The 19 New TV Shows We’re Most Excited About in 2019

TV Lists New Shows
The 19 New TV Shows We’re Most Excited About in 2019

Now that we’ve reflected on the best TV shows, performances, episodes and characters of 2018, it’s time for us to look ahead—and 2019 is full to the brim with highly anticipated new TV shows. Limiting the number of titles to 19 was tricky business, but the series below are a smorgasbord of formats, genres and networks. From witchcraft and UFOs to choreographers and morning news, Paste is here to help you plan your viewing schedule in 2019. Set those DVRs!

Here are the 19 new TV shows we’re most excited about in 2019:

Project Blue Book
Network: History
Premiere date: January 8


Depending on your tastes, Aiden Gillen will forever be Tommy Carcetti or Littlefinger or—if you’re like me, and consider The Wire and Game of Thrones your two favorite TV shows of all time—both. Gillen has his own TV series this month with Project Blue Book. Airing on History, the series has its roots in a real effort by the United States Air Force to investigate UFOs in the 1950s and 1960s. Gillen plays real-life ufologist Josef Allen Hynek, a science advisor trying to figure out whatever truth is out there. Hynek’s skepticism was tested by the number of unexplained phenomena he encountered and the unwillingness of the USAF to open itself up to the possibility of extraterrestrial life. The production team includes Robert Zemeckis and the season will run 10 episodes. Gillen talks about the new series on the next episode of Paste’s What Do You Love? video series and podcast;Josh Jackson

Wayne
Network: YouTube Premium
Premiere date: January 16


Off the bat I need to say that, with its first two seriously excellent screener episodes made available to critics in October, I’ve been waiting to shout the praises of YouTube’s forthcoming road trip/coming-of-age series, Wayne, for literal months. Had I started shouting then, though, we all would have been suffering the long wait to this month’s release together, and look, I just didn’t want to do that to you, OK? Because here’s the deal: Wayne, produced by some of the dudes behind Deadpool, Zombieland, and Ride Along, is basically “John Wick meets John Hughes,” its two teen protagonists some kind of emotional (to snatch up the series’ own bright blue streak) fucking savants, its every beat smart, brutal, punk rock, sweet and entirely, totally sure of itself. It stars Ciara Bravo as the no-shit-taking Del, who kidnaps herself away from an oppressively scary home situation, Mike O’Malley as a worn-down Massachusetts high school principal just looking for a break, and Sing Street’s Mark McKenna as the stoic, morally rigid, violently scrappy Wayne. It is (at least in its early episodes) as funny and optimistic as it is hyper-violent and sad. Its visual language is as sharp as a shiv. It is, in short, a show that is impossible to stop obsessing over. I’ve been obsessing over it for months, without a full season even to obsess over. You? You just have to wait a few short weeks, and then you can surf to YouTube (sorry) to watch Wayne kick so much dang ass. —Alexis Gunderson

A Discovery of Witches
Network: Sundance Now/Shudder
Premiere date: January 17


Based on the novel by University of Southern California professor and series executive producer Deborah Harkness—a novel I’d describe, tongue only half in cheek, as “Harry Potter meets Twilight for thirsty adult readers”—A Discovery of Witches stars Teresa Palmer as Diana Bishop, a witch/historian desperate to avoid the world of magic. As you might surmise—after all, they made a TV show out of it—she becomes embroiled in an age-old dispute among witches, vampires, and daemons, enraptured in particular by the gorgeous and mysterious Matthew Clairmont (Matthew Goode, swoon). With a host of highly visual settings (Oxford, the French countryside, upstate New York in autumn) and a page-turning blend of romance and supernatural action, A Discovery of Witches might just turn out to be Sundance Now and Shudder’s ticket to a breakout hit. The season will stream in its entirety on both platforms beginning Jan. 17. —Matt Brennan

Black Monday
Network: Showtime
Premiere date: January 20


A comedy. About the worst one-day stock market crash in U.S. history. Set at the height of the Reagan era. From the creator of Happy Endings and executive producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. Starring Don Cheadle, Andrew Rannells, and Regina Hall. On Showtime. Um, hell yes I’m excited for this. —Matt Brennan

Miracle Workers
Network: TBS
Premiere date: February 12


Bless Daniel Radcliffe for keeping his string of oddball projects going by following up playing a corpse in Swiss Army Man with playing a bumbling angel in a workplace comedy version of heaven. The most recent trailer indicates that Miracle Workers will be taking some aesthetic (and potentially narrative) direction from The Good Place—with Steve Buscemi’s God at its silly center. We’ll see exactly how silly it ends up being, considering free will, apocalypse, and the nature of prayer are all on the table for this ambitious and utterly strange show. —Jacob Oller

The Umbrella Academy
Network: Netflix
Premiere date: February 15


Comics fans first met the Hargreeves children—the superpowered kids adopted by The Monocle in an effort to save the world—in 2007, when writer Gerard Way and artist Gabriel Bá created the series for Dark Horse. Now in their 30s, the dysfunctional family will be reunited on Netflix with a cast that includes Ellen Page, Mary J. Blige, Tom Hopper (Dickon from Game of Thrones) and Cameron Britton (serial killer Ed Kemper from Mindhunter). The Hargreeves just have to solve a familiar murder and prevent the end of the world. This is the first time Steve Blackman will sit in the showrunner’s chair—after stints on Fargo, Altered Carbon and Legion—but he’s got great source material in one of the few beloved superhero universes yet to be adapted to the screen (Black Hammer is next). —Josh Jackson

Now Apocalypse
Network: Starz
Premiere date: March 10

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The synopsis of Now Apocalypse is not what intrigues me: I am automatically wary of any series in which the protagonist is named Ulysses (Avan Jogia), and after HBO’s dreadful Here and Now, a character suffering “foreboding premonitory dreams” is a major red flag. No, what intrigues me is the project’s pedigree: From his New Queer Cinema classic The Living End to his exquisite “alien abduction” drama Mysterious Skin, co-writer/director Gregg Araki has long been a master of unorthodox material, and he’s backed by executive producer Steven Soderbergh (ditto) and Starz (home to a number of the most exciting, if underappreciated, series on TV). If that doesn’t get your juices flowing, I don’t know what will. —Matt Brennan (Photo: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Shrill
Network: Hulu
Premiere date: March 15


This past year was not kind to fat-positive characters on TV. Netflix’s Insatiable didn’t even graze the dart board that’s home to dark comedy’s bull’s-eye, and AMC’s often brilliant and subversive Dietland was cancelled after a single season. (Dear Hollywood: Please cast Joy Nash more). Hulu’s adaptation of author Lindy West’s best-seller certainly seems more promising. Aidy Bryant stars as Annie, a character who happens to not be a size zero. And while that is certainly a sticking point, it’s not the only thing of note about her. Shrill also comes with an excellent array of supporting characters, including John Cameron Mitchell as a self-important alt-mag editor and The Spy Who Dumped Me’s Lolly Adefope as Annie’s unapologetic best friend/roommate. —Whitney Friedlander (Photo: Allyson Riggs/Hulu)

The Fix
Network: ABC
Premiere date: March 19


Sevvy Johnson (Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje), a famous movie star, is accused of a double murder. Los Angeles District Attorney Maya Travis (Robin Tunney) is devastated when he’s acquitted of the crimes. Sound familiar? It should. The series is from executive producer Marcia Clark (!). American Crime Story showed us a Marcia Clark we never knew. I am here for the next phase of her career as a TV producer. Eight years after Maya fails to get a conviction, Sevvy is once again accused of murder. The mixture of Clark with Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain, who created The 100 and have written for shows like Dollhouse and The Vampire Diaries, should produce a series that is mysterious, scary and all too real. —Amy Amatangelo

Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City
Network: Netflix
Premiere Date: TBD


Armistead Maupin’s groundbreaking stories of life in San Francisco—first adapted for TV by the U.K.’s Channel 4 (see above) and in two subsequent installments by Showtime—return to the small screen once more, this time courtesy of Netflix. Laura Linney and Olympia Dukakis reprise their indelible roles as once-naive Midwesterner Mary Ann Singleton and wise, eccentric landlady Anna Madrigal, this time as Mary Ann returns to Barbary Lane after two decades in suburban Connecticut. Ellen Page, Looking’s Murray Bartlett, Zosia Mamet, Victor Garber, and Molly Ringwald are also set to appear. This is a TV revival I can get behind. —Matt Brennan

Central Park Five
Network: Netflix
Premiere date: TBD

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After the high acclaim heaped upon her documentary 13th, Ava Duvernay experience a cold taste of reality with the critical indifference that greeted her adaptation of A Wrinkle In Time. (It did gross more than $100 million at the domestic box office, though.) Undeterred, she’s powering forward into her next project: a limited series that explores the miscarriage of justice that took place in 1989 when five young men (four Black, one Hispanic) were wrongfully convicted of sexually assaulting a woman in Central Park. If Duvernay’s work on Selma and 13th are anything to go on, this should be an incendiary and wrenching series. —Robert Ham (Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

City on a Hill
Network: Showtime
Premiere date: TBD

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Since I live in Boston, I feel contractually obligated to pick City on a Hill. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon executive produce this drama about Boston in the early 1990s, when police corruption was the law of the land. Kevin Bacon stars as an FBI agent who teams up with assistant district attorney Decourcy Ward (Aldis Hodge) to begin to unravel the system. From The Town to Gone Baby Gone to Good Will Hunting, Boston and its foibles are Affleck’s sweet spot. He came up with the idea for this series, and the combination of Affleck with the network that brought us Homeland seems like a wicked good one. —Amy Amatangelo (Photo: Eric Ogden/Showtime)

Fosse/Verdon
Network: FX
Premiere date: TBD

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It’s possible that there has never been a show that is more on my brand (or, to borrow a term from one of my editors, Amy Amatangelo, rated for Whitney) than this limited series, based on author Sam Wasson’s book about ingenious director-choreographer Bob Fosse—a.k.a. the guy who was also a dick to his wife/muse, dance extraordinaire Gwen Verdon. Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams play the title parts, while executive producers include Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda and Thomas Kail and The Americans’ Joel Fields. Margaret Qualley plays Fosse’s partner/other muse, Ann Reinking… and I have jazz hands just typing this. Look, I understand that musical lore isn’t everyone’s jam and that old Hollywood/theater was an awful place. But Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is ending. Let me have this.—Whitney Friedlander (Photo: Photo by Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images)

Good Omens
Network: Amazon Prime Video
Premiere date: TBD


One of the recent series losses I feel keenly and regularly is that of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, a television adaptation of an oddball book from the late 1980s written by an oddball Brit better known for bigger titles, which plied its hyper-surreal blend metaphysical woo-iness and bloodily black comedy on BBC America for two seasons before having its oddball plug pulled in 2017. Now, I’m not saying that Prime Video’s forthcoming series Good Omens, starring David Tennant and Michael Sheen as a demon and an angel teamed up to stop the Apocalypse, is a direct reincarnation of Dirk Gently, but, like, as a television adaptation of an oddball book from 1990 written by a pair of oddball Brits better known for bigger titles, it’s not necessarily not that. And I mean, just look at that trailer! Zippy, surreal, a bit bloody—it’s like Dirk and Todd are back, just wearing different (if equally beloved!) faces. Of course, it’s just as possible that Good Omens will end up being wholly its own thing. Either way, I’m excited. —Alexis Gunderson

The Red Line
Network: CBS
Premiere date: TBD

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Ava DuVernay, Greg Berlanti and Noah Wyle? How can a powerhouse trifecta like that go wrong? Yes, I know this is going to be on CBS, which isn’t exactly known for edgy, thought-provoking television these days, but the new year has me in an optimistic mood. Berlanti has largely gone the superhero route of late, but he’ll always be the man behind Everwood and Brothers & Sisters to me: He knows how to do exquisitely poignant human drama. From Queen Sugar to A Wrinkle in Time, DuVernay crafts beautiful stories that resonate with powerful messages. This drama about a white police officer who mistakenly shoots a Black doctor follows three Chicago families whose lives are irrevocably changed by this tragedy. Wyle returns to broadcast TV for the first time since ER to play a schoolteacher mourning the loss of his husband. —Amy Amatangelo (Photo: Elizabeth Morris/CBS)

The Spanish Princess
Network Starz
Premiere date: TBD


Fans of The White Princess and The White Queen should be excited about seeing the story of Catherine of Aragon (played by Charlotte Hope) brought to life in The Spanish Princess. While Philippa Gregory’s books lay the foundation of this story, showrunners Matthew Graham and Emma Frost have included a new storyline. Historical fiction tends to leave out the fact that people of color were indeed a part of history. This time, Graham and Frost made sure to include them, uncovering their true stories as part of this epic drama. —Keri Lumm

Star Wars: The Mandalorian
Network: Disney+
Premiere date: TBD

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How do you ensure a healthy customer base for your fledgling streaming service? If you’re Disney, you pour your resources into the first live-action series based in the Star Wars universe. The details for this new venture are piecemeal. They’ve revealed that the series will take place in the period between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens and that it will star Pedro Pascal as the title character, with supporting work from Nick Nolte and Werner Herzog. Still, between those tasty morsels and the little reveals that showrunner Jon Favreau has been dropping on Instagram, our interest is well piqued. —Robert Ham (Photo: Lucasfilm)

Swamp Thing
Network: DC Universe
Premiere date: TBD


Swamp Thing, with its wet, dank, rotted connection to nature and all the psychotropic connections that entails, offers up one of the more unique superhero aesthetics to the TV universe, especially considering Alan Moore’s legendary run in the comics. From producer James Wan and his stable of cohorts (co-scripter Gary Dauberman also wrote The Nun and the Annabelle movies), the DC Universe show should allow the scarier, darker aspects of the wetlands to manifest, finding body horror in the ecological hero’s warped stories. Is it going to be good? I just don’t know. But it’ll be exciting to see it crash and burn or plant roots and grow. There’s no in-between with subject matter this specific. —Jacob Oller (Art by Jason Fabok)

Untitled Morning News Show
Network: Apple
Premiere date: TBD

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Look, who the heck knows what’s going on here? Will you be able to watch Apple TV shows if you have an Apple product? Will you have to sign up for a subscription and pay? I have no idea. What I do know is that this morning news show drama, based on the book “Top of the Morning” by CNN’s Brian Stelter, stars Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston and Steve Carrell. We also know that production has begun on the series. I’ll admit it—there’s not a show I’m more curious about this year. Witherspoon did great things with Big Little Lies, and Carrell and Aniston are much-missed TV stars. As annoyed as I get at the thought of having to keep up with another streaming platform, this already sounds like something I can’t miss. —Amy Amatangelo (Photo: Rich Fury/Getty Images)

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