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 29:
Honorable Mentions: The Summer I Turned Pretty (Prime Video), Code of Silence (BritBox), Ballard (Prime Video)
5. The Sandman
Network: Netflix Last Week: Honorable mention This Week: Tom Sturridge steals the show in the finale of this better-than-it-should-be comics adaptation.
The Sandman’s second and final season arrives under a dark cloud, in the wake of a series of horrific sexual abuse allegations against the man who is both its original comics creator and former showrunner, as well as the news that the series’ sophomore outing would be its last. Split into three chunks and released over a month, these final volumes attempt to wrap up the story of Dream of the Endless in a satisfying way, even as it breezes past some of the more unique bits that make this fictional universe feel so rich and expansive. But if The Sandman itself has taught us anything, it’s that stories themselves are living, breathing things, capable of endless reinvention.
Whereas the first season of the series was an adaptation of the first two volumes of the comics, The Sandman Season 2 does a fairly hard swerve, picking its way through bits and pieces of various later volumes and using Dream’s journey as a narrative throughline for the story it’s trying to tell. While Season 2 will likely feel truncated if you know how many volumes and tales its story is skipping over or speeding past, this does work better than many of us (read: me) likely expected. There’s certainly a debate to be had about Netflix’s decision to end the series after just two seasons, particularly when so many were probably hoping for a big, multi-season adaptation of pretty much everySandman story in existence. But this move was apparently decided some time ago, long before the dreadful allegations against its former showrunner surfaced, and given how clearly expensive the show is to make, it makes sense. In some ways, it seems remarkable that this conclusion even exists, given everything, let alone that it is as satisfying to watch as it is. —-Lacy Baughr Milas [Full Review + Volume 2 Update]
Network: HBO Max Last Week: N/A This Week: The most shockingly unexpected death of the season proves poor Oscar van Rhijn can’t catch a break.
The Gilded Age Season 3 is indulgent and entertaining in all the best ways, full of ridiculous plot twists, social scandals, and family spats. As always, there are lavish parties, jaw-dropping costumes, and a few random historical figures thrown in for good measure, but what’s most exciting is the way the series continues to evolve, jettisoning characters and plots that don’t work, doubling down on the things that do. The result is a delightful mix of bonkers excess and character-driven relationship drama with a healthy dollop of much-needed romance on the side, a balance the show’s been chasing since its inception, but has only just finally truly achieved.
The story picks up where last season left off: Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon), victorious after having successfully backed the Metropolitan Opera, has never been more influential in New York society. (Not bad for a woman most people would only begrudgingly talk to back in Season 1.) But she’s not content to rest on her laurels; she’s actively plotting to take things even further by marrying her daughter Gladys (Taissa Farmiga) to the English Duke of Buckingham (Ben Lamb). Across the street, old money traditionalist Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski) and her sister Ada (Cynthia Nixon) are attempting to adjust to their own new normal—one in which Agnes no longer rules the proverbial roost. With Ada’s money now paying for everyone’s upkeep, Agnes seems somewhat adrift, reluctant to relinquish her control over the staff and household accounts and continually ordering her sister around. (But don’t worry, Baranski still gets most of the series’ best one-liners.) The Gilded Age has never been better, and it’s a joy to watch it so confidently become the show it was always meant to be: A little darker, a lot more romantic, and so much more enjoyable than it probably has any right to be.. —Lacy Baugher Milas [Full Review]
Network: Netflix Last Week: N/A This Week: Eric Bana broods handsomely while trying to find the truth about a mysterious death in beautiful Yosemite National Park.
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that the natural world can be a dangerous place. Whether the threat comes the landscape, the animals that inhabit it, or the humans that are trying to claim it, bad things can happen in beautiful places. That seems to be the central thesis of Netflix’s new wilderness thriller Untamed, which tells the story of a mysterious death in Yosemite National Park, but is actually just as much a story about the darkness and grief we carry with us, no matter where we happen to be.
The six-episode limited series follows Investigative Services Branch agent Kyle Turner (Eric Bana) as he investigates the mysterious death of a young woman who fell from the top of El Capitan. What initially seems to be a tragic accident takes an almost immediate darker turn: The girl was running from something, but what? Or who? Is this a murder? A suicide? Or something else?
Joined by an ambitious young cop and recent transplant from Los Angeles, Naya Vasquez (Lily Santiago), Turner sets out into the wilderness on the hunt for answers, questioning everyone from a village of tent squatters to the vaguely unhinged wildlife management officer (Wilson Bethel), with whom he shares a complicated history. (And who could not be telegraphing any more clearly that he’s hiding something.) But as the case grows increasingly complicated—it turns out the Jane Doe victim was engaged in some fairly illicit activities—he is forced to confront demons from his own past, specifically a case from years prior that he failed to solve. Suffice it to say that while this is a fairly traditional, largely straightforward crime drama, it still manages to touch upon fairly delicate issues of loss, guilt, and trauma in ways that are both surprising and genuinely affecting. —Lacy Baugher Milas [Full Review]
2. The Hunting Wives
Network: Netflix Last Week: N/A This Week: Summer’s soapiest, most unhinged guilty pleasure has it all: Catty gossip, drunken overindulgence, blackmail, adultery, and even a bit of murder.
The Hunting Wives will feel fairly familiar to anyone who has read the sort of domestic thrillers that tend to dominate summer reading lists or who watched recent soapy crime dramas like The Waterfront, Gross Pointe Garden Society, or even classics like Desperate Housewives. This isn’t a series that’s interested in reinventing the wheel. None of its initial twists are all that shocking, its cultural commentary rarely rises above the most basic jokes about guns and God, and it features its fair share of pointless nudity and sex.
Yet, there’s something delightfully fun and propulsive about the show, which unabashedly delights in the worst excesses of its characters, whether that means catty gossip and drunken overindulgence, or blackmail and adultery. Or, even, as it turns out, possible murder. The death of a local teen, teased in the series’ opening moments, forms the central mystery of the show, as The Hunting Wives teases out the identity of the body over the course of its first three episodes. There’s a hint that several of the police investigating this crime will become more central characters as the story continues, and it’s fair to wonder how the show will balance the more overt mystery elements with its soapier society squabbles. (My advice: Keep it to a minimum, y’all. It’s not what we’re here for. )
Dramas about Rich People Problems are a dime a dozen these days, but unlike many of its ilk, The Hunting Wives never takes itself too seriously. It openly acknowledges that most (if not all) of its characters are fairly deplorable people in one way or another, and never asks any of them to be any better than they have to be. Instead, it revels in their worst excesses, cattiest behavior, and overt social power plays, seemingly expecting that viewers will do the same. No one should tune into this show expecting anything terrible deep—but, in all honesty, you probably won’t want it to be. —Lacy Baugher Milas [Full Review]
1. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
Network: Paramount+ Last Week: 1 This Week: Star Trek does zombies, and it’s as excellent as everything else Strange New Worlds attempts.
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]
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