Netflix Fall TV Preview: ‘Stranger Things’ and ‘The Crown’ Return for Hugely Anticipated Second Seasons

The most melancholy animated series on television (and in 2017, that’s really saying something) returns for its fourth season, and after all the awful things that happened at the end of the third season — Sarah Lynn overdosed and then BoJack had a panic attack and skipped town — there’s no telling how BoJack bounces back.

By the looks of the Season 4 trailer, the BoJack supporting cast will be picking up the slack, what with Mr. Peanutbutter running for governor (and opening the show up to some political commentary, maybe), Princess Carolyn possibly getting married and starting a family, and Diane working at a blog (and getting into a full-on growling fight with Mr. PB???). Oh, and also BoJack maybe has a kid? Oh boy, that is not a recipe for anything good.

Season Premiere Date: September 8th

Stream BoJack Horseman on Netflix.

A spree of penis graffiti on a high-school campus provides the plot for this eight-episode faux-documentary that satirizes true-crime series by making the crime in question a bunch of dick drawings. And while this would seem to be fertile ground for satire for the show creators, it is nonetheless true that this whole project would be a whole lot more exciting if it were real and not a comedy.

Series Premiere Date: September 15th

Stream American Vandal on Netflix.

Get ready for the further adventures of the next generation of Tanners (and, yes, Gibblers), as the TGIF revival enters its third season. Thus far, we’ve only gotten the teaser-iest of teasers about season 3 — a Christmas Day teaser merely featured the cast holding wrapped gifts and promising the third season was “coming soon,” like, yeah, we figured. When Fuller House is being cagier about the details of its new season than Stranger Things is, you know something is strange. The only explanation is that Kimmy Gibbler travels to the Upside Down this season and is secretly replaced by Barb. Get excited, Fuller House fans!

Season Premiere Date: September 22nd

Stream Fuller House on Netflix.

Guys, Big Mouth looks so good. Co-created by Nick Kroll, Andrew Goldberg, Mark Levin, and Jennifer Flackett, it’s an animated series about the weird, scary, ridiculous stuff that pubescent kids go through, and in this case, that’s manifested as Hormone Monsters. The voice cast — including Kroll, John Mulaney, Jessi Klein, Maya Rudolph, Jason Mantzoukas, Jordan Peele, Jenny Slate, and Fred Armisen — is superb, and the trailers have been hilarious.

Cartoons for adults tend to lean on the foul-mouthed language and inappropriate content in order to shock audiences or prove how edgy they are, but Big Mouth looks like it could be the rare cartoon for adults whose vulgarity is exactly what the story requires.

Season Premiere Date: September 29th

The early days of the FBI’s criminal profiling of serial killers — back before there was even a term “serial killers” — get the high-production-values treatment in Mindhunter. Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany co-star as FBI agents who set out on a mission to get inside the heads of some of the worst killers of the ’70s.

If any of this reminds you of Zodiac, it should, because the pilot was directed by Zodiac‘s David Fincher, who serves as executive producer of Mindhunter (along with, among others, Charlize Theron). The whole thing seems like a stylish window into an era of crime-fighting that’s been unexplored so far. All that plus Fringe‘s Anna Torv back on a TV show? It’s gonna be fun.

Season Premiere Date: October 13th

Stream Mindhunter on Netflix

Mexican actress Kate Del Castillo is probably best known to American audiences for her brief run on Weeds as Pilar Zuazo, though her best-known role worldwide is playing a drug kingpin La Reina del Sur (the series that was adapted for American television as Queen of the South). Which made it especially ironic that Del Castillo ended up in the incredibly unlikely position of playing go-between for one of the most unusual and infamous meetings of the last few years: American actor Sean Penn’s encounter with notorious Mexican drug lord El Chapo. This stranger-than-fiction story will be told in a three-part documentary series through the eyes of Kate Del Castillo, who will reflect on the events that made her such a fascinating footnote in criminal history.

Season Premiere Date: October 20th

Stream The Day I Met El Chapo: The Kate Del Castillo Story on Netflix.

Last summer’s sensation is coming back for another ’80s-inspired adventure. When last we left our young, straight-outta-Stephen-King heroes, they’d escaped the Upside Down and defeated the demigorgon, though poor Will Beyers brought something back. And it’s calling to him.

The season 2 trailer promises Ghostbusters and “Thriller,” so don’t expect the ’80s references to slow down. It also looks like the whole gang, parents and children, are going to have to band together against whatever is coming for them. Should be a time!

Season Premiere Date: October 27th

Stream Stranger Things on Netflix

With The Handmaid’s Tale enjoying so much success at Hulu, Margaret Atwood is suddenly so hot right now, and Netflix had to get in on the action. Enter Alias Grace, Atwood 1996 work of historical fiction about a pair of notorious murders in 1843 Ontario. With a script adaptation by Sarah Polley — director of films like Away from Her and Stories We Tell, and herself something of a Canadian TV legend as the star of Road to Avonlea — and directed by Mary Harron (American Psycho), Alias Grace certainly has the pedigree. Sarah Gadon stars as an Irish immigrant who gets a job as a servant girl in 1800s Ontario. We also know that one day she will be charged with the double murder of Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper/lover Nancy Montgomery. Sarah Gadon (Cosmopolis; A Dangerous Method) plays Grace with a kind of trembling opacity that keeps you guessing, and the details of the murder are tantalizing enough to keep you hooked.

Season Premiere Date: November 3rd

Stream Alias Grace on Netflix.

Steven Soderbergh teaming up with Netflix for a seven-part western starring Jeff Daniels? Okay, Netflix, you got us. Daniels will play notorious outlaw Frank Griffin, who’s in hot pursuit of young Roy Goode (Jack O’Connell, of Starred Up and a few other movies that didn’t use him right), who had betrayed Griffin. Michelle Dockery (Downton Abbey) also stars as a hardened widow who takes Roy in.

Season Premiere Date: November 22nd

Stream Godless on Netflix

Spike Lee’s 1986 film — his first feature — is getting adapted for Netflix, also written and directed by Lee. The ten-episode series will update Lee’s film to contemporary times, so good thing that sexual politics haven’t changed at all in the intervening 30 years. Nola Darling (DeWanda Wise) is a Brooklyn-based artist in her late twenties struggling to define herself and divide her time amongst her friends, her job, and her lovers (there are three of them).

Season Premiere Date: November 23rd

Stream She's Gotta Have It on Netflix

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into Buckingham Palace, the royals are BACK. Claire Foy returns as Queen Elizabeth II, whose empire and marriage seems to be collapsing around her at once. Elizabeth and Philip’s marriage continues to strain due to Philip’s wanderlust, and the revolving door of Prime Minsters also seems to be vexing Her Highness, but there’s hardly any time to worry about any of that with Matthew Goode around (he plays a suitor for Princess Margaret), plus Michael C. Hall showing up as John F. Kennedy. Buckle up for some history, kids!

Season Premiere Date: December 8th

Stream The Crown on Netflix.

With The Defenders past us, it’s time to focus on the next Marvel/Netflix superhero, and the answer to that question comes from the second season of Daredevil, and that’s The Punisher. Frank Castle (played by The Walking Dead‘s Jon Bernthal) has one ethos, and it is pain.

From the looks of it, Castle continues to be haunted by his wartime demons, in addition to the fact that he will die if he ever smiles. As of right now, Netflix hasn’t produced a release date yet, but the trailers are playing very coy and suggesting a date might be coming soon.

Season Premiere Date: TBA

Stream The Punisher on Netflix.