October is serving up plenty of reasons to stay in and stream. This month’s lineup of our must-watch TV shows includes a high-stakes divorce between the ultrawealthy, a thriller about the real-world dangers of online radicalization, and a rebooted Marvel hero searching for his identity in an increasingly AI-driven world.
There’s also a return to the Land of Ooo, a dystopian culinary bloodbath based on the graphic novels cocreated by Anthony Bourdain, and enough psychological horror and monstrous mayhem to get you in the Halloween spirit.
As always, we’re not just chasing the biggest names or the shows everyone is already talking about, like Netflix’s excellent East of Eden. These picks reflect the kinds of stories WIRED covers every day, from technology and science to politics and culture, and the sometimes unsettling ways they intersect.
Whether you’re in the mood for a mind-bending sci-fi adventure, a quirky supernatural mystery, or a good old-fashioned scare, these are the TV shows worth making time for this month.
War
At a time when billionaire tech titans seem to dominate the headlines on a daily basis, War offers a fascinating, albeit fictional, glimpse into what happens when one of their personal lives spectacularly implodes. The HBO legal thriller follows the explosive divorce of tech mogul Morgan Henderson (Dominic West) and international film star Carla Duval (Sienna Miller), whose bitter split becomes a high-stakes battle over money, power, and reputation. If you like your legal dramas populated by spectacularly messy rich people, this one’s for you.
Tip Toe
Before he became a three-time Emmy winner for hosting The Traitors, Alan Cumming earned three Emmy nominations for his work on The Good Wife. Now, he’s trading his castle in the Scottish Highlands for a neighborhood where the real traitors might be living next door.
In Tip Toe, Russell T. Davies’ chilling new thriller, Cumming and David Morrissey play longtime Manchester neighbors whose relationship takes a deadly turn as online radicalization, toxic social media algorithms, and rising anti-LGBTQ+ prejudice poison their community. It’s a disturbing reminder that sometimes the most dangerous people aren’t strangers lurking in the shadows, but the ones we share a wall with.
Adventure Time: Side Quests
If June’s Adventure Time: Side Quests premiere left you craving more trips to the Land of Ooo, good news: Finn the Human and Jake the Dog are back for another round of monster battles, magical mishaps, and general cartoon weirdness. The companion series to Pendleton Ward’s Emmy-, Peabody-, and Annie-winning original Adventure Time deliberately recaptures the spirit of the show’s earliest days. Season 2 promises more of the absurdist humor and unexpected heart that made Adventure Time a cult favorite in the first place.
Get Jiro
In a dystopian Los Angeles, where celebrity chefs hold all the power and scoring a restaurant reservation can be a matter of life and death, dining out is a cutthroat business. Get Jiro follows a sushi chef who finds himself caught in a brutal war between rival food factions before setting out to serve up some revenge of his own. Based on the graphic novels cocreated by the late Anthony Bourdain, this dystopian satire serves up a twisted blend of food culture, violence, and dark humor.
Carrie
Between multiple big-screen adaptations, a sequel, and even a stage production, there’s certainly no shortage of Carrie retellings. That hasn’t stopped Stephen King superfan Mike Flanagan from putting his own spin on the master of horror’s first novel.
The horror maestro behind The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass returns with an eight-episode series that revisits the story of a bullied teenage girl whose telekinetic powers turn a high school nightmare into something far more terrifying. Given Flanagan’s knack for finding the heartbreak and humanity lurking beneath even the genre’s bloodiest moments, his fresh take on King’s classic promises to deliver more than just a prom night gone horribly wrong.
Small Prophets
If you’re still mourning the end of Detectorists (you should be, and if you’ve never seen it, it’s streaming on Acorn TV), here’s a new reason to get excited about Mackenzie Crook. The writer-director returns with Small Prophets, a quirky comedy-drama-fantasy about Michael Sleep (Pearce Quigley), a man still reeling from his girlfriend Clea’s disappearance seven years earlier. Desperate for answers, Michael dabbles in alchemy, conjuring miniature spirits with the power to see into the future, hoping they can tell him whether Clea will ever come home. Expect the offbeat charm and gentle humanity that made Detectorists such a gem, with a little supernatural mystery stirred into the mix.
Below
What’s lurking beneath the surface? In Below, a six-episode miniseries, a mysterious sea creature begins terrorizing a coastal town—threatening not just the lives of its residents but a way of life that’s already slipping away. As the danger grows, fisherman Calvin Penney (Josh Hartnett) must fight to protect his family and his community from a threat that may be as destructive as the forces already reshaping their quaint little corner of the world. If you like your creature features with a bit of small-town drama and a fight for survival, this one’s worth diving into.
VisionQuest
Marvel’s resident synthezoid is back—and this time, he’s got an existential crisis to work through. In VisionQuest, Paul Bettany returns as a rebooted Vision, on the run from those who want to turn him into a weapon and searching for answers about who, or what, he really is. That journey takes him deep into his own programming, where AI personas including Jarvis, Friday, Edith, and even Ultron force him to confront some very human questions about consciousness, identity, and what makes us who we are. For a franchise increasingly fascinated by the line between artificial intelligence and humanity, VisionQuest could be one of Marvel’s more intriguing detours.
Crystal Lake
Before Jason Voorhees became one of pop culture’s most infamous movie villains, there was his mother, Pamela Voorhees. In Crystal Lake, the Friday the 13th prequel, Mrs. Voorhees is played by newly minted Emmy winner Linda Cardellini, fresh off her win for DTF St. Louis.
The eight-episode first season takes viewers back to the 1970s, following Jason’s drowning, when Pamela finds herself caught up in a mystery that casts a shadow over the town. More psychological thriller than straightforward slasher series, the show taps into the era’s paranoia, institutional mistrust, and women’s liberation, offering a fresh perspective on the franchise’s bloody mythology. Consider it a trip to Camp Crystal Lake before the legend was fully formed. And with an October 15 premiere date, it’s arriving just in time for Halloween.
