The Best TV from October — New Shows, Great Finales, and Hidden Gems

1. “The Chair Company” (new series)

Official Synopsis: [from HBO] After an embarrassing incident at work, a man (Robinson) finds himself investigating a far-reaching conspiracy.

Review Excerpt: In a series about how easy it is to get lost when you’re desperate to be seen, Ron Trosper is another frustrated, stupefied, and cantankerous everyman — someone who would spend his last dime at Dan Flashes or sneak into a lunch-hour meeting with a hot dog up his sleeve — but he’s also judiciously relatable even when he’s not embodying our collective fury. Met by a parade of crackpots whenever he flees the comforts of his core family, Ron’s straining tether to the best version of himself is the source of anxiety-inducing suspense (lest it snaps) and the foundation of an HBO comedy that won’t stop getting weirder. You care for Ron — enough to hope he escapes the rabbit hole he’s dug for himself… and enough to hope he gets to the bottom, just so we can see it, too.

Fun Fact: Andrew DeYoung, who directed the pilot and other episodes, also directed Robinson in the spring’s A24 movie “Friendship” — which is also available on HBO Max.

2. “Mr. Scorsese” (new series)

Official Synopsis: [from Apple TV] “Mr. Scorsese” is a film portrait of a man through the lens of his work, exploring the many facets of a visionary who redefined filmmaking, including his extraordinary career and unique personal history.

Review Excerpt: Director Rebecca Miller’s assessment of her subject is the series’ backbone, but “Mr. Scorsese’s” entertainment value is without question. Where else can you hear about Scorsese throwing a desk out a window on the set of “Gangs of New York” during a fight with Harvey Weinstein? Or Schoonmaker remembering how Scorsese would direct his own mother in movies? (“He would literally just say, ‘OK, Mother, start now’” — giving her the first line and then asking her to improvise the rest.) Or a plainly uncomfortable DiCaprio saying the words “woman’s buttocks” while breaking down the opening shot of “The Wolf of Wall Street”?

Fun Fact: As IndieWire’s Anne Thompson writes in her interview with Miller, the director gets good stuff out of De Niro, Scorsese’s collaborator on 10 films, who is not an easy interview. “If you just count the words, it was a sparse interview,” she said. “But if you look at what he gave me in terms of his expressions, it was rich, and it was all inside of him. It’s the way he is on screen, too. It’s a lesson in screen acting. At the end of it, the crew is like, ‘Oh my God, he didn’t say anything!’ And I was like, ‘No, I think we’re OK.’”

3. “Hal & Harper” (new series)

Official Synopsis: [from MUBI] From Cooper Raiff (“Cha Cha Real Smooth”) comes “Hal & Harper,” a wry and heartfelt eight-episode series about two siblings whose closeness is both their comfort and their curse. Hal (Raiff) and Harper (Lili Reinhart) have built their adult lives side by side in Los Angeles, tethered by a lifetime of inside jokes and shared pain. When their father (Mark Ruffalo) announces he’s having a baby with his girlfriend, Kate (Betty Gilpin), it forces the siblings to reexamine their past and reckon with the versions of themselves they’ve carried into adulthood. 

Review Excerpt: “Hal & Harper,” at its core, is about people in mourning, even as it jumps back and forth across decades of disparate, intimate moments. When the series bottles its big feelings in profoundly relatable scenes, it shines, in part because Reinhart, Ruffalo, and Gilpin bring compelling tenderness to their characters’ ongoing torment. (Reinhart, in particular, is stellar.) Raiff’s impetuous outbursts serve his babyish college kid well, and the writer/director’s honest dialogue and empathetic perspective are even more valuable.

Fun Fact: Before it premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, where MUBI picked it up for U.S. distribution, Raiff self-financed the eight-episode series through his production banner, Small Ideas. Even with an Oscar winner in Mark Ruffalo attached, that’s a big risk in the current indie TV market, but Raiff felt he had to do it. “[‘Hal and Harper’] has a lot to do with the feelings and the relationships in my childhood, and in my present,” Raiff said in an interview with IndieWire. “But it just was this story that wouldn’t let up, it’s the thing that is biggest inside of me, and I do feel like I’m also letting it go, and it feels really emotional.”

4. “Peacemaker” Season 2 (new finale)

Official Synopsis: In Season 2, Peacemaker (John Cena) discovers an alternate world where life is everything he wishes it could be. But this discovery also forces him to face his traumatic past and take the future into his own hands.

Review Excerpt: Changes to fit the new DCEU may be necessary to ensure future seasons of “Peacemaker,” and fans should rejoice accordingly. But even more than the massive atmospheric adjustments happening around him, it’s our ox of a protagonist’s inner transformation that stands out as Season 2’s grandest shift. He, too, is trying to move on from a disastrous past, and he, too, feels the pull to be part of something bigger and better, nicer and newer. Telling a smaller, simpler story with bigger, knottier emotions, “Peacemaker” Season 2 isn’t just retconning the Max original series into the broader DCU; it’s revamping its antihero into a more traditional hero.

Fun Fact: A divisive finale is typically a good thing when it comes to superhero series, and “Peacemaker’s” Season 2 ending is indeed an excellent subversion of expectations that should still satisfy those watching this specific story (rather than waiting around for comic book cameos and easter eggs). Plus, it sets up a killer Season 3… that’s yet to be renewed. Here’s hoping Gunn — the series creator, head writer, and director, as well as  the co-chair and co-CEO of DC Studios — can pull that trigger.

5. “Slow Horses”Season 5 (new finale)

Official Synopsis: This darkly funny espionage drama follows a team of British intelligence agents who serve in a dumping ground department of MI5 due to their career-ending mistakes. Led by their brilliant but irascible leader, the notorious Jackson Lamb (Academy Award winner Sir Gary Oldman), they navigate the espionage world’s smoke and mirrors to defend England from sinister forces.

Review Excerpt: Invigorating in its temerity, Smith’s six-episode Season 5 is told with propulsive clarity (save for the mysteries you’re intended to guess at). Chaos is sorted into appreciable story arcs without diluting its overwhelming effect on our heroes. The element of chance isn’t treated as a convenient plot device, nor is it pushed aside entirely so a grand plan can click into place. Best of all, Slough House’s ability to make sense of the senseless becomes their key to saving the day. We may not always be able to separate reality from perception — sometimes differing perceptions simply can’t coexist — but we can still respect and value actual intelligence, especially when it’s used to solve public problems.

Fun Fact: As Alan Sepinwall points out in his review of the Season 5 finale, watch the feet. This season, they matter.

6. “Task” (new finale)

Official Synopsis: Set in the working-class suburbs of Philadelphia, an FBI agent (Mark Ruffalo) heads a Task Force to put an end to a string of violent robberies led by an unsuspecting family man (Tom Pelphrey).

Review Excerpt: “Task” is so ingrained in the arduous lives of its dueling leads — Robbie (Tom Pelphrey) and Tom (Mark Ruffalo), the FBI agent assigned to catch him — that it’s able to simultaneously sweep us away to another place and level us with its wrenching reality. Casually shedding the clichés it’s built upon, HBO‘s crime saga mounts a potent blend of cat-and-mouse chase, bleak family drama, and a character study of quite a few characters under extreme emotional duress. The laughs may be hard to come by, but the emphasis on caring — not as a burden to escape, but a responsibility to embrace — more than makes up for the hardships along the way.

Fun Fact: Thuso Mbedu is in this! Not enough people have said that Thuso Mbedu — the breakout star of “The Underground Railroad” — plays a member of the titular task force who just so happens to be a badass sharpshooter. Enjoy.

Bonus Fun Fact: The finale (which just aired this month) isn’t the biggest episode of the season — that would be the intense quarry shootout in Episode 6 — but it still may be the best, and it’s indisputably critical. “I’m sure there’s going to be people who watch the show and go, ‘Man, Episode 6, that was it for me,’” Brad Ingelsby said in an interview with IndieWire. “But I hope they do stick around, because the emotional payoffs are quite high.”

7. “Bob’s Burgers” Season 16 (new episode)

Official Synopsis: [per Fox] (Season 16, Episode 3, “The Twinnening.” Teddy takes a handyman job next door to the restaurant and finds himself trapped inside a store full of spooky antiques.

Fun Fact: For its 300th episode, “Bob’s Burgers” flashed back to the beginning to share how Bob and Linda started their beloved burger restaurant — compelled in the present by Bob’s indecision over raising his prices for the first time. It’s a thoughtful, endearing way to reflect on the passage of time while delivering a substantial slice of Belcher family history, and I highly recommend casual fans check it out.

But that aired in September. “The Twinnening” is a classic Halloween episode focused on Teddy (Larry Murphy) as he goes to work at the ever-changing business next door, now an occult store called Freaky Antiquies. Unfortunately for Teddy, the owner asks him to work late into the night and then puts him in charge of protecting a scary old mask that his twin brother hopes to steal. Wouldn’t you know it, our beloved handyman struggles to distinguish the devious duo, and all sorts of hijinks ensue. With the kiddos providing commentary via walkie-talkie and their parents out for the night, it’s a silly, spooky treat — and proof Fox’s consistently excellent animated comedy still has plenty more stories to tell.

8. “The Lowdown” Season 1 (new episode)

Official Synopsis: [per FX] “The Lowdown” follows the gritty exploits of citizen journalist Lee Raybon (Ethan Hawke), a self-proclaimed Tulsa “truthstorian” whose obsession with the truth is always getting him into trouble.

Review Excerpt: How Sterlin Harjo and Hawke dance between two extremes — building the legend of Lee even as they cherish his fundamental humanity — makes their modern mystery a crackling genre story and a captivating saga unto itself. Brimming with daydreamy peculiarities yet grounded in the details of the daily grind, “The Lowdown” is a crowd-pleaser and weirdo’s delight all at once.

Fun Fact: While every episode of “The Lowdown’s” sensational first season is worth celebrating, let’s spotlight the moving, hilarious, and fight-heavy Episode 5, “The Land?,” which co-stars Peter Dinklage as Lee’s old friend who returns for a revealing visit. There’s plenty to like about the hour, but as IndieWire’s Sarah Shachat pointed out in her interview with creator, showrunner, and director Sterlin Harjo, seeing Lee — and Ethan Hawke — get his ass beat isn’t just a result of the narrative; it’s an essential aspect of the series’ success.

“You gotta get beat up, and Ethan’s really good at it,” Harjo said. “He’s somehow managed to balance having this superstar career, basically, with also an independent career and perspective as well. He’s never really lost himself, you know? It doesn’t feel like you can’t reach out and touch Ethan Hawke, and that’s what you need in a noir. You know? They have to represent us.”

Bonus Gems

Timothy Olyphant Is Trying Things, God Bless Him, on “Late Night With Seth Meyers”

When I first saw this clip on the “Late Night” YouTube page, I assumed it was the one where Olyphant did a bit about not doing a bit. But that was from July — July! In October, the “Snowden” star stopped by again, this time writing his own introduction (complete with illustrations of tiny green aliens) before sitting down to talk about how recently he’d been on the show.

“They said, ‘Would you like to go back on?’” Olyphant explained, once he sat down with Meyers. “I said, ‘It feels a little quick. Why don’t I do it [later]? Don’t I have something coming out early next year?’ And they said, ‘We’re not sure he’ll still be here.’”

His timely joke earned boos from the studio audience, but a solid chuckle from his pal Seth, which has to go down as a win for Olyphant. Between his interviews on Meyers and “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend,” the ol’ cowboy is really going for the laughs these days, and it suits him well. Rarely have I sought out a single celebrity’s talk show spots like I’ve found myself doing with Tim, and rarer still have I been rewarded like this.

The World Series – Game 3

The high point of a Dodgers season that many thought would go the distance, this 18-inning wonder became a rare cultural water-cooler moment during the waning hours of October 27 and the wee hours of October 28. Baseball! Get into it!

“Andor” Season 2 at No Kings 2

Any “Andor” recognition is welcome after an awards cycle that didn’t pay it enough respect, but seeing Brad Lander citing the title of Season 2, Episode 5 during the second No Kings march really hits the spot. “I have friends everywhere.” You sure do.

Joe Mande’s Hats

OK, I’m admittedly stretching the definition of TV here, but when the NBA’s least-favorite reporter Pablo Torre brings on everyone’s favorite comedy showrunner Michael Schur and everyone’s favorite fill-in awards recipient Joe Mande to talk about embroidering custom hats… you make exceptions. Trust me. Just look at these hats. They’re incredible. I’m so mad I missed the charity auction, even though I’d be living on the street right now (but well-sheltered by all my beautiful hats)!