This year has had plenty of great television, with new and returning shows alike delighting, surprising, and moving us. But the year’s not over yet. We’ve got our eye on these nine shows — seven new, and two old favorites coming back — that are slated to come out between now and the end of 2022.
This list features an exciting anthology series from Guillermo del Toro, an animated project by Scott Mescudi (also known as Kid Cudi), adaptations of the work of authors Ken Liu, Anne Rice, and Christopher Pike, as well as new entries in the Lord of the Rings and Star Wars universes.
Here are the shows we’re most excited for coming out before the end of 2022 and where you will be able to watch them, in order of expected release date.
Pantheon
Fans of Black Mirror and fans of Love, Death & Robots can find their meeting point in Pantheon, AMC’s first animated series. Based on a series of interconnected stories by The Grace of Kings author and The Three-Body Problem translator Ken Liu, the series follows a girl who comes in contact with an AI that claims to be her dead father uploaded into the net. Which may sound like a small, personal Black Mirror story, but AMC’s series summary suggests the show pivots into a global conspiracy “that threatens to trigger a new kind of world war.” The animation on this one looks pretty choppy — it’s from Titmouse, the increasingly ubiquitous studio behind everything from Big Mouth to The Boys: Diabolical to Star Trek: Lower Decks to Critical Role’s The Legend of Vox Machina. But the heady concept and the source material really snagged us and got our hopes up. For those who want an early sample, Liu — whose short story “Good Hunting” got an animated adaptation in season 1 of LD&R — suggests listening to Levar Burton read “Staying Behind,” one of the stories adapted for the series. —Tasha Robinson
Premieres Sept. 1 on AMC
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
Are you ready to return to Middle-earth?
Prime Video’s upcoming series has been light on details in the lead-up to its release, but we know a few things: The show will be set in the Second Age (well before the Peter Jackson movies) and will feature plenty of locations and characters that fans of the books and movies alike will recognize (including younger versions of Galadriel, Elrond, and Isildur). While not based on any one specific book, the show intends to build out the universe of Middle-earth from J.R.R. Tolkien’s post-scrip Appendices. —Pete Volk
Premieres Sept. 2 on Prime Video
Atlanta season 4
Atlanta, Donald Glover’s genre-bending “Twin Peaks with rappers” comedy-drama, comes back home to its namesake for the series’ fourth and final season. All bets are off for what Glover and series director Hiro Murai have in store for viewers following last season’s hilarious (and terrifying) anthology-structured sojourn across Europe, but if there’s one thing audiences have come to expect from this show, it’s the unexpected. —Toussaint Egan
Premieres Sept. 15 on FX and Hulu
Abbott Elementary season 2
Quinta Brunson’s sitcom about a public elementary school in Philadelphia captured our hearts earlier this year — and it’s back for season 2 this fall. It’s a show where every single character is incredibly dynamic and the jokes are funny but never outright mean. Brunson leads the stellar cast as plucky teacher Janine, whose wide eyed idealism sometimes clashes with the more cynical views of her older peers. The teachers battle budget cuts, mischievous students, and their own personal lives in this show that gives the mockumentary format some new life. —Petrana Radulovic
Premieres Sept. 21 on ABC
Andor
Yes, the newest Star Wars show is a prequel to a prequel — an origin story for Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), one of the doomed revolutionaries of Rogue One. Which would normally dim our enthusiasm pretty considerably: We’re so tired of Star Wars moving its stories backward instead of forward, and recycling characters long after the ends of their stories have already been told. But our preview episodes of Andor have us all psyched to see more of this story. Helmed and written by producer, screenwriter, and director Tony Gilroy (who also co-wrote Rogue One), it’s a radically different look at the Star Wars universe, as much a revolutionary drama as the early going of The Mandalorian was a classic Western. The 12-episode run of Andor gives Gilroy an unusually large canvas to paint on for his story, and the tone is something new for Star Wars, even though the setting and dynamics are familiar. For those who love the Star Wars setting but are always agitating for it to tell new kinds of stories, Andor is exciting, refreshing stuff. —TR
Premieres Sept. 21 on Disney Plus
Entergalactic
I simply think that more American animation tailored toward adults should (1) look this gorgeous and (2) tell evocative stories instead of cheap jokes. It’s time to catch up with the rest of the world, America! Entergalactic looks like a step in that direction, with gorgeous animation and a story about an aspiring musician trying to follow his dreams and maybe fall in love along the way. —PR
Premieres Sept. 30 on Netflix
Interview With the Vampire
This adaptation of Anne Rice’s legendary books comes from Perry Mason showrunner Rolin Jones and stars Jacob Anderson (Game of Thrones) and Eric Bogosian (Uncut Gems). It looks appropriately unsettling for the source material, and the magnetic charisma of those two leads is enough to pique my interest. —PV
Premieres Oct. 2 on AMC
The Midnight Club
Mike Flanagan’s deal with Netflix has worked out quite well for both parties — both Haunting Hill series and Midnight Mass have largely been well received (the latter is one of our favorite horror shows you can watch at home) — and his latest horror show is an adaptation of Christopher Pike’s young adult novel. In The Midnight Club, a group of kids with terminal illnesses meet up late at night to tell spooky stories. They promise each other that when one of them dies, that person will attempt to communicate with the rest from the afterlife. When one of the kids does indeed die, strange things begin to happen. The cast includes regular Flanagan collaborators Zach Gilford, Samantha Sloyan, and Igby Rigney, as well as horror luminary Heather Langenkamp. —PV
Premieres Oct. 7 on Netflix
Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities
Not only is Guillermo del Toro helming this anthology series — he’s working with a number of fantastic directors (including Twilight’s Catherine Hardwicke) to make it happen. If supernatural horror and finding the beauty in darkness is your thing, then this anthology is for you. Some of the episodes are adapted from existing short stories. Others are based on ideas from del Toro himself. Coupled with the upcoming Pinocchio adaptation, it really is a del Toro year. —PR
Premieres Oct. 25 on Netflix