2022 was an epic year for fantasy and sci-fi TV. It brought us highly anticipated series like HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon, Amazon’s Lord of the Rings prequel The Rings of Power, and Netflix’s Witcher prequel The Witcher: Blood Origin, as well as a whole bunch of other things that weren’t prequels like Interview With The Vampire, The Orville: New Horizons, Star Wars: Andor and more.
Okay, that last one was also technically a prequel, but whatever, it was really good. All that’s in the past! We’re now into 2023, which means a whole new crop of exciting shows are heading our way. Here are 40 of the series we’re most looking forward to this year, updated as of May 2023. Television!
Silo
Based on the bestselling novel series by Hugh Howey, this Apple TV+ show is a post-apocalyptic thriller in which the last 10,000 people on Earth live in an underground silo. They’ve been there for generations and no one knows why the silo was built, only that to venture outside means death.
Or at least, that’s what they’re told. Silo features an unraveling mystery, and it’s shaping up to be an exciting ride.
After a loved one is murdered in the silo, engineer Juliet (Dune’s Rebecca Ferguson) seeks to unravel the mystery of their death. However, it may lead to larger secrets about the nature of the silo and what lies beyond. The series features an impressive ensemble cast in addition to Ferguson, including David Oyelowo, Rashida Jones, Common, Chinaza Uche, Ferdinand Kingsley, Will Patton, Geraldine James, Tim Robbins, Harriet Walter, Iain Glen and Avi Nash.
The first two episodes of Silo premiered on Apple TV+ on May 5. Subsequent episodes of its 10-episode first season drop every Friday.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2
Last year was also a pretty big year for Star Trek, what with legacy sequels like Star Trek: Picard season 2, animated hits like Lower Decks and Prodigy, and debuts like Strange New Worlds. There was a lot to keep up on, but it meant that any Trek fan could easily find something to suit their tastes.
2023 looks to be no different. The first Trek show to hit the air was Picard season 3, which began airing in February and saw Patrick Stewart return as the intrepid starship captain Jean-Luc Picard. The show’s third and final season brought even more characters from The Next Generation, such as Michael Dorn’s Worf, while wrapping up the many plot threads established in the first two seasons. From all accounts, Star Trek: Picard ended on a high note.
Next up is Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, which follows James T. Kirk’s predecessor Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) and his crew as they explore the galaxy aboard the USS Enterprise. Strange New Worlds has received a lot of praise for returning to the adventure-of-the-week sort of programming that was so beloved in earlier Star Trek series. Its 10-episode second season begins airing on June 15.
And yet more Star Trek!
Beyond Picard and Strange New Worlds, there are a few other Star Trek shows either coming out this year. Both The Lower Decks season 4 and Prodigy season 2 are expected to premiere this year. Lower Decks doesn’t have any sort of release window yet, but it’s been announced that Prodigy will hit sometime this winter.
One Trek show we won’t see in 2023 is the fifth and final season of Star Trek: Discovery. That one was originally slated for a 2023 release, but has since been pushed back to 2024. Fortunately, there’s still plenty of other Trek to hold us over in the meantime.
Outlander season 7
After a shortened season 6, Starz’s hit time-travel drama Outlander will be back this year and bigger than ever. Outlander’s seventh season will span 16 episodes, covering the kick-off to the Revolutionary War. The good times are gone at Fraser’s Ridge now, there’s only the looming conflict to come and the hope that the Fraser family can get through it together.
Starz has already released a teaser trailer for Outlander season 7. There are some hints in there about the trials that await the Fraser family; we see Brianna (Sophie Skelton) seemingly giving birth, Claire (Caitriona Balfe) with a noose around her neck, and even someone tearing down the Declaration of Independence. Season 6 was a bit of a lull for the series due in part to pandemic-related filming issues which caused some of its final episodes to be shifted into season 7. With the added bulk, season 7 could be one of Outlander’s most ambitious yet.
Outlander season 7 will be taking a page from the show’s earliest seasons and releasing in two separate chunks. The first batch of eight episodes begins airing on Starz on June 16, with the second slated to release sometime in 2024.
Black Mirror season 6
This summer will also see the return of Black Mirror, and we’re already trembling with anticipation and terror. Black Mirror is a science fiction anthology series on Netflix created by Charlie Brooker; each episode is its own standalone cautionary tale exploring how technology can affect our fives.
The first five seasons of Black Mirror were excellent, but Brooker decided it was time to let the series rest for a bit during the pandemic. But enough time has passed and Black Mirror season 6 is coming.
Season 6 will include five episodes, and the cast is stacked with stars like Aaron Paul, Selma Hayek, Annie Murphy, Josh Hartnett, Michael Cera, Myha’la Herrold, Samuel Blenkin, John Hannah, Danny Ramirez, and too many more to list here. Netflix recently released details about each of the five episodes.
Black Mirror season 6 is coming to Netflix on June 15.
The Walking Dead: Dead City
2022 was a historic year for AMC’s long-running zombie series The Walking Dead. After 11 seasons on the air, the show wrapped up with some explosive final episodes. But the whole idea of The Walking Dead is that it is a never-ending zombie story that examines how people adjust to the new world after society has collapsed. It also happens to be one of AMC’s most successful series. So you knew they weren’t really going to let this one go.
We’ll be getting a wave of new Walking Dead spinoffs this year. The first one to hit AMC is The Walking Dead: Dead City, a spinoff which follows Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) as they head to New York City to see what zombified horrors await there.
Pairing Maggie and Negan is curious since there’s a lot of bad blood between them. Negan brutally murdered Maggie’s husband Glenn in front of her during the show’s season 7 premiere. Whether Maggie could ever forgive Negan — now reformed after spending years in imprisonment at Alexandria — was a huge running question that lasted right up until the end of the original series.
The Walking: Dead City premieres on AMC and AMC+ on June 18, and will run for six episodes.
More Walking Dead!
After Dead City, The Walking Dead lineup becomes harder to define. There are some shows we know are coming this year, but AMC has yet to confirm which will air when. A six-episode limited series centered around Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Guirira) was originally confirmed to be coming out in 2023, with production already underway. However, the date has since been shifted forward; the Rick and Michonne spinoff is officially coming in 2024 now.
Meanwhile, Norman Reedus is currently filming a spinoff about his character Daryl Dixon. That one is set in France, which could be really interesting as we haven’t seen much of how the zombie pandemic has affected places out the U.S. The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon was originally supposed to be about Daryl and his bestie Carol, but Melissa McBride decided to step away from the series, so it’s just Daryl now.
Daryl’s spinoff began filming before Rick and Michonne’s, and we now know for certain it will come out first. We don’t know yet how many episodes Daryl Dixon will run, but it’s likely it won’t start until after Dead City wraps up. So we’re expecting to see this one sometime in fall 2023.
In the meantime, there’s also Fear the Walking Dead, the first and longest-running Walking Dead spinoff. That one will be coming back for its eighth and final season this year, split into two chunks of six episodes a piece. The first set of episodes starts airing on May 14 2023, with the second batch arriving later in the year.
Marvel’s Secret Invasion
Speaking of never-ending franchises, let’s talk about the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Over the past few years, the MCU has expanded into TV on Disney+. 2023 will be another big year for Marvel, with some highly-anticipated new series premiering as well as the return of some of their original hits, marking the first time we’ll get to see a “season 2” of any of the MCU shows.
The first big Marvel release of the year is Secret Invasion. Starring Samuel L. Jackson as super spy Nick Fury, the show is about the shapeshifting Skrull aliens invading Earth. It will also mark Jackson’s first time back as Fury since 2019’s Spider-Man: Far From Home. And it stars Game of Thrones veteran Emilia Clarke. The first of Secret Invasion’s six episodes premieres on Disney+ on June 21.
The ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe
Nick Fury won’t be holding down the MCU by himself, of course. There are plenty of other Marvel shows slated for 2023 as well. Here’s a list of Marvel shows confirmed for release this year:
- Loki season 2 begins airing on October 6
- Ironheart is still expected to premiere in 2023, but has no date set
- All episodes of Echo will drop on November 29
There are two others we need to mention: What If? season 2 and the Wandavision spinoff Agatha: Coven of Chaos. While both of those shows were originally slated for release in 2023, it seems likely they may have been pushed back to 2024 at this point. We have an ear to the ground for release date news, but for the moment we’re not banking on seeing either of those until next year.
Fortunately, there’s always still plenty of other superhero stuff to watch. It’s Marvel’s world, we’re all just living in it.
The Witcher season 3
Season 3 of Netflix’s monster-hunting fantasy series The Witcher is on the way this year, and it’s set to be a pretty big event for the series. The Witcher’s third season will mark the final time that Henry Cavill will don the white wig as Geralt of Rivia. Given how upset fans were when they heard he was leaving the show, as well as the dismal response to The Witcher: Blood Origin spinoff, season 3 has a lot to prove. It’s also adapting one of the most beloved books in Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher saga, Time of Contempt, which means there’s plenty of good material we could see onscreen. Will it be a return to form for the series?
We’ll certainly find out. “We really feel like it’s when everything changes in the series,” showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich recently told EW. If season 3 even remotely follows the events of the book series, that’s very easy to imagine; this is when Geralt’s vow of neutrality is really tested, when Ciri is forced to start fending for herself, and when a pivotal moment comes for the sorcerers of the Continent. So even barring Cavill’s exit, this was always going to be a big one.
Following in the footsteps of Netflix shows like Stranger Things and You, The Witcher season 3 will be split into two volumes. Volume I will consist of five episodes and release on June 29. Volume II will contain the season’s final three episodes and release a month later on July 27.
Foundation season 2
One of the weirder genre shows to debut in the past few years is Foundation on Apple TV+. Based on the book series of the same name by legendary sci-fi author Isaac Asimov, Foundation details the efforts of Dr. Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) and a group of other great minds to preserve the gathered art, science, and technology of the human race in the face of a looming societal collapse. Set in a far distant future where humanity has colonized the galaxy and the Earth is but a distant memory, Foundation is one of the seminal early science fiction series of the 20th century.
So there was a lot riding on the show’s first season. It received mixed reviews, but did well enough that Apple is telling more of the story. A new trailer for season 2 released just this past week, right in time to get people talking again as we head into the new year.
The trailer also confirmed a release date for the show’s sophomore outing: Season 2 of Foundation premieres on Apple TV+ on July 14.
Good Omens season 2
We’ve talked about an awful lot of very serious shows, but there will be some fun, light series in 2023 as well! One of the most notable is season 2 of Good Omens. Based on the novel by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Good Omens follows the centuries-long friendship of the angel Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) and the demon Crowley (David Tennant).
While the first season was well-received by both fans and critics, a second season was never guaranteed. Season 1 adapted the entire novel; what’s left?
Apparently, Neil Gaiman had ideas. Season 2 of Good Omens will be an original story that catalogs the further misadventures of Aziraphale and Crowley. What will they get up to this time? We’ll find out when Good Omens season 2 begins airing its six-episode run on Prime Video on July 28.
What We Do In The Shadows season 5
Here’s something else on the lighter side. Over four seasons, Hulu’s vampire mockumentary What We Do In The Shadows has built a devoted fanbase with its Office-style humor, fun characters, and outrageous scenarios. It’s about four vampires trying to live their lives on Staten Island, while their devoted familiar tries to keep them from doing anything too self-destructive.
What We Do In The Shadows has done well enough on Hulu that it was renewed for seasons 5 and 6 before season 4 had premiered. No solid release date has yet been announced for season 5, but considering that its four previous season came out every summer like clockwork, we’re betting we’ll be watching What We Do In The Shadows season 5 sometime this summer as well.
Update: Because Hollywood (or the vampires) apparently loves trolling us, a release date for What We Do In The Shadows was announced shortly after this article was published. The first two episodes of season 5 premiere on FX on July 13 at 10 p.m. ET; they will release on Hulu the following day.
Twisted Metal
Video game adaptations are a hot topic of conversation right now thanks to big hits like HBO’s The Last of Us and Netflix’s Arcane. Another game that’s getting the small screen treatment is Twisted Metal, which is a long-running PlayStation series where people driving souped up cars battle it out in a post-apocalyptic landscape. Twisted Metal might not be the first game that you think of when it comes to TV shows, but someone somewhere did and so we’re getting one.
Pegged as a half hour action comedy series, Twisted Metal stars Anthony Mackie as John Doe, a motor-mouthed milkman who’s out to cross the U.S. and stay alive in the process. The rest of the cast is surprisingly stacked as well, featuring Neve Campbell, Thomas Hayden Church, and Will Arnett as the maniacal clown and de facto series mascot Sweet Tooth.
All 10 episodes of Twisted Metal season 1 will drop on Peacock on July 27, which means you can binge this one with a suitable amount of unhinged mayhem.
Futurama
This year Disney and Hulu will be launching a revival of Futurama, the classic sci-fi comedy cartoon series from The Simpsons creator Matt Groening. The original Futurama ran from 1999-2003 on Fox, but it’s never really been good at staying off-air. It’s been brought back with movies as well as a 2008 revival series on Comedy Central, and this year that vaunted tradition will continue with Hulu’s new show.
The original Futurama primarily followed Phillip J. Fry, a pizza delivery guy from our time who is frozen and wakes up 1,000 years in the future. He then joins a ragtag group of misfits who run an interplanetary delivery service. Hilarity and social commentary ensues.
The new series features the return of the show’s original voice cast. Futurama has had pretty good luck with revivals in the past and it’ll probably be the same this time. It’s expected to launch on Hulu this summer.
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.
Star Wars: Ahsoka
2023 is shaping up to be a pretty big year for Star Wars TV. The next show coming down the pike is Ahsoka, which stars Rosario Dawson as the titular Jedi outcast. Ahsoka is set during the same post-Return of the Jedi time period as The Mandalorian, and is promising the live-action debut of a ton of characters from the Star Wars Rebels animated show, including Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi), and Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelson), one of the most iconic villains in the extended Star Wars canon.
All that might make Ahsoka sound like a show you need to watch the previous animated series to understand, but showrunner Dave Filoni promises this isn’t the case. Ahoska is a beloved Star Wars character, and from the trailer it seems safe to say that this show is going to be a pretty exciting.
Ahsoka will premiere on Disney+ on August 23 and will consist of eight episodes.
Skeleton Crew
Ahsoka is far from the only Star Wars show coming out this year. The Mandalorian season 3, The Bad Batch season 2, and Star Wars: Visions volume 2 have all already released on Disney+, which means you can go stream them at your leisure.
The other Star Wars series we’re expecting to see this year is Skeleton Crew. That one stars Jude Law and a band of kids who get stranded on a spaceship far away from home. It promises some Stranger Things vibes as Jude and his band of pint-sized companions have to team up and get back.
There was originally one other Star Wars series slated for 2023: The Acolyte, which is set during the days of the High Republic and explores the rise of the Sith. It’s looking increasingly likely that The Acolyte won’t be released until 2024.
The Wheel of Time season 2
The wheel turns, and TV shows come and pass.
There may not be any new episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power coming this year, but Amazon’s other big fantasy show, The Wheel of Time, will return. Based on the novels by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, The Wheel of Time is an enormous story of magic, adventure, and war set in one of the most richly realized fantasy worlds of all time. The first season of Amazon’s adaptation was solid on the whole, though some of the production difficulties brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic showed onscreen, particularly in the final two episodes.
This will not be the case when The Wheel of Time returns for its second season. Season 1 left off with a few monstrous cliffhangers, such as Rand al’Thor (Josha Stradowski) setting off on his own after defeating a mysterious man at the Eye of the World and the revelation that the Aes Sedai Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) is cut off from the One Power. Season 2 is slated to adapt both the second and third books in Jordan’s fantasy saga, The Great Hunt and The Dragon Reborn, which means there’s quite a lot of material for it to pull from. We already know we’ll be meeting several important new characters this time around, such as several prominent members of the desert-dwelling Aiel tribe as well as more Aes Sedai sorceresses, so the excitement level is high.
As for when we’ll be watching it, The Wheel of Time season 2 has finally set a release date! It premieres on Prime Video on September 1.
The Three-Body Problem
This is one of the shows that we’re most excited for here at Winter Is Coming. The Three-Body Problem is a new science fiction series coming to Netflix produced by Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. It’s a big, ambitious sci-fi series based on the highly-regarded book series by Chinese author Liu Cixin.
This show marks the first large project for Benioff and Weiss since Game of Thrones ended, and like HBO’s fantasy hit, it looks like it could be something special. The series is about humanity’s first contact with an alien species who are fleeing their own collapsing solar system; after intercepting our interstellar signal, they set their eyes on Earth. We Earthlings all have our own ideas about how to handle the impending invasion. The Three-Body Problem has a large cast, a huge scope, intelligent ideas, and complicated moral quandaries.
To top it all off, the series will reunite Benioff and Weiss with a few Game of Thrones veterans. Both John Bradley (Samwell Tarley) and Liam Cunningham (Davos Seaworth) are set to appear in the show.
The Three-Body Problem doesn’t have a release window yet, but Netflix has confirmed that it will be coming to the streaming service sometime in 2023.
Doctor Who Specials
Doctor Who, the longest-running science fiction show in history, will be back this year, but with a twist. Whovians were shocked last year when Thirteenth Doctor Jodie Whittaker regenerated not as a new Doctor, but a very familiar one: David Tennant. Tennant famously played the Tenth Doctor not long after the show was revived for a new generation. And this year, he’ll be back for a series of specials before he hands things off to Ncuti Gatwa as the new proper Doctor.
Bringing back Tennant feels like a major shake-up for the series, even if it’s going to be short-lived. The upcoming specials will also mark the return of previous showrunner Russell T Davies, who was responsible for overseeing the show during Tennant’s original run. Doctor Who has seen a bit of a ratings slump during the past few years, but this type of out-of-the-box stunt might be just the thing to rope viewers back in.
David Tennant is set to appear in three specials before passing the mantle on to Gatwa. Most exciting of all, all those specials are slated to happen this November.
Introducing the Doctor and Ruby Sunday, played by Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson ❤️❤️➕🟦 #DoctorWho pic.twitter.com/x1pUBGAPPN
— Doctor Who (@bbcdoctorwho) December 17, 2022
Now that we’ve talked about a ton of shows set to release in the coming months of 2023, let’s take a look back at the shows which had their day during the first few months of the year. From here on out, everything has already come out — meaning you can go binge it right now!
The Last of Us
Video game adaptations have long had a reputation as being pretty bad. But that reputation is fast changing thanks to hits like Netflix’s Arcane. This year HBO will threw their hat into the ring in a big way with The Last of Us, a new zombie thriller based on the hit video game by Naughty Dog studios.
The Last of Us tells the story of Joel (Pedro Pascal), a weathered survivor of a zombie plague who needs to transport a young girl named Ellie (Bella Ramsey) across a post-apocalyptic United States. The game was an enormous hit in large part because of how cinematic it was and how much detail it paid its characters. This isn’t another substandard zombie tale; it’s a deeply human story about two mismatched survivors struggling to stay alive.
The HBO series is produced by Chernobyl creator Craig Maizin and Naughty Dog head Neil Druckmann. Between them and the pair of Game of Thrones veterans in the lead roles, there’s a lot of creative juice behind this thing.
The Last of Us was easily one of the biggest shows of the year so far. You can watch its entire nine-episode first season on HBO and HBO Max.
The Legend of Vox Machina season 2
Critical Role started out as a top-notch Dungeons & Dragons podcast featuring a cast of professional voice actors. In 2021, it branched out into other mediums like books and television, including the first season of The Legend of Vox Machina on Prime Video.
The animated show translates the podcast’s heart and humor to the small screen. And of course, they already had a great cast. It’s a high fantasy show with dragons, wizards, and all the other trappings you’d expect from a series with its roots in D&D. It can get intense and violent but never takes itself too seriously.
The Legend of Vox Machina returned this year for a second season on Prime Video. Season 2 consists of 12 episodes which were released in groups of three each week; you can watch the entire season now on Prime Video.
Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches
Everyone wants their own cinematic universe these days, and AMC has hosted a few, most notably The Walking Dead and its various spinoffs. The next big interconnected franchise they’re looking to launch is The Immortal Universe, based on the works of horror author Anne Rice.
The first show of The Immortal Universe, Interview With The Vampire, came out last fall and quickly won over a lot of people with its fresh take on the classic story of a brooding vampire telling his twisted life’s story. But AMC isn’t keen to rest on its laurels; the next installment in The Immortal Universe came out a scant couple of months later, right at the beginning of 2023.
Mayfair Witches isn’t quite as well-known as Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, which means AMC didn’t have to worry as much about it being compared to previous adaptations. The series follows neurosurgeon Dr. Rowan Fielding, played by Alexandra Daddario (The White Lotus), who discovers that she’s the unlikely heir to a bloodline of witches.
Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches premiered on AMC and AMC+ on January 8. Its eight-episode first season is available now on AMC+.
The Flash season 9
2022 was a year of heartache for fans of The CW’s Arrowverse. After weathering cancellations like DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Stargirl, and even a Batgirl movie that was already filmed and into post-production before it was shelved, few projects remain from the glory days of DC’s television empire.
The biggest holdout is The Flash, which has been on the air since 2014. This year, Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) returned for his last round of superheroics in the show’s ninth and final season. He isn’t doing it alone though; season 9 features a slew of Arrowverse guest appearances, including the return of Stephen Amell as Oliver Queen, David Ramsey as John Diggle/Spartan, Keiynan Lonsdale as Wally West/Kid Flash, and more.
The Flash’s ninth and final season premieres on The CW on February 9. Due to a mid-season break, its season finale will be hitting the air on May 24.
Hello Tomorrow!
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live on the moon? Apple TV+’s Hello Tomorrow! asks that question and more as it follows an ace salesman Jack Billings (Billy Krudup) and his team as they hawk lunar timeshares to the people of Earth. This one’s a half-hour comedy series set in a retro-futuristic version of Earth which immediately calls to mind The Jetsons. Yes, people now have robots to pick up their garbage and flying cars, but it all still becomes a bit rote after a while.
Enter Billings and his team of trusty sales associates, who are on a mission to help people live their best lives by purchasing property on the moon. But are they really selling lunar property, or is something untoward afoot?
All 10 episodes of Hello Tomorrow! are available now on Apple TV+.
Carnival Row season 2
Amazon Prime Video’s steampunk noir fantasy show Carnival Row has had a pretty rough run of things. Starring Orlando Bloom as detective Rycroft Philostrate and Cara Delevingne as the fairy Vignette Stonemoss, the first season revolved around a murder mystery in a world where fae beings are forced to live as second-class citizens after their worlds were invaded by humans. It was a quiet hit that was popular enough to net a season 2 renewal from Amazon.
That was in 2019. Since then, Carnival Row has suffered a number of setbacks; first due to the pandemic, and then more delays while Bloom took time off for the birth of his daughter. Despite all that, filming on Carnival Row season 2 wrapped back in September 2021. Amazon sat on it for quite a while before announcing that we’ll finally see season 2 this year. Alas, that announcement came hand-in-hand with the news that this will also be the final season of the show.
Nonetheless, it’s certainly exciting that we’ll finally be able to see the long-awaited second season of the series. All 10 episodes of Carnival Row season 2 are available on Prime Video.
Vikings: Valhalla season 2
Vikings: Valhalla also returned for season 2 in 2023, just a year after its premiere season. A sequel to History’s hit Vikings series, Valhalla takes place a few generations later and stars a whole new cast of seafaring warriors. Long gone are the days of Ragnar Lothbruk. In this new series, we follow the adventures of Leif Erikson (Sam Corlett), Freydis Eiríksdóttir (Frida Gustavsson) and Harald Sigurdsson (Leo Sutter) as they make their own marks on Viking history.
Season 1 of Vikings: Valhalla focused primarily on a Viking invasion of England meant to avenge the St. Bruce’s day massacre, but season 2 saw some of our heroes take to the sea in search of new horizons. Leif Erikson is believed to have been the first European to land in America, centuries before Cristopher Columbus. Maybe we’ll see him discover this new frontier in season 2?
Vikings: Valhalla was picked up for three seasons right out of the gate, so you can enjoy season 2 without fear that Netflix will unexpectedly cancel the show.
All eight episodes of Vikings: Valhalla season 2 rowed into port on February 25. You can watch them all now on Netflix.
Shadow and Bone season 2
Based on the best-selling Grishaverse novels by Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone has returned for its second season this year as well. After narrowly escaping magical subjugation at the hands of the Darkling (Ben Barnes) in season 1, Sun Summoner Alina Starkov (Jessie Mei Li) is on the run with her childhood best friend/romantic interest Malyen Oretsev (Archie Renaux). What dangers lie ahead as they try to keep Alina’s unique Grisha abilities out of the hands of those who would use them for their own gain?
Shadow and Bone season 1 was a fascinating adaptation because it combined the first novel in Bardugo’s series with characters from her follow-up novel Six of Crows, which worked surprisingly well. This time around the show pulled in material from Siege and Storm, Ruin and Rising, the Six of Crows sequel Crooked Kingdom, and even some stuff from Bardugo’s other sequel series King of Scars. It was…interesting.
Shadow and Bone season 2 released on March 16, and is available now on Netflix.
Extrapolations
Another show that came out in March is Apple TV+’s Extrapolations, a science fiction drama that explores a future that has been irrevocably altered by climate change.
One of the most exciting things about Extrapolations is its cast: this thing is stacked. It features performances from Game of Thrones stars Kit Harington and Indira Varma, Meryl Streep, Sienna Miller, Daveed Diggs, Edward Nortan, Diane Lane, Gemma Chan, David Schwimmer, Keri Russell, Forest Whittaker, Judd Hirsch, Tobey Maguire, and more. The cast alone is reason enough to give Extrapolations a look.
All eight episodes of Extrapolations season 1 are available on Apple TV+.
And thus concludes our exhaustive list of science fiction and fantasy shows to look out for this year. What shows are you most excited for in 2023?
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