Fall TV season 2020: ‘Bly Manor,’ ‘Helstrom,’ ‘WandaVision’ top watchlist

The 2020 fall television season is the strangest one ever with U.S. broadcast and cable TV networks filling their programming slots with game shows and reality TV, shows from Canada and the U.K., and series that previously aired on streaming services. That’s because the Covid-19 pandemic cratered their production of new scripted shows.
I’ve checked out the many fall preview articles online as well as the latest issues of TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly magazines to compile a list of new shows to try out.
I’m a true believer in the binge-watching model of TV viewing, which Netflix perfected. Even if a show has new episodes weekly, I’ll wait until there are several episodes to watch before diving in. For instance, I’m waiting for season two of “The Boys” to finish on Amazon Prime Video before sitting down to watch it. And I loved season one.
Here are the new shows that have caught my attention:

• “The Walking Dead: World Beyond” (AMC, Oct. 4 premiere): The latest spinoff in the Walking Dead zombie apocalypse franchise looks bad, but I’ll still give it a try.
• “Next” (Fox, Oct. 6): This series is about a Silicon Valley genius and an FBI agent joining forces to stop a rogue AI from destroying the world. The plot seems better suited for a movie or miniseries than episodic television.
• “Swamp Thing” (CW, Oct. 6 broadcast premiere): This dark superhero horror series was rescued from the DC Universe streaming channel where it was canceled after one season.
• “The Haunting of Bly Manor” (Netflix, Oct. 9): This horror series is a follow-up to the excellent Netflix series “The Haunting of Hill House.”
• “Helstrom” (Hulu, Oct. 16): “Helstrom” is from the world of Marvel Comics and centers on a brother and sister, the children of a serial killer, who now fight the forces of evil.
• “WandaVision” (Disney+, Nov. 27 unconfirmed premiere): Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany reprise their Marvel Cinematic Universe roles of Scarlet Witch (aka Wanda) and Vision.

I’m also looking forward to second seasons of “The Mandalorian” on Disney+ and “Evil” on CBS. Plus, there’s the conclusion to the final season of “Supernatural” on the CW and the third season of “Star Trek: Discovery” on CBS All Access.
As I’ve written before, there are many more interesting TV series now than I have time to watch. I still have shows like “Star Trek: Picard” from CBS All Access and “Raised by Wolves” from HBO Max on my watchlist, to name just two.

Related reading:

Fall TV season 2020: Covid-19 pandemic limits new shows (Tech-media-tainment; June 20, 2020)

The pandemic wiped out the fall TV schedule. Does it matter? (Los Angeles Times; Sept. 4, 2020)

Networks Are Prepping for the Craziest Fall Season in the History of Broadcast TV (Bloomberg; Sept. 22, 2020)