There are scores of TV shows out there, with dozens of new episodes each week, not to mention everything you can find on Hulu Plus, Netflix streaming, and HBO Go. How’s a viewer to keep up? To help you sort through all that television has to offer, Flavorwire is compiling the five best bets for the coming week. This week, I’m very excited for the return of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend; its bubbly musical numbers and horribly flawed characters are going to get me through the fall. I’ll also be falling down the rabbit hole of Black Mirror, which has a new season out on Netflix today, and weeping over the premiere of the gorgeous Rectify, which begins its final season on Wednesday. All the feels this week.
Today: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Season 2 premiere
TV’s favorite musical comedy returns tonight in a new time slot, with a new opening song-and-dance titled “Just a Girl in Love,” to go along with the season’s arc: In the words of co-creator Aline Brosh McKenna, Season 2 will look at “the socially sanctioned way that courtship allows people to behave in ways that are crazy.” The show has a lot to live up to — its star and co-creator, Rachel Bloom, won a Golden Globe for best actress during its first season — but if this recently released “Lemonade” spoof is any indication, fans have nothing to be worried about. Watch the premiere tonight at 9 p.m. on the CW.
Today: Black Mirror Season 3
Charlie Brooker’s tech-satire-slash-nightmare Black Mirror developed such a following over its two seasons on Britain’s Channel 4 that Netflix commissioned a third season exclusively for the streaming site. That season is available today, with a particular focus on the more dehumanizing and humiliating aspects of social media — although one episode actually ends on a note of uplift, if you can believe it.
Monday: Doctor Foster
This British drama originally aired on the BBC last year before being picked up by Lifetime stateside, and on Monday, the six-episode first season comes to Netflix. This entirely enjoyable if somewhat melodramatic series stars Suranne Jones as Dr. Gemma Foster, who lives in an idyllic English town with her hunky husband and young son. The discovery of a stray blonde hair leads Gemma to discover that her husband is cheating, and the season tracks the character’s dogged, manic pursuit of the truth.
Wednesday: Rectify Season 4
Oh, Rectify. This beautiful, quiet, serene, troubling show, created by the veteran actor Ray McKinnon, returns on Wednesday for its fourth and final season. SundanceTV’s first originally commissioned series, Rectify stars the wonderful Aden Young as Daniel Holden, a death-row prisoner who is released after 19 years when new DNA evidence exonerates him of the murder and rape of his high-school girlfriend. That sounds a little lurid, but the show is contemplative, not exploitative, without any flashbacks to the crime itself. In this final season, Daniel moves away from his small hometown and attempts to live on his own. Watch the premiere tonight at 10 p.m. on SundanceTV.
Thursday: This Is Not Happening
This half-hour Comedy Central series is a nice, gentle ride, the perfect thing to watch before you go to bed. Ari Shaffir hosts, and each episode features three different comics (and occasionally others) telling stories, all centered on one theme. The show’s bar setting gives it a low-key vibe and fosters loose and intimate performances by the storytellers. This Thursday at midnight on Comedy Central, Maria Bamford, Andrew W.K., and Al Jackson each riff on the theme “Panic.”