Winter TV Preview: The 19 Best Shows Coming Your Way

There’s something for everyone, from courtroom dramas to comedies and documentaries

Wendell Pierce stars in Accused, Harrison Ford stars in Shrinking and Cybill Shepherd stars in How to Murder Your Husband: The Nancy Brophy Story

(Left to right) Wendell Pierce in "Accused," Harrison Ford in "Shrinking" and Cybill Shepherd in "How to Murder Your Husband: The Nancy Brophy Story."

FOX; Beth Dubber/Apple TV+; Lifetime

Tim Appelo,

AARP

Published January 10, 2023

Let it snow, let it snow, and leave the TV on, because this winter includes a sleigh full of great new shows to keep us warm. From reboots of classics like Night Court and That ’70s Show to new series starring some of our favorites like Eugene Levy, Wendell Pierce and Cybill Shepherd, this is winter TV at its best. Mark your calendars with our must-watch guide.

Hunters, Season 2 (Prime Video, Jan. 13)

Al Pacino is back as a Nazi hunter in the 1970s who discovers Hitler is alive in South America. Jennifer Jason Leigh joins the cast.

How to Murder Your Husband: The Nancy Brophy Story (Lifetime, Jan. 14)

Cybill Shepherd plays a Portland writer of romance thrillers with heroines preoccupied with husband homicide. It’s based on a true story about a 71-year-old woman who really did kill her husband after inadvisably writing such pieces as How to Murder Your Husband.

The Last of Us (HBO, Jan. 15)

OK, it’s a series based on a PlayStation game. But wait, come back! It might be good, because it’s made by the auteur of the terrific Chernobyl, and it boasts a strong cast, including Game of Thrones’ Pedro Pascal as the hero smuggling a teen (Bella Ramsey of the must-see Lena Dunham movie Catherine Called Birdy) across a post-apocalyptic U.S. beset by a fungus that turns humans into Walking Dead-like cannibal zombies. Plus Melanie Lynskey, Nick Offerman and The White Lotus breakout star Murray Bartlett.

Night Court (NBC, Jan. 17)

John Larroquette returns as a sardonic prosecutor turned defense attorney in the show that made him famous, with Melissa Rauch as Judge Stone (playing the daughter of Harry Anderson’s original Judge Stone character).

Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Space (PBS, Jan. 17)

PBS’ American Experience seldom disappoints, and Hurston, the professional anthropologist and Their Eyes Were Watching God author, who spun her deep studies of Black American and Caribbean folklore into literature that propelled the Harlem Renaissance, is one titanic subject. Director Tracy Heather Strain won a Peabody Award for Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart.

That ’90s Show (Netflix, Jan. 19)

Can a TV series be nostalgic for nostalgia? That ’70s Show stars Ashton Kutcher, Topher Grace and Mila Kunis have gone on to bigger things, but mom (Debra Jo Rupp) and dad (Kurtwood Smith) are now grandparents with a new brood of stoners in the basement. Original cast members Grace and Laura Prepon appear in the premiere, and Prepon directs some of the episodes.

Fauda, Season 4 (Netflix, Jan. 20)

One of Netflix’s most gripping thrillers, about Israeli undercover agents, returns in a season centered on an Arab Israeli policewoman, a cousin of a top Hezbollah member, and the wife of a fellow policeman from a Jewish kibbutz. The action erupts from Belgium to Lebanon.

Accused (Fox, Jan. 22)

What a cast! This crime series, an anthology of freestanding episodes, each about a different defendant’s case, stars Michael Chiklis (The Shield), Margo Martindale (The Watcher), Wendell Pierce (Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan) and Rhea Perlman (Cheers).

Poker Face (Peacock, Jan. 26)

Glass Onion director Rian Johnson almost never fails, and hopes are high for this anthology series about a gravel-voiced sleuth (Russian Doll’s Natasha Lyonne) who’s a human lie detector crisscrossing the country solving murders. Guest stars include Adrien Brody, Cherry Jones, Chloë Sevigny, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tim Blake Nelson.

Wolf Pack (Paramount+, Jan. 26)

Why watch a show about teenage werewolves seeking their pack? Because it stars Sarah Michelle Gellar in her first supernatural series since Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Frozen Planet II (BBC America, AMC+, Jan. 28)

Has any six-part nature documentary series narrated by Sir David Attenborough ever been less than addictive? This one’s about the animals that live in Earth’s coldest environments, including polar bears, penguins, Siberian tigers and snow monkeys.

Shrinking (Apple TV+, Jan. 27)

In a kindly comedy co-created by Jason Segel and the makers of Ted Lasso, a therapist (Harrison Ford) is vexed that his colleague (Segel) tells patients precisely what to do with their lives.

Fight the Power: How Hip Hop Changed the World (PBS, Jan. 31)

Chuck D of Public Enemy gets rap royalty to tell the amazing tale of the underground Bronx movement that conquered the charts and then created a massive, lasting culture.

(Left to right) Colin O’Brien and Taylor Schilling

Apple TV+

Dear Edward (Apple TV+, Feb. 3)

Friday Night Lights auteur Jason Katims presents a show about a preteen (Colin O’Brien) who’s the sole survivor of a jet crash that claimed his family and hundreds more. Starring FNL’s Connie Britton and Taylor Schilling (Orange Is the New Black).

Star Trek: Picard, Season 3 (Paramount+, Feb. 16)

In the final season, Patrick Stewart’s Jean-Luc Picard costars with his Star Trek: The Next Generation crew (Michael Dorn, LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis). Hooray! But uh-oh: They’re menaced by the malevolent, psychologically screwed up Captain Vadic (Amanda Plummer).

Party Down, Season 3 (Starz, Feb. 24)

Jennifer Garner joins Adam Scott, Ken Marino, Jane Lynch and Megan Mullally in the quirk-fest comedy about aspiring actors and cater-waiters whose serving skills are as bad as their pink bow ties look. This season is set 10 years after Season 2, when the group reunites.

The Upshaws, Season 3 (Netflix, Feb. 16)

A Black working-class Indiana couple (Mike Epps and Kim Fields) cope with family life and the world’s most entertainingly sardonic sister-in-law (Wanda Sykes).

The Reluctant Traveler (Apple TV+, Feb. 24)

Eugene Levy (Schitt’s Creek), who might rather be a homebody, whisks you to fabulous lodgings in exotic places: Costa Rica, Finland, Italy, Japan, Portugal, South Africa and the U.S.

Perry Mason, Season 2 (HBO, Mar. 6)

In the darkest depths of the 1933 Depression, Hoovervilles full of the newly impoverished spring up all over Los Angeles, while a few plutocrats still ride high. Can rich and poor get equal justice in a gritty film noir world? It’s up to our hero, gumshoe-turned-attorney Perry (Matthew Rhys), who roars in on a vintage Harley-Davidson.

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Tim Appelo covers entertainment and is the film and TV critic for AARP. Previously, he was the entertainment editor at Amazon, video critic at Entertainment Weekly, and a critic and writer for The Hollywood Reporter, People, MTV, The Village Voice and LA Weekly.