If you’re wondering why your watchlist has been flooded with very important, must-see television programs, it’s just that time of year. The end of March and beginning of April brought a perfect storm of prestige TV premieres: The timing of the Emmy eligibility window (which closes in June) and the absence of former spring powerhouse Game of Thrones left room for a tsunami of shows, both new and returning, to make their mark on viewers. In other words, you have choices beyond Westworld’s Reddit-baiting robot Armageddon and Roseanne’s unsettling mash-up of Fox News and ‘90s sitcom!
The best new show is Killing Eve (Sundays, BBC America), which is probably the most fun hour of television right now. Sandra Oh plays Eve, an American-born British agent on the trail of an ingenious and bloodthirsty assassin, Villanelle (an astonishingly good Jodie Comer), who’s leaving a trail of corpses across Europe. It’s refreshing to see the typically male-dominated cop-and-killer formula chucked aside in favor of the type of strong female characterizations that writer/creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge similarly exhibited in her acclaimed Fleabag. Only four episodes in, the show has already gleefully torn through entire seasons’ worth of plot—but more importantly, Killing Eve is hilarious and truthful, even as it moves within a tried-and-true TV formula.
The best old show on TV is Atlanta (Thursdays, FX), which is in the middle of a second season that’s just as surprising, weird, and hysterical as its first. Creator/star Donald Glover has largely stepped off to the side, allowing room for the show’s other characters—in particular Alfred, AKA Paper Boi, played by the amazing Brian Tyree Henry—to take center stage. You’ve probably heard about the infamous “Teddy Perkins” episode, featuring Get Out’s Lakeith Stanfield in an eerie visit to a Neverland-style mansion, but even without that landmark installment, Atlanta’s batting average is unbelievably high.