Spring TV Preview 2024: The 21 Best Shows Coming Your Way

Be on the lookout for these gems of the new TV season, from beloved sitcoms to juicy miniseries

Tim Appelo,

AARP

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Published January 04, 2024

/ Updated March 04, 2024

Jean Smart in "Hacks," Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ewan McGregor and Alexa Goodall in "A Gentleman in Moscow," Carol Burnett in "Palm Royale," and Jim Gaffigan, Jerry Seinfeld, Fred Armisen and Melissa McCarthy in "Unfrosted: The Pop-Tart Story."

(Clockwise from top left) Jean Smart in "Hacks"; Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ewan McGregor and Alexa Goodall in "A Gentleman in Moscow"; Carol Burnett in "Palm Royale"; Jim Gaffigan, Jerry Seinfeld, Fred Armisen and Melissa McCarthy in "Unfrosted: The Pop-Tart Story."

Photo Collage: AARP; (Source: HBO; Jason Bell/Paramount+ With Showtime; Apple TV+; John P. Johnson/Netflix)

The Regime (March 3, HBO)

The creators of Succession bring you Kate Winslet as the leader of a crumbling Central European autocracy menaced by an opposition leader (Hugh Grant, 63), with Martha Plimpton, 53, as the U.S. secretary of state trying to make everything work out to America’s benefit.

Animal Control (March 6, Fox)

Joel McHale, 52, returns for a second season as an irascible, fired ex-cop who becomes a Seattle Animal Control officer — a good career move, since he gets along with critters better than people. Fans are eager to see his Community costar Ken Jeong, 54, join the cast as Lee Park, a respectable, “moderately unhinged” dog whisperer.

Grey’s Anatomy, Season 20 (March 14, ABC)

In the 20th season of the steamy hospital drama, we’ll see the aftermath of multiple cliff-hangers featuring two crucial smooches and two near-death experiences, by a patient (Sam Page) and his surgeon (Kim Raver, 54). The titular Dr. Grey (Ellen Pompeo, 54), won’t be a regular anymore, but she’ll do voice-overs and maybe even appear on screen. “It’s not a complete goodbye,” Pompeo says.

9-1-1 (March 14, ABC)

Fox canceled this action procedural, its number 1 hit, so ABC scooped it up. In Season 7, LAPD first responder Athena Grant (Angela Bassett, 65) and fire Capt. Bobby Nash (Six Feet Under’s Peter Krause, 58) take a secret honeymoon cruise — and there’s an explosion on a cruise ship. Are they toast?

Apples Never Fall (March 14, Peacock)

In a twist-filled mystery based on the book by the author of Big Little Lies, Annette Bening, 65, and Sam Neill, 76, play an all-American family whose scary secrets erupt.

Manhunt (March 15, Apple TV+)

In what sounds like the ultimate American true-crime miniseries — if a bit fictionalized — Game of Thrones’ Tobias Menzies, 49, is Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of war, and Lili Taylor, 57, is Mrs. Lincoln, both driven to the brink of madness on the 12-day hunt for the president’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth (Anthony Boyle). Two-fisted detective Lafayette Baker (Patton Oswalt, 55), who shared in the $100,000 reward for nabbing Booth before he could get a hero’s welcome in the South, is on the case.

Nolly (March 17, PBS)

Helena Bonham Carter, 57 (The Crown, Harry Potter) plays the real-life 1960s-’70s Brit celebrity Noele “Nolly” Gordon, who refused to play by the industry’s anti-woman rules and got sacked from her hit TV show. Created by Doctor Who auteur Russell T. Davies, it got rave reviews in the U.K.

Palm Royale (March 20, Apple TV+)

Kristen Wiig, 50, plays a divorcée trying to break into 1969 Palm Beach high society in a highly promising miniseries with the most illustrious comedy cast of the year: Carol Burnett, 90, Laura Dern, 57, Allison Janney, 64, Julia Duffy, 72, Josh Lucas, 52, and Ricky Martin, 52.

3 Body Problem (March 21, Netflix)

The makers of Game of Thrones and True Blood bring you a sci-fi show about an astrophysicist (Rosalind Chao, 66) whose hunt for aliens in the 1960s causes big trouble for humanity years later.

A Gentleman in Moscow (March 29, Paramount+)

After the Bolshevik revolution, aristocratic Count Rostov (Ewan McGregor, 52) gets sentenced to life imprisonment in the attic of the opulent Metropol Hotel — if he steps outside, he’ll be shot. So he cultivates a rich life inside and watches Russia’s tragic history erupt outside.

Parish (March 31, AMC/AMC+)

Better Call Saul’s Giancarlo Esposito, 65, plays a New Orleans limo driver who picks up a Zimbabwean gangster and finds his family imperiled by a violent crime syndicate.

A Brief History of the Future (April 3, PBS)

Ari Wallach, 50, author of Longpath: Becoming the Great Ancestors Our Future Needs, whose TED talk was viewed 2.7 million times, hosts a documentary that challenges everyone’s pessimism about humanity’s future. He interviews creative types such as U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, French President Emmanuel Macron and Elon Musk’s ex, the musician Grimes.

Ripley (April 4, Netflix)

Remember Matt Damon in the 1999 hit film The Talented Mr. Ripley, based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel about Tom Ripley, a talented impostor and killer? Now see Andrew Scott, 47, who shot to fame as the “hot priest” from TV’s Fleabag, as slippery Ripley in a new series adaptation by Steven Zaillian, 71 (writer of Schindler’s List).

Mary & George (April 5, Starz)

Killing Eve writer D.C. Moore presents a fictionalized version of the true tale of 17th-century Countess Mary Villiers (Julianne Moore, 63), who maneuvers her hunky son to seduce King James and become the unscrupulous power behind the throne.

MaryLand (April 7, PBS Masterpiece)

If you liked Broadchurch or Bad Sisters, try this mystery about estranged siblings (Suranne Jones and House of the Dragon’s Eve Best, 52) who reluctantly bond while trying to figure out how their mom died on the Isle of Man. Does their mom’s eccentric American friend (Grease’s Stockard Channing, 80) know the secret?

Elton John and Bernie Taupin receive the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song (April 8, PBS)

The singer/songwriter-lyricist duo earn the prestigious prize previously won by Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Willie Nelson, Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder. John, 76, will perform at a March 20 concert at Washington’s DAR Constitution Hall; the show will be telecast April 8.

Fallout (April 12, Prime Video)

After apocalyptic bombs devastate the world, it’s overrun with mutant creatures and pragmatic bounty hunters such as the Ghoul (Justified’s Walton Goggins, 52). Kyle MacLachlan, 65 (Twin Peaks) plays Hank, the overseer of a vault where folks hide from calamity.

Hacks, Season 3 (May 2, Max)

Emmy, Golden Globe and AARP Movies for Grownups award winner Jean Smart, 72, stars as stand-up comic Deborah Vance, who’s again working with protege Ava (Hannah Einbinder) — even though in Season 2, she fired Ava right after she cowrote Deborah’s comeback special. Plus, Deborah gets a coconut cake from Tom Cruise, 61!

The Tattooist of Auschwitz (May 2, Peacock)

In a fact-inspired series, Harvey Keitel, 84, plays Lale, a recently widowed concentration camp survivor who faces the memory of his love at first sight for Gita (Anna Próchniak), whom he met while tattooing her prisoner number on her arm. They decided to defy the Nazis and keep each other alive. “The love story, in the face of the horror, gives testimony to the spirit and the goodness of people,” Keitel says.

Unfrosted: The Pop-Tart Story (May 3, Netflix)

At 69, Jerry Seinfeld directed his first film, a comically fictionalized account of the race to create the rectangular snack in the 1960s. “I kind of told the story as The Right Stuff,” he told The Hollywood Reporter, only with Kellogg’s and Post as archrivals instead of NASA and the USSR. His A-list cast includes Melissa McCarthy, 53, Hugh Grant, 63, Jim Gaffigan, 57, as Edsel Kellogg III, and James Marsden, 50, as fitness star Jack LaLanne.

Bridgerton, Season 3 (May 16, Netflix)

The new season of the hit about 19th-century London aristocrats focuses on the show’s most interesting character, Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan), who’s secretly the anonymous gossip columnist Lady Whistledown (voiced by Julie Andrews, 88). Scandalous!

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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.