The best new TV shows and series in 2024 so far

Netflix, eight episodes

In Steven Zaillian’s “Ripley,” a gorgeous, witty, cinematic extravaganza chronicling the charlatan’s journey from a bleak existence in New York City to a luxurious one in Italy, Irish actor Andrew Scott (“Sherlock,” “Fleabag”) expunges every trace of his considerable charm to produce a dour, awkward Tom Ripley whose joyless smile is as false as the signatures he fakes. One understands why this man wants to escape his grim surroundings and himself. And why his genial American target, a rich would-be artist named Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn), offers to put him up in Italy: Scott plays the character as so overtly bland and unoffending he’s technically unimpeachable even if he’s a little repellent — as Dickie’s girlfriend, Marge Sherwood (Dakota Fanning), a middling memoirist from Minnesota, discovers while trying to turn Dickie against him. Compensating for Scott’s restraint is the camera, a wildly expressive agent that quickly establishes itself as the show’s biggest character (and only true artist). Zaillian’s adaptation is conceptually as well as visually wry, lushly hyper-referential and packed with winks. — Lili Loofbourow

Max, seven episodes

Park Chan-wook and Don McKellar’s stylish and wry seven-episode adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s 2015 novel follows the misadventures of a Vietnamese double agent loyal to the Viet Cong. Referred to only as “the Captain” (Hoa Xuande), he struggles to keep the North Vietnamese, the South Vietnamese and the CIA happy while working as an operative in the United States. By the time we meet him, he’s imprisoned by his own side. The story begins there, at the end, in a North Vietnamese reeducation camp. In lieu of the hero’s welcome he expected, the Captain is tossed into a sweltering cell where he is ordered to pen the “confession” that structures the show. Like its protagonist, “The Sympathizer” signals from the start a compulsion to rebel against the genre it’s supposed to deliver. — L.L.

Prime Video, eight episodes

An adaptation of the best-selling game series, “Fallout” echoes many stories about the end of the world — including HBO’s “Westworld,” another creation from executive producers Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. “Fallout’s” most distinguishing aspect is how it depicts a nuclear-ravaged America in arrested development, obsessed with 1950s culture and norms. The show tracks the journey of two Vault Dwellers: Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell) who leaves the vault after an invasion by mysterious strangers, and her brother Norm (Moisés Arias), who sticks with the survivors as they search for understanding. Purnell (“Yellowjackets”) shares top billing with Aaron Moten as Maximus, a soldier training with an isolationist group of supersoldiers. The best part about the world of the Fallout games, and now this show, is that it’s among the most relatable science fiction wastelands. Unlike other geek properties, this ain’t about superheroes or Super Mario. The series is about the human experiment as a literal science project. — Gene Park

Max, eight episodes

In Max’s experimental and frequently unflattering docuseries, the charismatic comedian, actor and director embarks on a quest for something like radical honesty by living his life (largely) on camera. The fact that authenticity isn’t always entertaining — or cathartic — becomes one of the problems the series tries to solve. The first episode picks up in the immediate aftermath of Carmichael’s Emmy-winning special “Rothaniel,” in which he comes out as gay in the course of processing his father’s infidelity and his frustration at his mother’s unwillingness to hold him accountable. He’s famous, rich and joyfully, unapologetically sexual, but he’s also feeling disconnected and lonely. A self-destructive drive to reveal the worst about oneself animates much of “Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show,” and that’s also what makes it compulsively watchable. That said, Carmichael’s buoyancy and openness save the show from feeling dour or hopeless. — L.L.

Netflix, eight episodes

Once news broke that David Benioff and D.G. Weiss, the duo responsible for “Game of Thrones,” were joining Alexander Woo (of “The Terror: Infamy”) to adapt Liu Cixin’s best-selling novel “The Three-Body Problem,” reactions online ranged from excitement to dread. I stood with the pessimists. Like most TV critics, I’ve had to write an enormous amount about “Game of Thrones.” My view (summarized) is that the show’s last half pivoted away from the rich dialogue, juicy political intrigue and careful character work that made the series great to favor shocking but underdeveloped twists, baffling character arcs and a whole lot of spectacle for spectacle’s sake. I can report with pleasure and surprise that “3 Body Problem” – which is about five scientists recruited to figure out how to handle a disaster four hundred years in the future – has almost precisely the opposite problem. What the show lacks in style it more than makes up for with exquisite character work that complements its deeper philosophical questions. Rarely does a show with multiple protagonists — and timelines — handle the challenge well. “3 Body Problem” manages it with apparent (and deceptive) ease. — L.L.

CBS, 10 episodes

It was big news when TV power couple Michelle and Robert King announced that their next project would be “Elsbeth,” a spinoff starring Carrie Preston as the deceptively daffy redhead who steals the show whenever she guest-stars in “The Good Wife” or “The Good Fight.” The premise of the series is implausible but straightforward: The New York Police Department has been operating under a consent decree issued by the Justice Department requiring an outside observer to confirm that it is, indeed, complying with the law. This task falls to Tascioni. She relocates from Chicago to New York and starts genially nosing around the department, annoying everyone, particularly the guy in charge. This is a fish-out-of-water story whose chief pleasure turns out to be Tascioni’s flair for cheerfully besting insufferable New Yorkers. Skeptics might observe that a spinoff of a spinoff sounds a little unpromising. Viewers may notice that the case-of-the-week format isn’t exactly carving out new ground. Novelty, in short, is not the draw. But Elsbeth Tascioni is a fabulous creation, and she can easily anchor a pleasant detective show in a fantasy world. — L.L.

Hulu, 10 episodes

“Shogun” is the TV equivalent of a page-turner. And if you consider the source text — James Clavell’s 1975 novel clocked in at 1,299 pages — that’s no small feat. Condensing a story of that length, set in 1600s Japan, into 10 hours that will be legible to American audiences? Hopeless. But FX’s new adaptation pulls it off. The series begins with the death of the Taiko, whose sole heir is underage. He set up a Council of Regents made up of bitter rivals to rule in his son’s stead until he comes to maturity, and one of these, Ishido (Takehiro Hira), has recruited three others into an alliance to impeach (and kill) the fifth, Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada). The 1980 miniseries was really Richard Chamberlain’s show as the Englishman out of his element trying to navigate a sophisticated foreign society in which he was seen as the “barbarian.” The FX version, which creators Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo spent 10 years crafting, resists that appealing but somewhat parochial storytelling shortcut. The new series doesn’t exactly decenter John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), but he shares top billing with Toranaga (who claims him as his vassal), Toranaga’s bitter and honor-bound interpreter Lady Mariko (Anna Sawai) and his deputy Yabushige (Tadanobu Asano). In the glut of aimless period dramas, “Shogun” keeps its poker face and hits every target. — L.L.

Max, 10 episodes

No one wants to relive the 2016 presidential election. That was always the challenge facing “The Girls on the Bus,” Max’s compulsively watchable and startlingly apolitical dramedy about the agony of political reporting. Inspired by former New York Times reporter Amy Chozick’s memoir, “Chasing Hillary,” which chronicles her years following Clinton on the campaign trail, the series explores the beat’s grubby compromises, temptations and rewards by fictionalizing almost every aspect of the source material. In so doing, it turns a memoir about a globally significant event — and missteps that contributed to the outcome — into an ensemble show that locates its narrative stakes in epiphanies about writing and friendship. Also female solidarity, political differences be damned. The result is a frequently funny drama following four fictional reporters — played by Melissa Benoist, Carla Gugino, Natasha Behnam and Christina Elmore — as they cover a flawed female candidate in the lead-up to a fictional Democratic National Convention. — L.L.

Disney Plus, 10 episodes

The X-Men keep mutating back into the culture. Characters such as Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm, Gambit, Jean Grey, their leader Professor X and others — and villains like Magneto and Apocalypse — have become pop-cultural touchstones. The Marvel superheroes, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, debuted in 1963 and have spent the last 60 or so years appearing in thousands of comics, some leather-heavy blockbuster movies, 64-bit video games and the occasional animated show — the latest of which is “X-Men ’97.” The show picks up from “X-Men: The Animated Series,” which ran from 1992 to 1997 on the Fox network’s Fox Kids programming block and dominated millennials’ Saturday mornings for years. True to its title, “X-Men ’97” is more of a throwback affair, one that feels like the 1990s — even though many of the X-Men comic-book stories it’s mining come from the period that many fans consider a creative peak for the franchise: the ’80s. — Herb Scribner

Apple TV Plus, eight episodes

Equal parts family drama, puzzle-box mystery and thriller, this mind-bending series follows astronaut Jo Ericsson (Noomi Rapace) as she tries to get home to her aptly named daughter Alice (played, also aptly, by twins Davita and Rosie Coleman). The show opens with Jo resourcefully navigating a series of disasters after a lethal mishap at the International Space Station. When she finally makes it home, things aren’t quite as she remembers them. And when she tries to explain what she witnessed, her testimony is shut down. Her difficulty reconnecting with Alice has obvious metaphorical overtones but also an in-universe explanation. (Sort of.) The seventh episode is called “Through the Looking Glass” for a reason. — L.L.