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 five best bets for the coming week. This week, the thrilling and terrifying new adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale finally begins streaming on Hulu; the gloriously bitchy first season of Ryan Murphy’s Feud comes to a close; and a promising new political satire premieres on Comedy Central. Remember: nolite te bastardes carborundorum.
Sunday: Silicon Valley
Season 4 of this perennially funny tech-industry satire premieres this weekend, and — spoiler alert! — life in the wonky world of Silicon Valley still seems like a late-capitalist nightmare! After the Pied Piper dudes discovered that Jared (Zach Woods) set up a click farm in Bangladesh to inflate their user numbers, the company is in dire straits. But the socially-awkward geniuses face a greater threat this season than the ever-shifting external forces plaguing their dream of tech world domination: Their own petty in-fighting. Catch the premiere Sunday at 10 p.m. on HBO.
Sunday: Feud: Bette and Joan
The delectable Feud: Bette and Joan, the first season of Ryan Murphy’s latest anthology series for FX (the next season will center on Prince Charles and Princess Diana), concludes this Sunday with a rather on-the-nose-titled episode: “You Mean All This Time We Could’ve Been Friends?” (Discerning viewers/ Bette-and-Joan fans will recognize the title as the last line of the movie the show is centered on, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?.) There’s one person we know will definitely not be tuning in for this season finale, but you can watch it Sunday at 10 p.m. on FX.
Tuesday: Great News
This delightful new sitcom comes from Tracey Wigfield, an Emmy-winning writer for 30 Rock and The Mindy Project. Great News stars Briga Heelan as Katie Wendelson, an eager young journalist excited about her new job at a TV station — until she finds out that her mom, played by the legendary Andrea Martin, has joined the network as an intern. Kind of a silly concept, I know, but it’s funny and sweet and I, for one, need a new sitcom since Superstore is ending soon. Great News premieres Tuesday at 9 p.m. on NBC.
Wednesday: The Handmaid’s Tale
This one doesn’t really need an introduction, does it? I assume everyone is well aware of this insanely buzzy new show, based on the 1985 Margaret Atwood novel. Hulu’s adaptation of the novel — which takes place in a future dystopia in which women of childbearing age are forced to become Handmaids, essentially sex slaves, for the leaders of the theocratic state — is fiercely effective and, particularly if you’re a woman, extremely disturbing. The first three episodes drop on Hulu this Wednesday.
Thursday: The President Show
I don’t blame you if you’re tapped out on Trump-related satire; I know I’m getting sick of that little fucker’s face, even if it’s not actually the Donald under those layers of orange sludge and the roadkill hairpiece. BUT, I am actually looking forward to The President Show, a new weekly Comedy Central series created by and starring the very funny Anthony Atamanuik as President Trump. The late-night talk show is taped before a live audience, which should invigorate the proceedings. Check out the first episode this Thursday at 11:30 p.m.