New TV Shows to Watch This Weekend on Netflix, Prime Video, and HBO

October is ramping up, and plenty of recommendations are available for fans of the genre. On television, Carrie arrives on Prime Video with Mike Flanagan taking the beloved Stephen King adaptation and introducing the worst prom ever to a new generation. Viewers can also watch Below, a Canadian thriller starring Josh Hartnett as a fisherman who must protect his community and family from a mysterious sea creature.

More friendly horror offerings include Netflix’s adult animated series Haunted Hotel. The show follows a single mom who inherits a haunted hotel and must learn how to run it while raising her kids and living with the ghost of her annoying brother. Additional options include a new NCIS spin-off and the vampire comedy series Eternally Yours.

The Avatar universe is also back. Avatar: Seven Havens takes viewers back to the Four Nations and introduces a new Avatar named Pavi. She lives in a post-apocalyptic world that no longer respects the Avatar powers and influence.

Carrie

• Available on Prime Video
• Genre: Horror
• Episode count: 8
• Cast: Summer H. Howell, Samantha Sloyan, Sienna Agudong

Carrie’s imprint looms large, whether discussing the book that launched Stephen King’s career or the movies. Those films include Brian De Palma’s Academy Award-nominated turn, Kimberly Pierce’s adaptation, and a sequel. Mike Flanagan makes Carrie his own by modernizing the text for the Gen-Z era and filling school hallways with smartphones that magnify Carrie’s (Summer H. Howell) humiliation. While he largely sticks to the source material, Flanagan takes notable detours and lends a sympathetic eye to villainous characters, including Carrie’s radically religious mom Margaret White (Samantha Sloyan) and bully Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton).

Per the Polygon review:

Carrie, which arrives as an eight-episode binge next week on Prime Video, manages to walk that microscopic line between faithful adaptation and unique reinvention. Flanagan updates the story for our terrible 2020s to explore the modern high school experience where online bullying and school shooting drills are the norm, all told through the naive perspective of Carrie’s wide eyes. While the show drags at times on its way to the climactic ending we all know is coming, it’s still a gripping story that Flanagan fans (and even some of his haters) will gleefully devour.

Avatar: Seven Havens

• Available on Paramount+
• Genre: Animation
• Episode count: 26
• Cast: Saheli Khan, Aishu Devan, Ashkay Khanna

After the release of Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender, the world created by Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino returns with a new show set hundreds of years into the future. Avatar: Seven Havens follows Pavi, a young earthbender who discovers she is the Avatar. Unlike Aang and Korra, who were considered world saviors, the Avatar is linked to the destruction of the world, which complicates Pavi’s path.

Per the Polygon preview:

The next animated series in the Avatar: The Last Airbender universe takes place approximately 225 years after the end of The Legend of Korra. That’s almost exactly three centuries after Aang defeated Fire Lord Ozai. The jump is so significant that the world of Seven Havens looks almost unrecognizable, mainly because, due to some sort of cataclysm, civilization has collapsed. The original four nations built around each type of bending and their cultures have dissolved over time. In their place are seven isolated strongholds, called Havens. The new Avatar, Pavi (Saheli Khan), must navigate a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk fantasy, complete with hoverboards and motorcycles driven right out of either Tron or Batman’s garage.

Below

• Available on Netflix
• Genre: Thriller
• Episode count: 6
• Cast: Josh Hartnett, Charlie Heaton, Mackenzie Davis

Set in a small coastal town in Canada, Below follows a fisherman played by Josh Hartnett who must protect his family and community from the rise of a mysterious sea monster. He partners up with a marine researcher played by Mackenzie Davis, and the two hope to understand the creature better before it hurts more people in the town.

Per the Polygon preview:

In the pre-release material for Below, McKeown [showrunner Jesse McKeown] has made sure to acknowledge his influences. Jaws is a big one, of course, but it also owes a stylistic debt to John Carpenter. “I grew up on [movies] in the ’70s and ’80s that were a certain old-school handcrafted sort of genre movie that I love,” McKeown says. “John Carpenter was the king of that, with movies like The Fog and The Thing. Those were a big influence when I was writing this.

Haunted Hotel

• Available on Netflix
• Genre: Animation
• Episode count: 8
• Cast: Will Forte, Jimmi Simpson, Eliza Coupe

Haunted Hotel provides a spooky animated series option for adults. Created by Matt Roller of Rick and Morty, the comedy follows Katherine, played by Eliza Coupe, who is a single mom of two. She inherits The Undervale from her recently deceased brother Nathan, played by Will Forte. She soon learns that the place is haunted by quirky ghosts, including Nathan, who offers to help her run the business.

NCIS: New York

• Available on Paramount+
• Genre: Action
• Episode count: 20
• Cast: LL Cool J, Scott Caan, Jennifer Beals

NCIS returns with a new spinoff. NCIS New York follows Sam Hanna, played by LL Cool J, who previously appeared in NCIS: Los Angeles. The series picks up with Hanna returning home to New York to work in the local NCIS unit, introducing a new cast of characters and stories to the long-running franchise.

Eternally Yours

• Available on Paramount+
• Genre: Comedy
• Episode count: 20
• Cast: Ed Weeks, Allegra Edwards, Helen J. Shen

Eternally Yours imagines a married couple stuck in a rut who become vampires. The comedy series follows Charles, played by Ed Weeks, and Liz, played by Allegra Edwards, as a once-passionate couple who lost their spark 500 years into their marriage. They must confront their relationship when their daughter, played by Helen J. Shen, brings home an earnest human boyfriend played by Jaren Lewison.

Cupertino

• Available on Paramount+
• Genre: Drama
• Episode count: 20
• Cast: Rachel Keller, Busy Phillips, Mike Colter

Developed by television law experts Michelle and Robert King, Cupertino targets the personalities in Silicon Valley. The show follows a pair of lawyers played by Mike Colter and Rachel Keller who run a law firm standing up for people hurt by tech billionaires and their inventions, ranging from drones to chatbots.

The Pet Cemetery Murders: A Ghost Story

• Available on HBO
• Genre: Documentary
• Episode count: 3
• Cast: Dorothy Lou Thompson, Detective John Doran

For documentary viewers, HBO Max offers a three-part series following the 1985 disappearance and murder of Dorothy Lou Thompson. She owned a pet cemetery, and her body was found bound in chains in the Mississippi River. The investigation lasted decades, and the documentary follows the unexpected turns the story takes.

Source: Polygon