Paste Power Rankings: The 5 Best TV Shows on Right Now
Illustration by Christine Fernando
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 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 October 6th:
Honorable Mentions: Saturday Night Live (NBC), Heartstopper (Netflix), A Very Royal Scandal (Prime Video), Slow Horses (Apple TV+), English Teacher (FX/Hulu)
5. The Great British Baking Show
Network: Netflix
Last Week: Not Listed
This Week: While the mounting injuries and illnesses make the latest run of GBBS a little less wholesome than usual, that hasn’t stopped the show from being a weekly treat.
Known across the pond as The Great British Bake-Off, the appeal of the wildly popular reality TV series—most seasons of which are now available on Netflix—is its refusal to go in for dramatic contrivances. Against Fox’s Gordon Ramsay-hosted properties, Chopped, even Top Chef, with their constant backbiting and broken dreams, the contestants on GBBS are sunny, mutually supportive amateurs (albeit extraordinarily skilled ones); in any given episode, the worst crisis is judge Paul Hollywood pressing a finger into a scone and pronouncing it “underbaked” (or literally pronouncing it “overwerked and oonderbaked”). Even with new hosts and new judge as the series moved to ITV from the BBC, GBBS remains a wonderful, inspiring, refreshing, whimsical, and altogether happy series.—Matt Brennan and Allison Keene
4. Pachinko
Network: Apple TV+
Last Week: 3
This Week: Heartbreaking and surprising goodbyes defined the penultimate episode of this affecting series.
There’s such an overabundance of TV these days that you would be forgiven for missing one of 2022’s most compelling dramas, Pachinko, a decades-spanning historical epic centered on a Korean immigrant family living in Japan. Jumping between pre-World War II (1915-1930) and the late ‘80s, the first season of this Korean/Japanese language series followed Sunja (Yu-na and Kim Min-ha) as she did her best to protect her family from hardship, while convincing performances and Kogonada’s poetic direction swept us up in this intergenerational tale.
Thankfully, the series is back for a second season that not only matches but surpasses its predecessor with grandiose imagery and heartbreaking familial drama that hits deep. To put it bluntly, it’s one of the best shows of the year. Unflinching in its depiction of history, but not heavy-handed; warm in its portrayal of family, but not overly idealized. Its complicated characters are bolstered by great performances, and its thoughtful look at the past is elevated by evocative camera work and set design that places us in these moments. There’s so much TV these days that it can be hard to make time for it all, but you owe it to yourself to take a risk on this stirring historical drama. —Elijah Gonzalez [Full Review]
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
Network: Prime Video
Last Week: 1
This Week: The Rings of Powers’ grandiose finale boasted redemptions, betrayals, and reveals that will make the wait for Season 3 a tough one (assuming that Amazon renews it).
In the aftermath of Rings of Power Season 1, Season 2 begins just after the smith Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) has successfully forged three magical Elven rings, leaving High King Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker) to decide what to do with them. The Stranger (Daniel Weyman) and Nori (Markella Kavenagh) are traveling to the Eastern kingdom of Rhun to find answers about his mysterious identity. Elendil (Lloyd Owen), the recently blinded Queen Regent Miriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), and the remnants of their army have returned home to Numenor to find a dead king and brewing civil unrest. Dwarf prince Durin (Owain Arthur) and his wife Disa (Sophia Nomvete) are beefing with his father. And Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) is firmly in her feelings about the revelation that her human friend—or crush, depending on how you want to read it—Halbrand (Charlie Vickers) was the Dark Lord Sauron in disguise.
With his secret out in the open, Sauron’s quest to forge the rings of power takes on a new and determined urgency as he seeks to exploit problems and exacerbate tensions throughout Middle-earth. The growing political unrest fermenting in Numenor sees the scheming Pharazon (Trystan Gravalle) openly challenging Miriel’s position, while the fallout from mining for mithril continues to destabilize the dwarf stronghold of Khazad-dum. And although the elves are the first group to wield rings of power, they spend most of the season trying to determine whether they should. As filmmaking achievements go, it’s all pretty incredible and more than justifies that hefty episode price tag. But if you wanted to know enough about the characters who die during this battle—and elsewhere in the course of the season—to truly mourn their loss, you may find yourself more than a little disappointed. —Lacy Baugher Milas [Full Review]
2. Only Murders in the Building
Network: Hulu
Last Week: 4
This Week: This episode’s found footage framing presented by the Brothers sisters was hilarious.
Picking up in the immediate aftermath of Season 3—quite literally, as Charles (Steve Martin), Oliver (Martin Short), and Mabel (Selena Gomez) put the finishing touches on the third season of their podcast, wrapping up the murder of Ben Glenroy (Paul Rudd)—Season 4 of Only Murders in the Building finds our favorite trio headed for Hollywood. Paramount (the Pictures!) is fast-tracking a movie based on the trio’s podcast, carting them out to L.A. to meet Eugene Levy, Eva Longoria, and Zach Galifianakis (playing themselves), who are preparing to play Charles, Mabel, and Oliver, respectively. But while in L.A., Charles worries about Sazz (Jane Lynch), whom he hasn’t seen since she disappeared from the wrap party in the Season 3 finale. Despite receiving texts from his stunt double with various excuses, the trio quickly realize that there’s much more to this mystery than a simple disappearing act. As they band together once more to solve this deeply personal murder, they find themselves questioning their role in the larger story, and how the promise of even further notoriety will change their lives forever. —Anna Govert [Full Review]
1. Agatha All Along
Network: Disney+
Last Week: 2
This Week: Agatha All Along continues to be the most fun we’ve had with the MCU in years, although we’re still waiting for a Patti Lupone solo.
Since the debut of WandaVision in 2021, Disney+’s Marvel television experiment has been chasing that same high. Unfortunately for them, each subsequent series has failed in increasingly worse ways to capture that lightning-in-a-bottle show’s magic, from the scattershot Loki to the woefully dull Echo. And even though Agatha All Along doesn’t quite fill WandaVision’s big shoes, it gets pretty damn close. From the very first episode, Agatha’s stakes are immediately clear and compelling, foregoing the twisted multiversal threats we’ve grown accustomed to from recent Marvel romps in favor of a more personal journey. While Agatha is absolutely an arrogant, eccentric jerk, she also has shades of a sympathetic loner under her sweeping coats, and that layered take on this now-iconic character makes her someone you can’t help but root for despite her ultimately selfish aims. And the connections Agatha forms while on the road are just as rewarding, especially since her history with each member of the coven offers various challenges in every episode.
However, perhaps the most surprising aspect of this series is how queer it is. Agatha All Along isn’t gay in the way Natalie Portman (wrongfully) exclaimed that Thor: Love and Thunder was “so gay,” or the way that Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel is gay to me, but actually, honest-to-God gay. After years of only scraps of queer-coding and small, almost-laughable inclusions in various projects, it feels surreal to see so much queerness baked into this series’ DNA, with nearly all the main characters being some flavor of queer (spoken and otherwise). Overall, Agatha All Along is a surprising win for a battered Disney+ TV pipeline that’s still bent, but no longer fully broken. After years of MCU disappointments on both the big and small screens, who knew that the project capable of breathing new life into a tired cinematic universe would be Agatha All Along. —Anna Govert [Full Review]
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