marginally tolerates, Josie wrestles with ongoing questions surrounding her sexual identity, becoming fixated on a local student named Charlie (Rebekah Murrell), a move that takes her character to some shockingly dark places throughout the season. —Lacy Baugher Milas [Full Review]
Network: Netflix Last Week: 1 This Week: Everybody’s talking about Lena Dunham again, but her love letter to the rom-com genre appears to have won over a lot of former haters.
Clever writing and a palpable, studied affinity for the tried-and-true conventions of the rom-com genre make Too Much easily one of the streaming network’s best offerings of the year so far. But if any of the series’ premise sounds a bit twee, a bit safe for the inadvertent voice of her generation (or at least a voice, of a generation), it’s not an unreasonable judgment. Indeed, Dunham drops her poison-tipped pen here in favor of something softer, less cynical and more measured, and occasionally more mature than anything she’s done on TV before.
This is particularly apparent when it comes to the show’s belief that everything in life—even love—has a cost. Romantic evenings of talking and sex that stretch long into the morning lead to professional reprimands the next day; Jess’s boundless affection for Felix entices him but also threatens his sobriety. While Too Much inevitably trades in observations about the cultural differences between America and its European forefather, Dunham’s heart isn’t really in the fish-out-of-water mischief. Each episode may be named after a punny homage to a British romcom, and the unpacking of certain foreign colloquialisms makes for some amusing misunderstandings. But the emotional weight of Too Much stems from its affection for these specific characters in their specific situation, illuminating something about modern dating dynamics that’s both insightful and as sweet as a Chelsea bun.
Girls offered an unflinching, unromantic view of twentysomething life that paradoxically has made it comfort TV for its new generation of younger fans. (Wasn’t it wonderful when life’s biggest problems consisted of microaggressions and handlebar mustaches, rather than the collapse of democracy and the impending AI apocalypse?) Too Much strives to wring a realistic adult romance from a genre full of its most magnificent and flimsiest portrayals, and while it’s a cut above most, it still winds up leaving something to be desired. Would the now-grownup Dunham have been better served by taking a lesson from those whippersnappers on TikTok obsessed with “romanticizing” their lives? These creators acknowledge that the mindset doesn’t fix the absurdity of their situations, but it does help them recontextualize it aesthetically. Sometimes, too much romance is just the right amount. —–Michael Savio [Full Review]
2. Ballard
Network: Prime Video Last Week: 2 This Week: Maggie Q is outstanding in this solid next chapter in the Bosch franchise.
Maggie Q is back in action as the eponymous Renée Ballard in Prime Video’s Ballard, a spin-off of the successful Bosch: Legacy series and based on Michael Connelly’s Bosch novels (which were themselves adapted into a hit show). The series follows Ballard shortly after taking charge of the LAPD’s Cold Case Unit and assembling a team of volunteers to assist with her investigations, primarily of two season-long cases: the execution of a John Doe from five years prior and the decades-long unsolved strangulation of Sarah Pearlman, sister of Councilman Jake Pearlman (Noah Bean). Having watched screeners of the entire season twice, it’s safe to say that Ballard is kick-ass, earnest, and extremely well-written, and may well be one of the best shows of the year.
Maggie Q has never been better (and that’s admittedly a bold statement after her unbelievable work on The CW’s Nikita). She perfectly embodies this character, leading an immensely talented cast that also consistently delivers, regardless of how much or how little time they have in the spotlight. The investigations and mysteries are well-crafted and believable, as are the relationships—both old and new—between the characters. If I were to offer one pointed critique, it’s that the season’s cliffhanger ending is the weakest part of the show, something that is ridiculously overdone in TV. Nonetheless, it still points the story in an intriguing direction should it be renewed for another (much-needed) season, so it’s not a substantial flaw; it’s just not on par with the quality of everything else. —Jay Snow [Full Review]
1. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
Network: Paramount+ Last Week: N/A This Week: The voyages of the starship Enterprise return with a double episode premiere that’s one part war story, one part bonkers wedding hijinks.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 gives us goofy adventures, high-minded treatises, and more than a little earnest charm. If there’s a simple explanation for why this show is frequently viewed as the best of new-age Trek, it’s found in how it pairs the new (glossy, expensive presentation and serial storytelling tendencies) with the old (an episodic structure and a willingness to get a bit silly) and this latest season delivers both modes with ease. For instance, at one point, M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) continues to work through his complex trauma over what happened in one of last season’s best outings, “Under the Cloak of War,” while he and Pike land in a well-trodden pop-culture situation so tropey that it has them both a bit incredulous. Meanwhile, Spock also gets plenty of screen time, with his amusing love life developing in the foreground and background of several episodes. Strange New Worlds continues to do right by him, and Ethan Peck nails waffling between stoicism and sometimes not-so-subtly hidden emotions as Spock struggles to become the person we know him as in The Original Series.
But while there are many allusions and tie-ins to the crew’s growth across the story so far, this still remains the kind of show that you can pick up watching at almost any point (even if that’s an increasingly unlikely occurrence in the streaming era). Because while the first episode back suffers a bit from being a direct continuation of a cliffhanger from two years ago, the rest of these missions are siloed in the best way possible, delving into kooky weekly premises. Specifically, in the best episode of this season so far, we get a fan-favorite setup that both pokes fun at The Original Series and pensively reflects on that show’s legacy, all while also developing an unlikely bond. At another point, there’s a grim outing where the gang is dropped into a death trap that has them solving interdimensional puzzles that hint at a tantalizing hidden history. There’s a good variance in lighthearted hangout material and more grave turns, embodying the range that both Strange New Worlds and the series writ large have often excelled at, even if there’s an undeniable emphasis on pulp, and more specifically pulp horror, so far. —Elijah Gonzazlez [Full Review]
For all the latest TV news, reviews, lists and features, follow @Paste_TV.
