Here’s something worth thinking about: with hundreds of scripted shows airing at any given time across cable, broadcast, and every streaming platform known to humankind, how does any single one of them manage to make everyone happy? Television is a vast, clumsy, and almost difficult storytelling machine. Sci-fi lovers and rom-com loyalists barely share a channel. Crime drama fans will sit through three cold-blooded murders before breakfast while their roommate is rewinding a cooking competition for the fourth time. There are period TV dramas, workplace comedies, animated epics, and reality show rabbit holes, and every single one of them has found its little, passionate corner of the internet. It’s hard to get TV’s massive, fractured audience to agree on anything.

However, some TV shows just cut through all of that. Not because they appeal to one specific type of viewer, but because they do what great storytelling has always done: tap into something deeply, embarrassingly human. Some people discover them decades later and immediately regret not watching them sooner. People recommend these series with a sense of urgency, as if the person recommending has their whole aura on the line. Here are 10 TV shows that virtually everyone, everywhere, at some point in time, has watched and said, “Yeah, that’s a masterpiece.”

‘Band of Brothers’ (2001)

War TV tends to either sanitize the story into something palatable or lean so far into brutality that it loses the humanity underneath. Band of Brothers does neither, and it is still the greatest WWII TV show of all time. The 10-part HBO miniseries, produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks off the back of Saving Private Ryan, follows the Easy Company of the 101st Airborne Division through WWII’s European theater, from their early training at Camp Toccoa all the way to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest at Berchtesgaden.

Band of Brothers took $120 million to produce, which, at the time, made it the most expensive TV project ever. It currently holds a 94% Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s not the spectacle that earns all those numbers (although the battle sequences are extraordinary), but the intimacy. Each episode opens with real survivors of the Easy Company speaking directly to the camera, quietly reminding you that these were actual people. In a way, it’s a living memorial.

‘M*A*S*H’ (1972 – 1983)

Imagine a comedy set in a war zone. Sounds odd, doesn’t it? However, M*A*S*H pulled it off. Set in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War, it ran on CBS for 11 seasons, which is eight years longer than the actual war lasted. Somehow, for most of that run, it proved that sitcoms could handle serious themes without losing humor. The show uses the Korean conflict as cover to talk about Vietnam and about the human cost of any armed conflict.

M*A*S*H was the first series on television to make dramedy work by effortlessly striding the line between the deadly serious and the completely bonkers. Alan Alda’s Hawkeye Pierce became a new archetype: the disaffected, funny, ultimately broken man who copes with horror through humor. The final episode, “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen,” broke TV records and was the most-watched broadcast in the United States for 27 years before a Super Bowl surpassed its numbers.

‘Cheers’ (1982 – 1993)

NBC

It ranked 74th out of 77 shows in its premiere week. It was nearly canceled. And ratings were so dismal that NBC kept it on air mostly because they had nothing else to put in that slot. And then, slowly, Cheers became one of the defining TV shows in the history of American television. Set almost entirely within a single Boston bar, “where everybody knows your name,” the show ran for 11 seasons and left behind a legacy that a shocking number of modern sitcoms still live inside.

Cheers earned a Top-10 Nielsen rating during eight of its 11 seasons and received 29 nominations for Outstanding Comedy Series every single year it aired. It eventually won 28 Primetime Emmy Awards from a record 111 nominations. The writing was unusually sharp, and the ensemble (including Ted Danson, Shelley Long, Kirstie Alley, Kelsey Grammer, Woody Harrelson, and Rhea Perlman), gave the show depth. Beyond laughter and emotion, Cheers gave birth to Frasier, one of the most successful spin-offs ever.

‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ (2005 – 2008)

Paramount

Ask anyone who watched Avatar: The Last Airbender as a kid, and they’ll defend it like it’s personal. Ask anyone who came to it as an adult, expecting a cartoon and landing somewhere entirely different, and they’ll tell you they weren’t prepared for how perfect the show is. Avatar: The Last Airbender aired on Nickelodeon for three seasons. It follows a 12-year-old named Aang who wakes from a century-long sleep to find the world at war.

The storytelling is rich, layered, and full of twists. It balances humor, action, and drama in a way that appeals to both children and adults, which is something that few animated series manage. The show was nominated for the Outstanding Animated Program award at the Primetime Emmys in 2007, won the Peabody Award, and has received countless other accolades. Also, the writers don’t shy away from topics like genocide, child abuse, war, and broken families. Instead, they used them to deepen and strengthen the characters. Avatar‘s resurgence on Netflix in 2020 has only made it more popular and more accessible.

‘Breaking Bad’ (2008 – 2013)

Breaking Bad creates suspense. It’s not the will-they-won’t-they of a thriller, but something closer to watching someone sleepwalk toward a cliff and being unable to stop them or look away. Walt cooks meth. Walt gets good at it. Walt gets too good at it. The entire moral weight of the show shifts under your feet so slowly and methodically that by the time you realize you’ve been watching a villain origin story, you’re already five seasons in and implicated.

The saga of Walter White was certified by Guinness World Records as the most critically acclaimed TV show of all time. It holds a 96% average rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with 100% scores for both its third and fourth seasons. Bryan Cranston won four Outstanding Actor Emmys, setting a record. Every season of Breaking Bad was better than the last. Even fans defend the show’s lowest-rated episode, “Fly,” as a profound character study.

‘Succession’ (2018 – 2023)

Power is ugly, but Succession makes it weirdly addictive to watch. HBO’s modern saga follows the Roy family, a media dynasty run by a dying patriarch and circled by his catastrophically damaged children. The show manages to be a savage satire, a genuine family drama, and one of the funniest shows on TV all at once. Logan Roy barking orders; Roman making offensive jokes to cover the fact that he’s terrified; Kendall oscillating between self-destruction and delusion; and Shiv slowly revealing that she learned from the best.

Succession maintained universal acclaim across all four of its seasons. It averaged a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and placed 10th in BBC Culture’s ranking of the 100 greatest TV series of the 21st century. The dialogue alone justifies the legacy. So many lines from the show entered the cultural conversation the same way Seinfeld catchphrases did in the ‘90s. However, these are darker and more barbed. Succession also sticks the landing. In the end, it’s not a show about who wins. It’s about watching everyone lose, one by one.

‘The Sopranos’ (1999 – 2007)

HBO

Before The Sopranos, you watched TV. After The Sopranos, you invested in it. David Chase’s HBO crime drama is about New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano, a man simultaneously navigating panic attacks, therapy sessions, and ordering hits. The show essentially invented a template that the next two decades of prestige drama would spend trying to replicate. Mad Men, Ozark, and The Wire arej just a few.

Critics and journalists frequently call The Sopranos the greatest TV show ever made, with one Boston Globe television critic arguing it was the first series that genuinely made people willing to pay for cable just to see one show. It paved the way for every complex, morally compromised protagonist that followed, and it established that we could empathize with dangerous, irredeemable people. And that finale? Still debated and still dissected. Few shows have managed to feel this psychologically rich while staying this rewatchable.

‘Seinfeld’ (1989 – 1998)

A show about nothing. That phrase is repeated so often it’s lost most of its meaning, but it’s also true. Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David built nine seasons of network television out of parking spots, soup lines, bad dates, and what happens when you accidentally double-dip at a party. The show had no lesson. No growth arcs. No moral dilemmas. The characters were petty, neurotic, self-absorbed, and completely hilarious, and we collectively gathered around them every Thursday night for a decade.

Seinfeld was voted the Greatest Show of All Time by TV Guide in 2002. Seinfeld coined phrases like, “yada yada yada,” “Festivus,” “master of your domain,” and “No soup for you,” which have become so embedded in the American lexicon that many people use them without knowing where they came from. Additionally, Seinfeld didn’t soften its characters to make them easier to like. It trusted the viewers to find funny people funny even when (or especially when) they were being terrible.

‘The Golden Girls’ (1985 – 1992)

Picture the year 1985. Now picture a network sitcom about four women in their 50s and 60s, living together in Miami, dating, fighting, eating cheesecake at midnight, and talking frankly about sex, death, loneliness, and aging. It was a bold concept. The network took the gamble, viewers showed up in staggering numbers, and TV has never recovered from the intelligence of that premise.

The Golden Girls, a groundbreaking sitcom, received 65 Emmy nominations and won 11, with all four lead actresses, Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan, and Estelle Getty, earning an Emmy for their performances. The show tackled homelessness, assisted suicide, undocumented immigration, and LGBTQ rights with a sensitivity and directness that several dramas of the era didn’t even attempt. It has now turned 40, all four of its stars have passed, and it is still streaming, still referenced, and still beloved.

‘Friends’ (1994 – 2004)

NBC

Some TV shows are great. Some are cultural monuments. And then there’s Friends, which is neither of those things, and yet both of them. It’s a show that essentially became the wallpaper of the ‘90s and never stopped being relevant. Six people, one coffee shop, and a very nice apartment no one could actually afford, turned into 10 seasons of jokes, heartbreak, and terrible timing.

The first episode drew 22 million viewers. The finale, a decade later, drew 52 million viewers, making it the third most-watched TV series finale in TV history at the time. In 2018, the show accounted for 4% of all Netflix views globally, despite being a decades-old network sitcom with no ongoing storyline. It basically introduced the concept of being “friend-zoned” into everyday conversation and gave the world the idea that your friends could be your family. Friends directly inspired How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, and essentially the entire hangout-sitcom genre that followed. There are valid critiques about the dated humor on Friends and the lack of diversity, but nothing changes the sheer, stubborn fact that Friends made the whole world feel like they were part of the group.

So… are we actually agreeing, or just being polite? Drop your take in the comments below.

All the hype and excitement around GTA VI is at a bit of a crescendo right now, with good reason, as release date for the game draws closer than it has ever been before. The earnings call for Take-Two Interactive is the next big obstacle in our way, and if we make it through that without another delay, then we should have a clear path to the big day for the first time.

That said, we still need something to do in the meantime, and the best place to get that specific GTA fix for the time being is with the last game. While you’ve likely explored every tiny thing the single-player has to offer at this point, the multiplayer continues apace, with new updates and plenty of events to keep things interesting.

Now, the developer has added a bunch of new missions to the game for players to work through, and the community is at the heart of the whole thing.

GTA Online really still does offer a lot of fun, and over on the official Rockstar website, the developer has confirmed that new online experiences are being added to the game, all of which have been built by the community using the Rockstar Mission Creator.

The Rockstar Mission Creator is a new tool that allows players to do as the title says, and to celebrate its potential, Rockstar shared the following statement about what they’ve got planned:

“This week, we’ve teamed up with talented and long-time Rockstar Games supporters GTA Series Videos to feature Old School Hits — inspired by the original Grand Theft Auto trilogy — as the first creation in our Community Mission Series on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC (Enhanced) built using the Rockstar Mission Creator.”

“We’re excited to see how everyone utilizes these tools and encourage you to check out Old School Hits beginning on Thursday, April 30 — paying out 4X GTA$ and RP for a limited time.”

It’s a genuinely exciting next step and one that perhaps gives us a window into exactly how the developer will try to ensure the longevity of GTA VI’s online element when it launches.

We don’t really know how GTA Online is going to work once everyone makes the transfer across to GTA VI, but it’s a safe bet that you’ll be starting again in terms of cosmetics, cars and the like. That said, we can worry about that when we’ve had a chance to see what Rockstar have been cooking up with the single-player, which looks very exciting given the limited window we have had.

Systems

Released

October 1, 2013

ESRB

M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Mature Humor, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs and Alcohol

Developer(s)

Rockstar North

Engine

Rockstar Advanced Game Engine

Multiplayer

Online Multiplayer

Cross-Platform Play

n/a

According to a new report from TMZ, noted toy designer Roger Sweet passed away on Apr. 28 at the age of 91. His widow of 40 years, Marlene Sweet, shared that he passed away peacefully in a care facility after a long battle with dementia.

Sweet is best known as the creator of the legendary action-figure-turned-animated-character He-Man, the main hero in the Masters of the Universe franchise. He was one of the lead designers for Mattel’s Preliminary Design department throughout the 1970s and 1980s, making his name largely through the stories of He-Man. He originally created these characters to compete against the Star Wars franchise, which reached an early high point in the late ’70s and early ’80s after the releases of Star Wars: A New Hope and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back from Lucasfilm.

During the character’s early rise to fame, Mattel teamed up with director Gary Goddard to produce a live-action He-Man film based on Sweet’s characters, which was titled Masters of the Universe. Centered on Prince Adam and his loyal allies, this group chased the villainous Skeletor and a mysterious dimensional key into the real world and teamed up with human teenagers to stop Skeletor in his quest to get the key.

Currently, director Travis Knight and Amazon MGM Studios are in the final stages of preparation to release a new Masters of the Universe movie, which will reboot the characters for a modern audience on Jun. 6. Starring Nicholas Galitzine as He-Man, the cast also features Jared Leto as Skeletor, Camila Mendes as Teela, Idris Elba as Duncan/Man-at-Arms, Alison Brie as Evil-Lyn, and Morena Baccarin as the Sorceress. This film will center on Adam getting the Sword of Power back and returning to Eternia, teaming up with new friends to take down Skeletor and become the most powerful hero in the universe.

Sweet’s battle with dementia became an emotional story, as his widow started a GoFundMe page to help pay for her late husband’s care facility costs, which were over $10,000 per month. Marlene urged fans to help support her in caring for Roger, whose health had been declining steadily over the last few years.

Marlene also told TMZ that she is reaching out to Amazon MGM Studios in an attempt to dedicate the upcoming Masters of the Universe movie to Roger after his passing. While trailers for the film have teased an exciting new interpretation of Sweet’s characters, his death is sure to have a major impact on the greater He-Man fandom. With just over five weeks until the film is released in theaters, this news will unquestionably drive many to revisit Sweet’s work and support his characters on the big screen.

We at MovieWeb send our deepest condolences to Roger Sweet’s family, friends, and loved ones during this difficult time.

Warning! This article contains MAJOR SPOILERS for Daredevil: Born Again season 2, episode 7.

Daredevil: Born Again season 2, episode 7, sets up the season finale with a secret plan from Matt Murdock that could change everything for the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. The penultimate episode is explosive with a lot of ground covered, several major developments for central characters, and plenty of mystery and intrigue lined up ahead of the final episode.

After seeing Karen Page held at gunpoint by Powell of the AVTF, we learn that rather than kill her where she stood, Powell transported Karen to a holding cell, and she is preparing to stand trial. However, the legal system as outlined in Daredevil: Born Again has proven to be less than honest and often favors the powers that be, such as the corrupt and grieving Kingpin.

Murdock Vs. Fisk Moves To The Courtroom

While technically the court case seen in this episode is one that has positioned Karen Page against the city of New York, the truth is that this is a direct battle between Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk. This is further confirmed by the fact that Wilson Fisk personally visits Karen in her cell and encourages her to contact Matt in order to bring him out of the shadows.

While Matt recognizes that this is very likely a trap, he is clearly ready to leave the comfort of the shadows, as he appears in court alongside Kristin McDuffie as the co-counsel on Karen’s behalf. And despite there being no formal jury, Matt uses this opportunity to speak directly to the citizens of New York, calling out the cruelty and harm caused by the AVTF and Mayor Fisk.

Fisk is watching the case unfold in his office, and while he clearly had his AVTF goons follow Matt out of the courthouse and attempt to injure and kill him, Matt manages to come away with a gunshot wound and a renewed energy to take on the Kingpin.

Heather Glenn Is Embracing Her Dark Side

Fisk is calling upon all of his allies in his time of need, as seen with the corrupt District Attorney, Hochberg, asking Heather to once again commit perjury and submit false reports about alleged criminals. In this case, Hochberg asks that Heather interview Karen Page and get some answers that would support his case, and she gladly agrees without hesitation.

After seeing Heather getting more comfortable with the dark and dirty business that is conducted in Fisk’s office, it’s no surprise that she is willing to do something dishonest that will harm her ex, Matt Murdock. However, she is also losing her calm and controlled nature in the wake of pulling the trigger on Muse in the last season of Daredevil: Born Again.

Heather has been making unusual choices that seem to highlight her deteriorating mental state, which makes her calling others unfit and mentally unstable all the more ironic. But more than this, Heather actually gets physical with Karen after being goaded, repeatedly slapping her. Clearly, Heather is on a dark path, and things are only getting worse.

Bullseye And Jessica Jones Tackled Their Own Side Quests

While Fisk is rallying his allies together and getting his house in order, Matt’s allies are also pushing to ensure their efforts to take down the Kingpin and corruption pay off. Bullseye, who has entered into an uneasy alliance with Daredevil, makes his way to the Governor’s home and prevents an assassination attempt that was set up by Wilson Fisk.

This all happened after Matt Murdock’s long-term ally, Jessica Jones, confronted Mr. Charles and got the intel about the attack on the governor. While Jessica’s information helped Daredevil on his mission to take down Fisk and put a stop to his plans, Jessica is also seeking to bring Luke Cage back home, as Mr. Charles says he can help to bring their family back together.

Clearly, even while Murdock’s allies have different motives, they are managing to work together in a way that is ultimately going to help them all achieve their various goals and overthrow Fisk’s regime.

Daniel Freed BB Ulrich, And He Paid The Price

On the other hand, Fisk’s side is more divided. Not only has Fisk severed ties with Mr. Charles, which led to his betrayal, but he has also pushed some members of his own team to make choices that they are no longer comfortable making. For instance, Daniel Blake, who has been trying to prove himself repeatedly as a loyal follower of Fisk, was forced to bury a body with Buck Cashman.

Daniel was never a murderer or someone who actively felt a pull towards being involved in criminal activity. While he did try his best to support Fisk and follow all of his orders, his affection for BB ultimately won out. After learning the truth about BB betraying him and producing the City Without Fear broadcasts that make a mockery of Fisk using insider information, Daniel was hurt.

This led to him setting up a betrayal of BB, but when it came time to hand her over to Buck to be killed, Daniel couldn’t do it. He allowed BB to go free, and he confronted Buck alone, knowing that he had failed to follow his directive. This led to the most shocking moment of the season so far when Buck, after getting close to Daniel and becoming a friend, shoots him despite his pleas.

Matt Murdock Is About To Make A Choice He Can’t Take Back

With everything that played out across Daredevil: Born Again season 2, episode 7, there is one lingering detail that feels like things are about to change for Matt Murdock in a big way. After several episodes where others like Karen Page and Jessica Jones have been pushing for Matt to kill Fisk, Matt has said that he is going to have to cross a line, just not the one Karen might have expected.

Matt publicly appearing to defend Karen in court is, of course, a huge move as he steps out of hiding, but it feels like this is just the first step in his plan. In order to get the public to back Matt Murdock and see the true duplicity displayed by Mayor Fisk, it seems likely that Matt is about to reveal his identity as Daredevil, which would have a lasting impact not only on this show but potentially spreading into the wider MCU.

Throughout the MCU, there have been a handful of moments when heroes exposed their dual identities, and Matt Murdock has more to gain from this than most. In order to avoid executing Fisk and to add further credibility to his status as a hero and a vigilante, revealing that he is Daredevil could be the way forward in Daredevil: Born Again.

Release Date

March 4, 2025

Network

Disney+

Showrunner

Dario Scardapane

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While Netflix’s ambitious R-rated superhero franchise never took off and truly soared, its best entry was an underrated anime spinoff that many viewers don’t even know exists. Between The Boys and Invincible, it is fair to say that Prime Video leads the field when it comes to subversive, thoroughly mature re-imaginings of the superhero genre. While the latter is a traditional superhero show with more blood, gore, and psychological depth, the former is a hilarious, raucous satire of the contemporary political landscape through the lens of superhero media.

Since Prime Video also produced the underrated I’m A Virgo in 2023, the streaming service’s stranglehold on the R-rated superhero show sub-genre couldn’t be more obvious. Despite the news that Disney+’s upcoming Daredevil: Born Again season 2 is rated TV-MA, Prime Video’s current dominance in this arena is undisputed. That said, Netflix did make an ambitious attempt to cash in on the success of The Boys with another subversive, adults-only superhero show based on a cult British comic book.

2021’s Jupiter’s Legacy was based on the comic book series of the same name by Kick-Ass creator Mark Millar. A prolific writer for both Marvel and DC, Millar is famous for his subversive takes on superhero tropes. Jupiter’s Legacy and its spinoff Super Crooks are no exception, following the sprawling multi-generational story of the Sampson family, a clan of superheroes who gain their powers from an uncharted island in the Atlantic. When the Netflix adaptation begins, Josh Duhamel’s Superman-esque hero, The Utopian, is grappling with his professed ideals after an attempt on his life.

Netflix’s Super Crooks Was Better Than Jupiter’s Legacy

Even though the Utopian has spent years preaching against his super powered family using their abilities to kill, this approach comes under fire when his own life is saved by his son, Paragon, killing the Utopian’s would-be murderer. While this premise sounds knotty and morally complex, Jupiter’s Legacy sadly failed to live up to its potential. However, its 13-episode anime spinoff Super Crooks was far stronger and never gained the same level of mainstream attention as its live-action counterpart.

Based on Millar’s 2012 collaboration of the same name with artist Leinil Francis Yu, Super Crooks followed Johnny Bolt, a petty criminal who assembled a team of super villains to pull off an ambitious heist. The clashing personalities of these antiheroes, as well as the obvious moral ambiguity of the show’s premise, made Super Crooks a more fleet-footed, funnier, and less predictable introduction to the world of Millar’s comics than the comparatively worthy, soapy melodramatics of Jupiter’s Legacy.

The anime series based on Millar’s comic book was technically a Jupiter’s Legacy spinoff, and Netflix even had plans for a live-action Super Crooks show before the original series underperformed. However, unlike The Boys’ animated spinoff Diabolical, this anime show worked perfectly well as a standalone watch and was arguably only dragged down by pairing the show with the disappointing adaptation of Jupiter’s Legacy.

The Failure Of Jupiter’s Legacy Doomed Netflix’s Ambitious Mark Millar Adaptations

Unfortunately, viewers never got to see the planned live-action version of Super Crooks since Jupiter’s Legacy proved a costly flop for Netflix. The show’s cancellation was primarily blamed on its massive budget, with season 1 alone costing a whopping $200 million, but its middling reviews didn’t help, either. Broadly speaking, reviewers agreed that the show failed to find its tone.

Where The Boys committed to deconstructing comic book storytelling, and Invincible was a darker, more violent, but still straightforward example of a traditional superhero story, Jupiter’s Legacy made the same mistake as 2008’s Hancock and bounced between both approaches without committing to either. As a result, Jupiter’s Legacy never hits its stride and finds a confident tone, even though its anime spinoff Super Crooks proved Netflix’s Millar-verse had plenty of untapped potential.

Release Date

2021 – 2021-00-00

Network

Netflix

Directors

Motonobu Hori, Yohei Shindo, Tetsuya Miyanishi, Kazuo Miyake

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What is it about a good mystery that makes three hours disappear without any warning? You sit down to watch one episode, and suddenly it’s the middle of the night, and you’re watching episode six with the lights off and a cup of tea getting cold beside you. Tht’s a fairly accurate picture, isn’t it? The mystery genre has that effect on people. It’s usually characterized by a slow reveal, unreliable characters, and the creeping sense that nothing is what it appears to be. That’s why it’s one of the oldest storytelling formats in existence and also one of the most dominant genres on TV right now.

It’s also very easy to ruin a thrilling mystery TV show. If there is one weak season, a mishandled plot reveal, or a finale that doesn’t stick the landing, you’re suddenly staring at the screen wondering why you invested 30 hours of your life into something that has just mildly impressed you. A great mystery needs a beginning that hooks you, a middle that earns your trust, and an ending that pays it all back. The 10 series on this list do exactly that.

‘The Fall’ (2013 – 2016)

The Fall is one of the very few mysteries that tells you who the killer is in the first episode. Paul Spector is a grief counselor, a husband, a father, a man who folds origami cranes by his children’s bedsides, and also a serial killer targeting professional women in Belfast. Jamie Dornan plays him in a way that makes your skin crawl because there’s no real monster to find. Gillian Anderson plays Stella Gibson, a DSI brought in from London who is every bit as controlled, cold, and psychologically complex as her quarry.

The show isn’t a whodunit; it’s a “how do we catch him?” More disturbingly, it asks, “what does it mean that we understand him?” While The Fall messes with your brain, Allan Cubitt meant to create something that’s a meditation on control, power, and performance. That cat-and-mouse dynamic between Gibson and Spector is extraordinary, and while some criticized the final season, the show never once betrays its own intelligence.

‘Bad Sisters’ (2022 – Present)

A black comedy thriller, Bad Sisters centers around sisters trying to murder their brother-in-law. When it begins, we learn that John Paul Williams, the world’s most comprehensively awful man, is dead. The question is whether the Garvey sisters actually managed to kill him or whether something else got there first.

It’s a whodunit told in reverse that unfolds in dual timelines. One shows the chaotic and repeated attempts on his life, and the other follows two insurance brothers sniffing around to avoid a payout. Sharon Horgan created and stars in the series, which has an incredibly specific Irish tone. It’s tender and viscous at the same time. Eve Hewson, Eva Birthistle, Sarah Greene, and Anne-Marie Duff round up the ensemble. Each sister is fully drawn, funny, and heartbreaking, and the performances are so good you forget you’re technically watching a show about attempted murder.

‘Veronica Mars’ (2004 – 2019)

UPN/The CW

The show that practically coined the “teen noir” genre also happens to be Kristen Bell’s breakout role. Veronica Mars follows the titular character, a sharp, sardonic high school sleuth in Neptune, California – a place where wealth, secrets, and corruption blur together. While each episode tells a case-of-the-week story, the real hook is the season-long mysteries, such as the murder of Veronica’s best friend, Lilly Kane.

The Season 1 mystery is perhaps one of the tightest constructed arcs in television history, with red herrings that are fair and a reveal that actually feels shocking. Creator Rob Thomas understood that the social hierarchy of high school is actually excellent noir architecture. You get the haves and the have-nots, old money vs. new, and corruption that runs through every institution. He made a pristine show that’s layered, witty, and still holds up.

‘The Mentalist’ (2008 – 2015)

CBS via Hulu

On paper, The Mentalist is a pretty standard network procedural. It follows a consultant who helps a crime unit solve cases each week. However, Simon Baker’s Patrick Jane is not a standard procedural character, so the show transcends that format just by having him in every frame. Jame is a former fake psychic who joined the CBI after the serial killer Red John murdered his wife and daughter.

Underneath all the tea-drinking, the effortless social manipulation, and the infuriating charm, there’s a man held together entirely by the need to catch one specific killer. The backstory is the spine of the show, and it runs parallel to episodic cases. Sure, not every season fires on all cylinders, and The Mentalist was canceled after seven seasons. But when the show works, especially when the Red John thread resolves, you can’t stop yourself from watching more than one episode.

‘Wednesday’ (2022 – Present)

Netflix

Wednesday is not one of the greatest TV shows of all time. It’s a delightfully unhinged Tim Burton-flavored YA mystery show about a psychic teenage Addams attending a school for outcasts, and it absolutely owns that premise. Jenna Ortega commits to the role of Wednesday with deadpan ferocity, and her physical performance alone is enough to justify the show’s existence.

The central mystery in Wednesday Season 1 involves a monster killing people in the woods near Nevermore Academy. The plot is messy and fun, and the reveals are satisfying if not groundbreaking. The supporting cast around Ortega is stacked, too, with Gwendoline Christie and Christina Ricci (returning to the franchise in a different role) making strong impressions. It’s a Netflix guilty pleasure in the best possible sense, and you can easily watch both seasons over a weekend.

‘Deadloch’ (2023 – Present)

Amazon Prime Video

An Australian comedy mystery set in a small Tasmanian town where bodies keep washing up and two absolutely incompatible detectives have to solve it together. That’s Deadloch, and if the premise doesn’t immediately intrigue you, then this might not be the show for you. Kate plays Dulcie Collins, the meticulous local detective with an immaculate record and a very precarious sense of order. Madeleine Sami plays Eddie Redcliffe, the abrasive, chaotic Darwin detective imported to help.

They bicker constantly, have completely different methods, and yet, together, they are magnetic. The show holds a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. Many are already saying that Season 2, which dropped in March 2026, is just as amazing. It’s interesting how Deadloch deliberately dismantles the genre it’s operating on by not featuring a tired Nordic noir template of the haunted male detective in a gritty landscape. The murder mystery is so well-constructed, and the clues are so properly embedded that viewers can solve it themselves.

‘Broadchurch’ (2013 – 2019)

ITV

In the opening scene of Broadchurch, a child is found dead on a beach in a small coastal town in Dorset. The real subject of the show was never the murder itself but the way a single death radiates outward, festering a community and exposing every lie people tell themselves to feel safe. David Tennant is the haunted, physically deteriorating DI Alec Hardy, and Olivia Colman is DS Ellie Miller. Both deliver one of the finest performances of their careers, especially after the identity of the killer becomes clear.

Season 1 of Broadchurch is a masterclass in slow-burning mystery. Chris Chibnall seeds the clues early and rewards obsessive rewatchers with details you simply can’t see the first time through. Season 2 is essentially a courtroom drama, and Season 3 shifts focus to a sexual assault case. Broadchurch is superb and ended properly and completely, which puts it in a very small and honorable category of mysteries that don’t overstay their welcome.

‘Sherlock’ (2010 – 2017)

When Sherlock arrived in 2010, it felt like the TV show everyone had been waiting for without even realizing it. Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss transplanted Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective into contemporary London and made every previous adaptation look tentative. Benedict Cumberbatch plays Holmes, the self-described “high-functioning sociopath,” dressed in that coat, with his mind palace operational at all times.

He became iconic in just 45 minutes of screen time. However, Martin Freeman’s Watson is the quiet miracle of the show. While he should feel like a sidekick, the show understands that the original appeal of Holmes was always filtered through Watson’s eyes. The first two seasons are flawless, Season 3 is brilliant in parts and indulgent in others, and Season 4 has “The Final Problem,” a debated finale. All said and done, the Reichenbach Fall in Season 2 is one of the greatest cliffhangers in TV history.

‘Lost’ (2004 – 2010)

ABC

Including Lost in a list of mystery TV series that are “perfect from beginning to end” is, genuinely, a provocation, and it’s intentional. Lost is not perfect. It leaves several questions unanswered. The finale is still being argued about in corners of the internet that don’t know what year it is. And yet, the experience of watching Lost from the start, knowing what it is and what it’s trying to be, is still electrifying.

Survivors of Oceanic 815 crash on an island that is not normal, and the show asks every possible question about destiny, faith, science, and human nature through a rotating cast of deeply broken people whose flashback stories are often more compelling than the island mysteries themselves. It’s ambitious enough to mix mystery, sci-fi, and character drama, and it sustains the intrigue across six seasons. In hindsight, Lost feels like an experiment that reshaped TV, proving that mystery thrillers could be sprawling, philosophical, and addictive all at once.

‘Twin Peaks’ (1990 – 2017)

Who killed Laura Palmer? If you’re a TV fan, you know it’s one of the oldest and most famous questions, and Twin Peaks deploys it as a Trojan horse to smuggle in something very strange. A David Lynch/Mark Frost fever dream about evil, grief, and donuts, set in a logging town in the Pacific Northwest where even the owls are not what they seem. When it premiered in 1990, it was unlike anything else and ahead of its time.

FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, played by Kyle MacLachlan, is probably the warmest, most optimistic protagonist in mystery history. He’s a man who dictates cassette tapes to someone named Diane, loves coffee with a devotion that borders on religious, and approaches the supernatural with total professional composure. The original two seasons are wild and successful. The 1992 prequel, Fire Walk With Me, is haunting and brutal. And then came the Showtime revival, The Return in 2017, which is aggressive, strange, and frequently hilarious. Taken as a whole, Twin Peaks is not a mystery you solve; it’s one you choose to inhabit.

Which thrilling mystery TV show had you glued until the finale? Let us know in the comments below.

The upcoming release of Grand Theft Auto VI is closer than it has ever been before, and with each passing day, the fan base gets more excited about the fact that we should be playing it in November. Before then, we’ll hopefully be getting a better look at the game in one form or another, beyond what we have had from the two trailers so far.

The fact is that if we make it through the next Take-Two earnings call in May without another delay being announced, then we should be free and clear to barrel towards release day without further issue. If that’s the case, then the next few months could be very special, starting with a third and final trailer for the game.

Over on Reddit, one user shared a post in which they detailed their belief that Rockstar will announce the arrival of GTA VI’s third trailer ahead of time, rather than sneakily dropping it on our collective heads. As evidence, they cited the announcements for both Red Dead Redemption 2‘s third trailer, and the last batch for each character in GTA V.

The comments were filled with players who also think the next trailer is coming very soon indeed, and it’s safe to say that they’re fairly excited about it.

“It’s very likely the trailer will drop before the earnings call. If they don’t then they will have to answer a bunch of questions to concerned investors about is the game still on track or could we get another delay, why hasn’t marketing started, etc,” one comment read.

“Let‘s wait and see. In the end I don‘t care how they drop it, as long as they do it. Some say they‘ll shadow drop it to avoid leaks, but they could just do a live stream/premier on YouTube, and NOT upload it before its release,” another added.

A third was a little more nervous, saying, “Mafia was announced on April 30 and then revealed on May 8 since Hangar is from Take-Two, I think it has something to do with it. I expect something between the end of April and mid-May, and if we don’t have anything, I’m afraid of another delay.”

Whatever does happen with the next trailer specifically, the next few months are absolutely crucial if Rockstar are planning to stick to GTA VI’s currently scheduled release date in November. If summer rolls around, and we haven’t seen anything new, or the publisher announces a delay at the earnings call, then things really could turn nasty quite quickly.

Released

November 19, 2026

ESRB

Rating Pending – Likely Mature 17+

Engine

Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE)

Multiplayer

Online Multiplayer

Star Wars: Maul — Shadow Lord has been a critical success for both Disney+ and the Star Wars brand, earning some of the franchise’s best reviews. The series’ emphasis on Maul has paid off, as the character has been a fan-favorite with plenty of potential to explore, despite being nothing more than a glorified (but incredibly designed) henchman in Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace. So, it’s fitting that Maul – Shadow Lord would redeem two other stand-out Star Wars villains that were hyped up in marketing material only to have nothing to do: Marrok and the Eleventh Brother Inquisitor.

Both Marrok and the Eleventh Brother are members of the Sith Inquisitors introduced in Star Wars’ Disney+ series. Although their incredible designs drew a lot of attention, their narratives were inconsequential, and they were quickly killed off. Both characters died fighting Ahsoka Tano at two different points in the timeline. Marrok and The Eleventh Brother seemed like the latest in a long line of Star Wars characters like Boba Fett, Captain Phasma, and originally, Darth Maul, whose aura was more compelling than their narrative. Maul — Shadow Lord gives Marrok and the Eleventh Brother the much-deserved story they needed, even if it won’t amount to much.

Marrok and The Eleventh Brother History Before ‘Maul – Shadow Lord’

No information has been revealed about who Marrok or the Eleventh Brother were before they became Inquisitors. They were Jedi who turned to the dark side after Order 66 to survive. Their job is to hunt down former Jedi and any potential Force users.

Marrok was introduced in Ahsoka in 2023. Marrok’s design, with a full-body suit, cape, and face-covering mask resembling a knight’s helmet, made him immediately stand out in the Ahsoka marketing. Along with the fact that he would be the only confirmed Inquisitor to survive the Fall of the Empire, there was plenty of interesting material to explore with the character. However, despite all this potential, Marrok serves as a mindless, voiceless grunt working for the villains Morgan Elsbeth, Baylan Skoll, and Shin Hati. Marrok dies after three episodes in a lightsaber fight with Ahsoka Tano, and his body turns into a cloud of green gas.

The Eleventh Brother, also known as The Crow, debuted briefly in the season finale of Tales of the Jedi in October 2022. While the character was originally designated The First Brother, that title has since been retroactively applied to Marrok. With a demonic mask that mixed a bird and a skull, The Eleventh Brother had a striking design that was featured in the trailers for Tales of the Jedi. He seemed like the scariest and most powerful Inquisitor yet, a cross between a plague doctor and a Jedi grim reaper. So, it was even more disappointing when the character had less than five minutes of screen time and died so quickly fighting Ahsoka.

Since both characters debuted, Marrok and The Eleventh Brother have had background cameos in Star Wars: Tales of the Empire but have not gotten much depth or even expanded stories in the comics, games, or other Disney+ series. However, now, Maul — Shadow Lord has given both underutilized characters the spotlight that allows them to live up to their hype.

How ‘Maul: Shadow Lord’ Redeems Both Marrok and The Eleventh Brother

Maul — Shadow Lord takes place around 18 BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin), about one year into the Empire’s reign within the Star Wars galaxy. This is the height of the Sith Inquisitors’ era, hunting down the Jedi who survived Order 66, providing the series with the perfect opportunity to bring in Marrok and The Eleventh Brother. While the series could have feasibly picked any two Inquisitors, the decision to use Marrok and The Eleventh Brother feels thematically appropriate for several reasons.

The first is that both Marrok and The Eleventh Brother were very hyped-up villains with striking visual designs that ultimately didn’t amount to much in their debut appearances. Similarly, Maul only had a handful of lines in The Phantom Menace, like the Eleventh Brother in his brief role in Tales of the Jedi. Maul – Shadow Lord finally gives the previously silent Marrok dialogue for the first time (voiced by X-Men ’97 actor A. J. LoCascio). Since Maul is finally getting the spotlight in his own Disney+ series 27 years after he was a one-and-done film villain, it makes sense for the series to also prop up other villains who became fan-favorites despite disappointing debuts. Like George Lucas said, “It’s like poetry, it rhymes.”

Marrok and The Eleventh Brother’s inclusion in Maul — Shadow Lord also allows the writers to raise the characters’ profiles. Marrok and The Eleventh Brother failed to live up to the hype the Star Wars marketing team built around both characters. However, now they are shown as frightening villains who are also powerful enough to go toe-to-toe with Maul, a former Sith, in a fight. Their fight feels like the inverse of the two-on-one lightsaber fight from The Phantom Menace. This time, audiences root for Maul as he is outnumbered. Now, viewers see that Marrok and The Eleventh Brother are powerful in a way that was previously only hinted at. These characters are no longer terrifying only in theory.

‘Star Wars’ Doesn’t Want to Run the Risk of Another ‘Book of Boba Fett’

Disney+

While it’s great that Maul — Shadow Lord has redeemed the previously wasted Marrok and The Eleventh Brother, fans shouldn’t get too excited or hold out hope for more adventures with these characters. While they were able to corner Maul, he still escaped their clutches. They will likely be sidelined in the season finale to make way for Darth Vader, the true Sith apprentice, and the character audiences truly want to see face off against Maul.

Both characters also have a very limited time frame within the Star Wars timeline. The Eleventh Brother dies fighting Ahsoka Tano after the events of Maul: Shadow Lord and before Star Wars: Rebels, although the exact timing of his death is unclear. This means he could likely return in some capacity in other Star Wars stories.

Despite Marrok’s presence in Ahsoka, which is set after Return of the Jedi, the fact that he exploded into green vapor after being cut down suggests he was a long-dead corpse that was reanimated by Nightsister magic. This means he could die at any point during the Reign of the Empire. Since he is not present or shown in any other Star Wars media set during the Reign of the Empire with the Inquisitors, like the video game Jedi: Fallen Order, Obi-Wan Kenobi, or Star Wars: Rebels, he could die by the end of Maul — Shadow Lord before being resurrected.

The most interesting thing Star Wars could do with Marrok or the Eleventh Brother is exploring who they are behind their great mask in origin stories, be it comics or their own Tales of the Jedi short series (Tales of the Inquisitors?). Who were they before they turned to the dark side and worked for the Empire? What were they like as Jedi? Are they characters that audiences already know from The Clone Wars series? Did they have any connection to previous Jedi characters introduced in Star Wars? Were they forced to hunt down or kill any former friends, old masters, or even their own apprentices?

While that could add new depth to these one-off villains in a way that mirrors Anakin Skywalker’s turn into Darth Vader, it also could ruin their mystique. What happened to Boba Fett is a great example of this. After years of being a cooler character in theory than in practice in the Star Wars film, he finally lived up to the hype in a few brief scenes in The Mandalorian, only to have his own spin-off series, The Book of Boba Fett, damage the character’s reputation so badly that he is seemingly retired for now.

Even if Maul — Shadow Lord is all audiences get for Marrok and The Eleventh Brother in Star Wars for some time, it is a great use of both characters that helps make up for their disappointing debuts. It also highlights one of Star Wars‘ best elements. Due to the vast timeline, a character’s story can be revisited, expanded upon, and reclaimed even after they have died. Retcons are naturally built into Star Wars and can help patch up prior mistakes, strengthen the overall story, and make previously disregarded characters, like Maul, important to the larger story.

Release Date

April 6, 2026

Network

Disney+

Directors

Brad Rau

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It’s hard to believe 25 years have passed since Final Fantasy 10 first released, and it remains one of the most beloved entries in the entire franchise to this day. Final Fantasy 10 fans have been surprised before, with players getting an official FFX and FFX-2 HD Remaster back in 2014, and it has fans wondering if we’ll finally get the big remake announcement we’ve been praying for as a 25th Anniversary release.

While those HD Remasters were great ten or so years ago, fans argue we’re overdue for a proper modern overhauled remake of FFX and FFX-2, one with modernized graphics on an Unreal Engine 5 level of fidelity, a potentially expanded world that allows us to explore Spira in more depth, an improved or enhanced combat system, and more.

While Square Enix still hasn’t announced a major remake for Final Fantasy 10, they’ve finally officially unveiled an exciting upcoming planned release to celebrate the 25-year anniversary, available to pre-order now on the official Square Enix FFX25 site.

Square Enix’s newly launched Final Fantasy 10 25th Anniversary website is the go-to hub for any official news or updates on new releases, with new merchandise including plush toys of FFX’s iconic characters, visual artbooks, and the brand-new upcoming 25-year release of the official Final Fantasy X LP Vinyl Set, titled “Eternal Calm.”

The 20-track vinyl album is available for pre-order now for roughly $60 USD (or ¥9,350), and is expected to ship by July 1, just ahead of the official anniversary date of July 19. The “Eternal Calm” album features jacket cover artwork from original character artist Tetsuya Nomura, and features the following “carefully chosen” background track list:

The new FFX25 website features several new upcoming releases for collectors, including an entire line of plush toys of iconic characters such as Tidus, Jecht, Yuna, etc. Further, there’s an official new FFX 25th-anniversary art book available to order now, as well as a recreation of the “Final Fantasy X Memorial Album,” originally published by DigiCube Co., Ltd. in 2002. If that wasn’t enough, the mobile game Dissidia Duellum Final Fantasy just unveiled an official FFX character addition in an exciting new reveal trailer.

With these various Final Fantasy 10 release announcements and the launch of the official website, one can only start to wonder if Square Enix is gearing up for something big later this year to honor fans for the 25-year anniversary.