20 of the best new TV shows you should watch

West­world is over, the final sea­son of Game of Thrones is still a year away. But this doesn’t mean there isn’t any­thing to watch on tele­vi­sion – quite the oppo­site. Com­e­dy, dra­ma, fan­ta­sy, doc­u­men­tary and sev­er­al shows from the inter­na­tion­al mar­ket; here at LWLies we’ve got you cov­ered when it comes to select­ing the best new TV. This is the sum­mer of the creepy small town mini-series, but if that’s not your speed then there are plen­ty of alter­na­tives to keep you enter­tained over the next few months and beyond.

Show­time (US) and Chan­nel 4 (UK); episodes avail­able now

It’s 20 years since Sacha Baron Cohen first appeared as Ali G on The 11 O’Clock Show, but politi­cians and pub­lic fig­ures are still falling prey to Cohen’s dis­guis­es. No longer the ​“voice of da yoof”, Cohen adopts a vari­ety of guis­es while attempt­ing to catch out for­mer Vice Pres­i­dent can­di­date Sarah Palin, Vice Pres­i­dent Dick Cheney, and dis­graced US Sen­ate Can­di­date Roy Moore. ​“Evil, exploita­tive and sick” sounds like a great pull quote cour­tesy of Palin’s fury at being duped.

BBC 2 (also avail­able on BBC iPlay­er); episodes avail­able now

Natal­ie Dormer has trad­ed a crown and Wes­t­eros for a pri­vate board­ing school in 1900 Vic­to­ria, Aus­tralia. When a group of school­girls go miss­ing at the annu­al Valentine’s Day pic­nic, this com­mu­ni­ty is thrown into chaos. Sex­u­al pol­i­tics, class and teenage desire all play a part in this tale of ethe­re­al intrigue. This mini-series is based on the Joan Lind­say nov­el of the same name, which was first adapt­ed by Peter Weir in 1975. Weir’s ver­sion influ­enced Sofia Cop­po­la, a num­ber, fash­ion brands such as Dior and Alexan­der McQueen, as well as sea­son two of The Left­overs. There is also the mat­ter of whether author Joan Lind­say based this on real events as she wrote it as fic­tion, claim­ing the idea came to her in a dream; a mys­tery with­in a mystery.

Sky Atlantic (also avail­able on Now TV and Sky On Demand); episodes avail­able now

Amy Adams takes on Gone Girl writer Gillian Flynn’s first nov­el, ​‘Sharp Objects’, in this eight-part mini-series. Adams plays Camille, a reporter return­ing to her small home­town in Mis­souri, to inves­ti­gate the recent unsolved mur­ders of young girls. Con­fronting the past, her dys­func­tion­al fam­i­ly and the rage that has been bub­bling beneath the sur­face, Adams gives the kind of per­for­mance that will have you won­der­ing why she hasn’t won an Oscar yet. As with anoth­er recent HBO hit, Big Lit­tle Lies, Jean-Marc Val­lée directs the entire run, bring­ing his sig­na­ture flash­back-frag­ment style to the chill­ing drama.

Hulu; com­ing soon

Creepy small towns are on trend, as are the works of Stephen King. Cas­tle Rock puts a dif­fer­ent spin on this. Rather than a direct adap­ta­tion, this ten-part minis­eries explores the fic­ti­tious Maine town, which fea­tures in many King scary tale. What draws evil to a town like this? And who is the mys­te­ri­ous pris­on­er hid­den in the bow­els of Shaw­shank Prison? The cast also includes a cou­ple of actors that have already played icon­ic King char­ac­ters; orig­i­nal Car­rie, Sis­sy Spacek and recent Pen­ny­wise, Bill Skars­gård. King serves as an exec­u­tive pro­duc­er, along­side JJ Abrams.

BBC; com­ing soon

Phoebe Waller-Bridge​’s hot streak con­tin­ues, switch­ing com­e­dy for a sprawl­ing game of cat and mouse across Europe. Jodie Colmer plays inter­na­tion­al assas­sin Vil­lanelle, hot on her trail is San­dra Oh, as bored MI5 secu­ri­ty offi­cer Eve. Eve becomes obsessed with catch­ing the woman leav­ing a trail of dead bod­ies in her wake. Get ready for this to become your new obses­sion too, it has already been a smash crit­i­cal hit in the US, as well as gain­ing an Emmy nom­i­na­tion for Oh. It’s fun­ny (which you’d expect from Waller-Bridge) and incred­i­bly styl­ish, fea­tur­ing plen­ty edge-of-your-seat action.

Ama­zon Prime; episodes avail­able weekly

This is writer Mar­ti Noxon’s sec­ond entry on this list – she also cre­at­ed Sharp Objects – and Diet­land is an adap­ta­tion of Sarai Walker’s hit nov­el of the same name. Plum (Joy Nash) is a ghost­writer for Kit­ty Mont­gomery (Julian­na Mar­gulies), the edi­tor-in-chief of fash­ion mag­a­zine ​‘Daisy Chain’. Plum is also sav­ing to have weight loss surgery, explain­ing ​“I don’t hate myself. The world hates me. For being like this.” A dra­ma with a big serv­ing of dark humour, this is an explo­ration of the issues women face includ­ing the pres­sure to be perfect.

Ama­zon Prime; episodes avail­able now

Marvel’s dom­i­na­tion across all plat­forms con­tin­ues with anoth­er TV series to add to its already long list. Teenagers Tyrone John­son (Aubrey Joseph) and Tandy Bowen (Olivia Holt) gain super­pow­ers after an inci­dent when they were kids. Pow­ers of light and dark – or Cloak and Dag­ger – work bet­ter togeth­er than apart, but first they must fig­ure out how to con­trol them. Romance com­pli­cates things and this series moves the action away from the super­hero epi­cen­tre of New York City to New Orleans. This is part of the MCU, but don’t expect answers to the end­ing of Avengers: Infin­i­ty War, this is very much its own sep­a­rate sto­ry with­in the same world.

STARZ­PLAY on Ama­zon Prime; full series avail­able now

One of the best com­e­dy series’ of the last 10 years is final­ly avail­able to watch on UK tele­vi­sion as part of the STARZ­PLAY add-on pack­age for Prime sub­scribers. From Veron­i­ca Mars and iZom­bie cre­ator Rob Thomas, Par­ty Down fol­lows a group of cater wait­ers in Los Ange­les, most of who have a desire to make it in Hol­ly­wood. Star­ring Adam Scott, Lizzy Caplan, Ken Mari­no, Mar­tin Starr, Ryan Hansen, Jane Lynch and Megan Mul­lal­ly, each episode takes place at a dif­fer­ent event. These range from a porn awards after par­ty, a seniors sin­gle mix­er to Steve Guttenberg’s birth­day. Hilar­i­ous, bit­ing and fea­tur­ing a slew of guest stars you will def­i­nite­ly recog­nise. This is a com­e­dy series for the ages.

Ama­zon Prime; July 27

Doc­u­men­taries and movies about the Tour de France have focused on the insid­i­ous side of the sport, but enough of Lance and his antics already. Eat. Race. Win. is tak­ing us behind-the-scenes of the biggest sport­ing event of the year. Fol­low­ing Dan­ish chef Han­nah Grant (who spe­cialis­es in per­for­mance nutri­tion) as she pre­pares meals for a com­pet­ing pro cycling team, this doc­u­men­tary series goes behind closed doors to see what it takes to win. You are what you eat – and these ath­letes are push­ing their bod­ies to the extreme in order to win the yel­low jersey.

Ama­zon Prime; August 31

Jim from The Office got ripped for Michael Bay’s 13 hours and stayed that way to take the Jack Ryan baton from Chris Pine; he is now the fifth actor to play this role. In this new ver­sion Ryan is once again thrust into a very dan­ger­ous world, one he is used to see­ing from the safe­ty of his desk in his role as CIA ana­lyst. John Kransin­s­ki has the phys­i­cal­i­ty to play a spy, the book smarts to be a con­vinc­ing desk play­er. Alas there will be no Jim mug­ging for the cam­era, but at least he will be able to make a sound.

Sky Atlantic; com­ing soon

Suc­ces­sion fol­lows the Roy fam­i­ly: patri­arch Logan Roy (Bri­an Cox) is con­tem­plat­ing his future as head of one of the biggest inter­na­tion­al media con­glom­er­ates with four chil­dren vying for pow­er. Sound famil­iar? That’s because this ​‘King Lear’-esque dra­ma was cre­at­ed by Veep and In the Loop co-writer Jesse Arm­strong. The first episode is direct­ed by The Big Short​’s Adam McK­ay, who also serves a pro­duc­er on the series.

Sky One; September

Vam­pires and witch­es are com­ing to Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty in the Sky adap­ta­tion of the best-sell­ing fan­ta­sy All Souls tril­o­gy series by Deb­o­rah Hark­ness. Matthew Goode plays sci­en­tist Matthew Claire­mont, who also hap­pens to be a vam­pire. Salem witch descen­dent Diana (Tere­sa Palmer) and sci­ence his­to­ri­an acci­den­tal­ly unlocks an enchant­ed man­u­script while doing research at the uni­ver­si­ty, set­ting in motion a chain of events that reopens long stand­ing feuds with­in the super­nat­ur­al world.

Net­flix; sea­son one avail­able now

It’s now just the women of Ocean’s 8 who are tak­ing the ​“I wan­na rob” mantra of Emma Wat­son in The Bling Ring to heart in 2018. On Net­flix catch the first sea­son of com­e­dy-dra­ma Good Girls, which sees Christi­na Hen­dricks, Mae Whit­man and Ret­ta team­ing up to take con­trol of their messy lives via rob­bing a super­mar­ket. What could go wrong? Think Break­ing Bad, but with less meth and more charm.

Net­flix; sea­son one avail­able now

Net­flix has gone big with its first orig­i­nal Indi­an series. Sacred Games tells the sto­ry of a deter­mined police offi­cer (played by Bol­ly­wood star Saif Ali Khan) who is giv­en 25 days to save Mum­bai. Focus­ing on the under­bel­ly of the city, this is cops-and-crime-lords dra­ma that also details four decades of polit­i­cal strife. Based on a best-sell­ing nov­el by Vikram Chan­dra, Sacred Games has already caused con­tro­ver­sy due to the por­tray­al of for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Rajiv Gandhi.

Net­flix; July 7

Net­flix has also turned to the inter­na­tion­al mar­ket when it comes to con­tent to air on a week­ly basis, rather than releas­ing it all at once. This is so it can be aired along­side the coun­try it has orig­i­nat­ed from. This is the case with a lot of US tele­vi­sion includ­ing The Good Place and Ru Paul’s Drag Race. South Kore­an series Mr Sun­shine is also being show in this way. A peri­od series tak­ing view­ers back to 1905 when Kore­an-Amer­i­can sol­dier Eugene Choi (Lee Byung-hun), returns to Korea after spend­ing his for­ma­tive years in the US after the Shin­miyangyo inci­dent of 1871. A turn­ing point in glob­al his­to­ry, Mr Sun­shine fea­tures romance in the unlike­li­est of places.

Net­flix; July 20

The first two sea­sons of Last Chance U fol­lowed the Amer­i­can foot­ball pro­gram at East Mis­sis­sip­pi Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege. A change of loca­tion has the series head­ing to Inde­pen­dence, Kansas to track the progress of the Pirates of Inde­pen­dence; under­dogs that have suf­fered years of loss­es. Head Coach, Jason Brown sets about get­ting this team to their first con­fer­ence title in 30 years. Like Fri­day Night Lights come to life.

Net­flix; August 17

Simp­sons and Futu­ra­ma cre­ator Matt Groen­ing is bring­ing his sig­na­ture style to Net­flix with an adult ani­mat­ed com­e­dy fan­ta­sy series. Set in the crum­bling medieval king­dom of Dream­land, Dis­en­chant­ment takes a dif­fer­ent approach to tales of princess­es in far away lands. These is no damsel in dis­tress, though: Bean (Abbi Jacob­son) likes a drink and is not afraid to draw her sword. She is joined by feisty elf Elfo (Nat Fax­on) and her own per­son­al demon Luci (Eric Andre).

Net­flix; August 24

In anoth­er first for Net­flix, Ghoul, pro­duced by Blum­house (Get Out, The Purge), is the first Indi­an hor­ror series to hit the stream­ing plat­form. Set in a remote mil­i­tary inter­ro­ga­tion cen­tre, a pris­on­er turns the tables on those ask­ing the ques­tions. The loca­tion of this three-part minis­eries means escape will not come easy – there are some demons up that can’t be locked up.

Chan­nel 4; com­ing soon

For those han­ker­ing for 1980s Cold War dra­ma now that The Amer­i­cans has come to an end, look no fur­ther than Deutsch­land 83. East Ger­man bor­der patrol guard Mar­tin Rauch (Jonas Nay) is tasked by the Stasi to go under­cov­er as a West Ger­man sol­dier. Mar­tin is far from a trained spy and the mis­sion quick­ly goes array. A sec­ond out­ing is com­ing, set three years lat­er — hence the title change. The first series fea­tures a fan­tas­tic ​’80s sound­track and a wardrobe that will have you cov­et­ing retro adi­das and Puma.

Net­flix; August 24

As if being a teenag­er wasn’t com­pli­cat­ed and con­fus­ing enough, throw in some shapeshift­ing abil­i­ties to real­ly mess things up. In this new eight-part Net­flix series, teen run­aways June (Sor­cha Ground­sell) and Har­ry (Per­celle Ascott) find them­selves in dan­ger when June’s abil­i­ties attract unwant­ed atten­tion. One char­ac­ter inter­est­ed in June is played by Guy Pearce, his role is shroud­ed in mys­tery, but it is safe to say that June should be wary.