Paste Power Rankings: The 5 Best TV Shows on Right Now
Illustration by Christine Fernando TV Lists Power Ranking
From the biggest streaming services to the most reliable broadcast networks, there are so many shows vying for your time and attention every single week. Lucky for you, the Paste Editors and TV writers sort through the deluge of Peak TV “content” to make sure you’re watching the best the small screen has to offer. Between under-the-radar gems and the biggest, buzziest hits, we keep our finger on TV’s racing pulse so you don’t have to.
The rules for the Power Rankings are simple: any current series on TV qualifies, whether it’s a comedy, drama, news program, animated series, variety show, or sports event. It can be on a network, basic cable, premium channel, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, YouTube, or whatever you can stream on your smart TV, as long as a new episode was made available within the past week (ending Sunday)—or, in the case of shows released all at once, it has to have been released within the previous four weeks.
Below is what we’re enjoying right now. Happy viewing!
Best TV Shows for the week of May 13th:
Honorable Mention: Saturday Night Live, Dead Boy Detectives (Netflix), The Girls on the Bus (Max), Fallout (Prime Video), Abbott Elementary (ABC)
5. Pretty Little Liars: Summer School
Network: Max
Last Week: Not Eligible
This Week: TV’s best teen drama is back with some fun summer horrors.
Picking up six months after the recapture of last season’s mysterious “A” Archie Waters following his grand escape in the final moments of Episode 10, Max’s Pretty Little Liars: Summer School welcomes us back to the sleepy town of Millwood, where our favorite Little Liars are now facing a fate worse than death: summer school. Turns out, being stalked and tortured by a masked madman for the majority of your sophomore year of high school will cause your grades to slip (who would’ve thought?), so Imogen (Bailee Madison), Tabby (Chandler Kinney), Noa (Maia Reficco), Mouse (Malia Pyles), and Faran (Zaria) are forced to do morning summer school sessions if they want to move on to junior year. But, of course, it wouldn’t be Millwood without something going bump in the night: Bloody Rose Waters—a mythological bastardization of Archie’s real-life mother—has been seen stalking around town, and has her sights set once again on these poor final girls. As they attempt to balance summer school with new jobs, new flings, and an even more rock-solid friendship between the five of them, these Liars are ready to face the new horrors head on, together. Colored by summertime horror homages and an absolutely killer soundtrack, Summer School is a teen drama dream you can’t miss. —Anna Govert [Full Review]
4. Doctor Who
Network: Disney+
Last Week: Not Eligible
This Week: This season is already delivering the heartfelt, high-concept stupidity we know and love, alongside a delightful performance from Ncuti Gatwa.
It feels a bit redundant to say that Doctor Who is back. After all, it’s been about half a year and four specials since showrunner Russell T. Davies returned, and along with it a dramatic jump back up in the show’s quality. The first two episodes of the newest season—now starring Ncuti Gatwa as the 15th Doctor alongside his companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson)—are fantastic. Doctor Who has struggled in the past to strike the right balance between isolated, one-off adventures and serialized plot, often leaning too hard in one direction or the other. Only a quarter through the series, it’s impossible to know how the overall balance will be, but so far, this season has found the perfect mix of both. With a renewed focus on its self-contained story, while cleverly incorporating overarching mysteries and character moments that tie into the story of the week, this series is truly shining in this new era. We already knew Doctor Who was back, but now we know it’s here to stay. —Joseph Stanichar [Full Review]
3. Interview With the Vampire
Network: AMC (streaming on AMC+)
Last Week: Not Eligible
This Week: This series is undeniably the best adaptation of Anne Rice’s iconic work, and it’s even better in Season 2.
Based on the Anne Rice novel of the same name, Season 2 of this AMC series picks up right where the first left off: Vampire Louis de Pont du Lac (Jacob Anderson) is still attempting to tell his life story (for the second time) to reporter Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian). Now joined by his longtime vampire lover Armand (Assad Zaman)—who spent most of last season pretending to be Louis’ manservant—he recounts his journey to Europe alongside Claudia (Delainey Hayles, admirably taking over the role from Bailey Bass) on a search for other vampires like them. Having (sort of) killed and abandoned their maker Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid), the pair fear they only have each other in the world, and their initial trek across a continent torn apart by the horrors of war and human cruelty is a bleak one. Interview with the Vampire’s second outing is ambitious, layered, and feels like nothing so much as a natural extension of its first. A mix of high-camp melodrama and thorny philosophical questions about memory and the stories our lives inevitably become, Interview with the Vampire remains the best sort of genre series—one that’s not just a cracklingly good story in its own right, but one that still manages to reflect genuine truths about the human experience of the world we live in now. May it be immortal. —Lacy Baugher Milas [Full Review]
2. X-Men ‘97
Network: Disney+
Last Week: 2
This Week: Just one episode to go before 2024’s best weekly watch sadly leaves our screens for the season.
Nearly 30 years after that infamous cliffhanger, X-Men ’97 has finally arrived, and with it the weight of anticipation and expectation from an entire generation of adults who grew up watching the now-iconic X-Men: The Animated Series, alongside a slew of new fans just waiting to discover this classic team. X-Men ‘97 aims to thread a very tight needle, picking up the story of a series that ended a full 27 years ago but being innovative enough to write a new chapter that is true to that beloved saga, while also being interesting enough that it’s actually worth telling in the first place. Picking up a few months after the death of Charles Xavier, the premiere of X-Men ‘97 is a true love letter to the original series, with plenty of homages to that first adventure that introduced fans to these characters and their world. That original series had an outsized influence on everything Marvel would become all these years later, and this is a fitting tribute to the series that started it all. The X-Men animated series was Marvel at its best, and X-Men ’97 is thankfully more of the same. —Trent Moore [Full Review]
1. Hacks
Network: Max
Last Week: 1
This Week: Every single joke is incredible, from the small stuff to the Hollywood commentary.
We’ve waited two long years for Hacks Season 3, but thankfully this new run of episodes more than makes up for lost time. At the end of the last season, Deborah (Jean Smart) fired Ava (Hannah Einbinder) on the heels of the special’s success, urging her to be a “shark” and pursue her own work. Fast forward a year later, and Deborah’s on top of the world. She’s cut off Ava in the meantime, not answering any of her texts until the pair unwittingly bump into each other at Just For Laughs Montreal. Ava is, ostensibly, doing well without Deborah. But the moment the two cross paths again, it’s clear that they miss each other. Ava finds her way back on Deborah’s payroll as they push for the latter to achieve her dream of hosting a late-night talk show, and we’re off to the races. Smart and Einbinder’s chemistry, and the writers’ keen plotting, make Deborah and Ava the most compelling pairing on television. Meticulously plotted and boasting some of the show’s best jokes, Season 3 of Hacks will have you panting for the next series as the final credits roll. —Clare Martin [Full Review]
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