40 fantasy and sci-fi shows to watch this year

Gen V

Marvel isn’t the only superhero franchise that’s expanding this year; The Boys will premiere its first live-action spinoff. Gen V is a college story set at a university for Supes. Here’s the official synopsis:

"Gen V is set at America’s only college exclusively for superheroes, run by Vought International. Gen V is an irreverent, R-rated series that explores the lives of hormonal, competitive Supes as they put their physical, sexual and moral boundaries to the test, competing for the best contracts in the best cities. It’s part college show, part Hunger Games — with all the heart, satire, and raunch of The Boys."

Gen V stars Jaz Sinclair as Marie Moreau, Lizze Broadway as Emma Shaw, Patrick Schwarzenegger as Golden Boy, Sean Patrick Thomas as Polarity, and Marco Pigossi as Doctor Edison Cardosa. It will also feature several characters from the mothership series, including A-Train (Jessie T. Usher), Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie) and Adam Bourke (P.J. Byrne).

The series is definitely coming this year, but all we know about the release date is that it’s coming “sometime between now and December 31st.” Because of course a spinoff of The Boys is going to troll the fans.

The Boys season 4

While we know for certain that Gen V is coming in 2023, we’re still waiting on an official confirmation that The Boys season 4 will be releasing this year. However, there’s every reason to think that we’ll soon catch up with Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), Homelander (Antony Starr), and the rest.

Production on season 4 of The Boys wrapped in April, which means it’s now in editing and post-production. While it’s becoming more of a norm for big budget TV shows to take two years between seasons, The Boys’ first two seasons released one year apart, with season 3 taking an extra year due to the pandemic. Showrunner Eric Kripke is a seasoned TV veteran who knows how to work quick, so we may not have to wait long.

Gen V is set to take place around the same time as The Boys season 3, and will seed some plotlines that will carry over into the mothership show. So it’s likely that Kripke and Amazon won’t want to let too much time pass between them.

All that said, much of this is speculation. We’re not yet certain we’ll get The Boys season 4 in 2023, but it’d be pretty diabolical if we did.

Invincible season 2

We’ll also get another season of Prime Video’s other big superhero series this year: Invincible. Based on the comics by Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, Invincible is like The Boys in that it flips the tropes of the superhero genre on their head. The show follows rookie superhero Mark Grayson (Steven Yeun) as he comes to terms with his newfound powers, as well as the fact that his Superman-like father Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons) isn’t as much of a paragon as everyone believes. It’s a brutal show that has a ton of heart.

Unlike The Boys, we know for sure that Invincible season 2 is coming out at some point in 2023; Amazon exec Vernon Sanders confirmed it during an interview with Collider. Sanders didn’t say when in 2023 we should expect the show, but that it will be out this year is a certainty.