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, take advantage of these lazy late-August days to catch up on some series that have new seasons coming up in the next couple months. Plus: An electric new Amazon pilot from Jill Soloway and a new season of Halt and Catch Fire.
Now: I Love Dick
Today Amazon’s “comedy pilot season” officially begins with three new shows: Superhero caper The Tick, Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle Jean-Claude Van Johnson, and the new Jill Soloway series I Love Dick, the strongest of the bunch (no surprise there). Based on the cult favorite 1997 novel by Chris Kraus, I Love Dick stars an incendiary Kathryn Hahn as Chris, a filmmaker from New York who travels to Marfa, Texas with her husband (Griffin Dunne), who’s been offered a fellowship to finish a book about the Holocaust. She’s immediately drawn to Dick (Kevin Bacon), a cowboy/cultural critic. Soloway directs from a script written by playwright Sarah Gubbins. Check out all three pilots on Amazon.com and don’t forget to take when you’re done to help determine which shows will get full-series orders.
Now: You’re the Worst Season 2 on Hulu
Over two seasons, You’re the Worst has become one of TV’s most reliable half-hour comedies: A rom-com from hell, the series depicts the tumultuous relationship between British novelist Jimmy (Chris Geere) and music publicist Gretchen (Aya Cash). In the first season, after what they both assumed would be a one-night-stand, Gretchen and Jimmy come to realize they actually like each other; in the second, they attempt to co-habitate, while Gretchen attempts to overcome her crippling depression. Season 2 is now available on Hulu, and with just ten half-hour episodes, you’ll definitely be able to scarf it down before Season 3 premieres on Aug. 31 on FX.
Now: Rectify Season 3 on Netflix
If you fell behind on Rectify — or, more likely, haven’t seen the show — the languid days of late August may be the perfect time to check it out. Rectify tells the story of Daniel Holden (Aden Young), who is released from nearly two decades on death row after new DNA evidence exonerates him of the crime that sent him to prison at age 18: The rape and murder of his teenage girlfriend, Hannah. But things are complicated when he returns to his small-town Georgia life: His mother has remarried, his sister is at a crossroads after spending her adult life working to get her brother out of prison, and not everyone in the town believes he’s innocent. All three seasons of this slow-burn SundanceTV original are now streaming on Netflix, just enough time to watch it all before the fourth and final season premieres in October.
Now: Underground on Hulu
This recent WGN America original was an odd beast, on paper at least: A drama about slavery that felt like a heist thriller and featured an anachronistic soundtrack of contemporary hip-hop. But somehow the show worked, thanks to strong performances by Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Amirah Vann, and Aldis Hodge, and a tone that balances action/adventure with tragedy. The first season is now available on Hulu; Season 2 won’t premiere until sometime in 2017 so there’s plenty of time to catch up.
Tuesday: Halt and Catch Fire Season 3
This AMC drama about the 1980s personal computing boom returns for a third season on Tuesday, and the action moves from Dallas to San Francisco as our heroes attempt to make their mark on Silicon Valley circa 1986. Cameron (Mackenzie Davis) and Donna (Kerry Bishé) need funding for Mutiny, which began as a video-game company before morphing into a chat community and a center for online trading; Donna’s husband, Gordon (Scoot McNairy), is casting around for a project, feeling obsolete; and Joe (Lee Pace) is reinventing himself once again as a Steve Jobs-like tech sage with an Asian-minimalist office and a scruffy new style. You have the weekend to prepare: Seasons 1 and 2 are both streaming on Netflix.