20 autumn TV shows everyone will be talking about

Over the hottest British summer since records began, the notion of rain (what is that?), chilly nights, indulgent knitwear and cosying up in front of the telly felt very far away. But the leaves have started to fall from the trees, and the new season is officially here, bringing with it a terrific roster of dramas, comedies and reality TV.

There are many televisual treats to choose from in the next three months, from the revamped Strictly to Nigella joining Bake Off, the return of Rivals, and Netflix’s take on two magnificent novels: John Steinbeck’s East of Edenand Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

It can be hard to narrow it all down to what’s worth watching, so here are 20 highlights to look forward to, selected by The Independent’s culture writers.

Saturday Night Live UK season two

Earlier this year, the inaugural cast of SNL UK achieved the impressive feat of producing a live sketch show that made the sceptical British public say: “Oh, that actually wasn’t terrible.” Now, they’ve got to do it all over again as the Sky series returns. Its cast of comedy up-and-comers are back to welcome a new round of celebrity hosts – starting with Jurassic Park star Jeff Goldblum – for 75 minutes of political satire and meme-worthy impressions. With a new prime minister in Number 10 and the world just generally burning, there’ll have plenty of material to work with. Lauren Morris

Strictly Come Dancing

Once again, it’s time for a new line-up of celebrities to endure 13 weeks of spray tans, blisters and trodden-on toes as Strictly Come Dancing returns in September. It won’t all be business as usual though, with the TV juggernaut undergoing its biggest face lift yet. Emma Willis, Josh Widdicombe and promoted pro Johannes Radebe are making their debuts as new Strictly hosts, while the famous cast truly vary in star power — with Gavin and Stacey’s Melanie Walters rubbing shoulders with dog trainer Graeme Hall and TikTok star John Nellis. Bring on the BBC’s sequin-heavy fever dream! LM

Brothers

As two combative murder investigators in the first season of HBO’s True Detective, Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson formed one of TV’s best modern odd couples; Brothers, a new comedy series reuniting the duo, is likely to be a less grisly affair. Here, Harrelson and McConaughey play versions of themselves, who live on a ranch together and discover that they may in fact be biological siblings (a twist mirroring a spurious-but-conceivably-plausible theory about their own lives). This will be Harrelson’s first stint as a sitcom regular since Cheers, more than 30 years ago: for McConaughey, it’s new territory. This alone makes Brothersan intriguing proposition. Louis Chilton

The Real Rooneys

Two North West footballing families have opened up their doors to reality camera crews this season. Over on Amazon, we have Michael Owen, his Love Islandstar daughter Gemma and, erm, their thoroughbred race horses.And on Disney+, building off the success of their “Wagatha Christie” doc from a few years back, we have Coleen and Wayne Rooney and their four kids. I know which team I’ll be backing. Coleen has always been a likeably no-nonsense presence on screen (remember her Real Womenmodel casting show for ITV?), while her husband has undergone something of a Waynaissance since swapping his patchy management career for TV punditry. My top World Cup 2026 moment? Rooney declaring that the closing ceremony “was crap”. I’m expecting gently low-stakes stuff – Wayne on the school run! Coleen designing a Primark range! – presented as high-stakes drama. Katie Rosseinsky

The Great British Bake Off

There’s nothing that brings the cosy, autumnal, back-to-school energy quite like Bake Off,which returns to Channel 4 for its 17th series. The recipe is always as reassuringly familiar and comforting as an old pair of slippers – signature bakes, technical challenges and showstoppers take in the gamut of pastry, cakes, biscuits, bread and more – as is the roster of competitors, different each year yet perfectly type-cast to ensure the optimal blend of chemistry in the hallowed tent. While Alison Hammond and Noel Fielding will return as the show’s gently comedic, light-and-shade presenting double act, this year there’s an additional ingredient in play: sultry chef Nigella Lawson takes over from Prue Leith as a judge, joining the gimlet-eyed Paul Hollywood. I anticipate even more baking-related sexual innuendos than usual (and endless“meecro-wah-vay” references). Helen Coffey

East of Eden

John Steinbeck’s epic novel – a study of morality and biblical myth transposed to 20th-century California – is no easy work to adapt; when Elia Kazan made it into a film in 1955, he settled for adapting only the last quarter of it. Kazan’s granddaughter, The Big Sickstar Zoe Kazan, writes this new seven-episode Netflix adaptation, which seeks a more holistic approach. Florence Pugh tops the bill, playing the malevolent, conniving Cathy Ames: a heavyweight actor taking on a heavyweight part. Add in too a talented supporting cast (including Challengers’ Mike Faist and Girls’ Christopher Abbott), and there’s every indication that East of Edenmight be the best thing Netflix have put out in an age. LC

VisionQuest

It’s been five years since Marvel launched its TV output with the meta gamble that was WandaVision, and they’ve never bettered it. All eyes will be on the studio’s next series, then, which will serve as a sequel of sorts. VisionQuest, which shifts the focus solely onto Paul Bettany’s Vision, is an existential drama in which the android searches for discoveries about his existence. It sounds like a bold concept that could lure in non-Marvel fans, but a detail that’ll make comic book aficionados salivate: James Spader will be reprising his role as the villainous Ultron for the first time since 2016 film Avengers: Age of Ultron. Jacob Stolworthy

Crystal Lake

Linda Cardellini has played crazy exactly twice: as an asylum inmate in the Kenan and Kel movie Good Burger, and as the killer heiress with an incriminating perm in Legally Blonde. Both of these performances are generational classics (ish). If these trends continue, we’re in for a treat with Crystal Lake, a Friday the 13th prequel series that casts Cardellini as knife-wielding murderer Pamela Voorhees. Unless you’re Drew Barrymore in Scream and fatefully bad at trivia games, you’ll remember that Mrs Voorhees was the killer in the original Friday the 13th, before her deranged undead son Jason took over teen-slaughtering duties for its many sequels. There are lots of red flags here (an origin story for a character who maybe doesn’t require one; a limited series that drags out a 95-minute slasher movie to eight whole hours), but Cardellini is enough of an attraction to make this intriguing. Adam White

Nocturne

The plot for Nocturne reads like the synopsis for many other crime shows, but there’s a difference: this one is based on gripping serial killer novels, Lazarus and The Sandmanby Lars Kepler – the pen name of husband-wife duo Alexander and Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril. The Apple TV drama follows a former homicide detective (Liev Schreiber) who relocates to a small Pennsylvania town, which is rocked by a spate of murders. And if that doesn’t make for a perfect, gritty alternative to the more wholesome autumnal viewing, I’m not sure what does. Helping matters is the fact that it also stars British acting supremo Stephen Graham. If Nocturne plays its cards right, it could become the next Mare of Easttown.JS

The Celebrity Traitors

It seems like forever ago that Celia Imrie farted on national television in season one of The Celebrity Traitors, but finally we’re bound for more iconic moments and inopportune, nervous flatulence with the return of the show this autumn. The starry spin-off of the game broke records for the BBC when it debuted last October, with millions tuning in to see what outrageous outfit Jonathan Ross was wearing. This year’s line-up is arguably even more stacked than the last, with Bella Ramsay from The Last of Us and the wonderfully eccentric Richard E Grant among those stepping into the castle. Of course, we’ve got some comedians in the mix too: James Acaster, Joe Lovett and Miranda Hart. So, don your capes and get your murder list at the ready, it’s time for round two. Annabel Nugent

Rivals season two part two

The mid-season finale of Disney’s sublime Jilly Cooper adaptation was less about ecstasy, and more about agony. Claire Rushbrook’s buttoned-up Monica finally mustered the courage to leave David Tennant’s slimy Tony, only to almost instantly (seemingly) die in a car accident (I’m in the denial phase of grief, OK, and there’s a tiny part of me that’s convinced our dear Mon Mon is still, somehow, alive). In another major development, Katherine Parkinson’s Lizzie and Danny Dyer’s Freddie had their first snog of the season under a tree. So what happens next? It’s already been months of waiting… I can’t hold on much longer! Ellie Harrison

I Am Helen

Dominic Savage’s I Am films are naturalistic, raw portraits of women in suffocating circumstances that offer enticingly meaty character-led roles for British actresses. His most recent, the prescient I Am Ruth(2022), moved me to tears, with Kate Winslet as a mum driven to helpless despair by her daughter’s smartphone obsession (played by Mia Threapleton, Winslet’s real-life daughter). Now he returns with I Am Helen, created alongside its star, Nicola Coughlan. We’re told it’s about toxic masculinity seen through a female lens, and while there’s been a surfeit of manosphere docs recently, it’s that female perspective that has often felt sorely lacking. Jessie Thompson

It Gets Worse

There’s a slight “party you haven’t been invited to” feeling about this new Channel 4 comedy, which stems from a who’s-who of everything vaguely insidery and chic at the moment – it’s a vehicle for buzzy stand-up comedian Leo Reich, is produced by mystery cool-movie merchants A24, and features guest appearances from Lena Dunham, Andrew Scott and the Chicken Shop Date lady. But then there’s that very funny title, which inverts the Glee-era queer battle cry of “it gets better” to declare… actually, nope! Reich is one of three struggling London flatmates booted out of their home by their landlord. Head-in-hands “why is everything terrible right now?” Gen-Z misery-comedy ensues. AW

Pride and Prejudice

Forget Nora Ephron fall, Elizabeth Bennet autumn is on the way, baby. Just as the nights start to draw in, Netflix will bring us a starry adaptation of what is – truth universally acknowledged – one of the best novels ever. It’s been adapted by Dolly Alderton, oracle of millennials, with Emma Corrin (only person to acceptably pull off a performance of Princess Diana) and Jack Lowden (the beardy Slow Horsesstar rumoured to be in the running for 007) playing our Lizzie and Mr Darcy. The trailer is all birdsong and country walks, so it doesn’t look like they will be Emerald Fennell-ing it – no flesh-coloured wallpaper at Pemberley, thanks – and the discourse is bound to be insufferable, but as an autumn telly offering it’s surely just what the doctor ordered. JT

Black Doves season 2

James Bond, who? I personally have been waiting for another stylish spy to come back into my life – or two, rather. Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw reprise their roles as best pals and expert killers Helen and Sam in season two of Netflix’s smash hit Black Doves. Thankfully, they both made it out alive following season one’s explosive finale. This time around, the dynamic duo are joined by the always superb Ambika Mod (One Last Day) who enters the picture as an acerbic and anarchic agent sent to assist. With plenty of cliffhangers to tie up and Helen’s husband Wallace preparing to become prime minister of the very country she is betraying, things are bound to get interesting. AN

The Undertow

Far from Fifty Shades of Grey, it’s black and white: Jamie Dornan is having a Moment. The Irish actor received rave reviews for his starring role as an amnesiac stuck in the Australian outback inThe Tourist, and recently landed a plum part as Strider/Aragorn in Andy Serkis’s upcoming blockbuster The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum.He’s a busy man, if only there were two of him… wait, there are! At least, there are in Netflix’s gritty new crime-noir The Undertow, which follows Nicola (Mackenzie Davis), stuck in a loveless marriage with husband Adam (Dornan) while living in the Scottish Highlands. The arrival of Adam’s free-spirited twin brother Lee (also Dornan!) stirs up old feelings, until a terrible accident throws their lives into chaos. It seems Nicola took “keeping it in the family” a bit too literally – and all those secrets are about to come bubbling up to the surface. Roisin O’Connor

The Good Daughter on Sky

There are two great reasons to tune into this thriller: Rose Byrne and Meghann Fahy. They are a couple of the most watchable actresses of their generation – Byrne stole every scene in the star-packed classic Bridesmaids and Fahy has been in huge demand since her eerie, magnetic performance in The White Lotus– so seeing them play sisters in this adaptation of Karin Slaughter’s best-selling novel will surely be a masterclass. According to Sky, the drama follows siblings Charlotte and Samantha Quinn two decades after a single night of violence changed their lives forever. And now their past is coming back to haunt them. Pass the biscuits and sign me up right now. EH

Adultery

How’s this for a dilemma? In ITV’s new drama Adultery, Tom (Dominic Cooper) and Beth (Romola Garai) find themselves, erm, entangled, despite being married to other people and having two kids who happen to be dating… hey, at least they won’t need to go through that whole awkward “meet the parents” routine. It’ll be awkward enough already. RO

70 Up

The 7 Upseries, a one-of-a-kind televisual experiment that has traced the lives of 14 members of the public at seven-year intervals, comes to an end with its 10th and final instalment. 70 Upis the first film since the 1964 original to not have Michael Apted as director, the documentarian having died in 2021. You could hardly ask for a more capable replacement than Asif Kapadia, the man behind hit documentaries Senna,Amy, and Diego Maradona. As the 7 Upseries has gone on, it has morphed from a pointed examination of the British class system into something stranger and more poignant. These 10 episodes have comprised a lifetime – for the audience just as much as the participants. LC

Time season three

After putting Sean Bean behind bars in its first season, and Jodie Whittaker in a women’s prison for its second, BBC One’s brutal prison drama is back, and this time the action takes place in a young offenders institution. David Tennant leads the call sheet as a “custodial manager”, with creator Jimmy McGovern aiming to explore the impact of locking up teenagers, and the effects that has on those who look after them. If it’s anything like the first two outings, it will be a gripping, blood-soaked ride that keeps you thinking about our country’s broken justice system long after the final credits roll. EH