8 New TV Shows To Watch This Weekend on Netflix, HBO, and Disney (October 2-4)

Happy weekend! There’s plenty of stuff to watch, whether you’re a movie-goer or TV watcher. Two movie stars have major releases out: Tom Cruise’s Digger and Robert Pattinson’s Primetime. There’s also Avengers Endgame: Encore, which adds four minutes of extra footage and some key scenes that pave the way for Avengers: Doomsday, out this December.

But if you’re feeling lazy, it’s also the perfect time to stay in and watch TV. Filmmaker and actress Zoe Kazan is back with her awaited adaptation of East of Eden, starring Florence Pugh, Christopher Abbot, and Mike Faist. Apart from being an adaptation of one of the most famous American novels, Kazan shares a special connection to the material: her grandfather, legendary Hollywood filmmaker Elia Kazan, directed the 1955 adaptation of the novel, starring James Dean.

HBO also has a major series dropping this weekend. War is their new legal anthology drama, starring Dominic West and Sienna Miller as a tech billionaire and his actress wife, with the two squaring off in a contentious divorce. The series was developed by George Kay, a mainstay of British television, with credits in shows like Killing Eve and Lupin. His hope is to continue the series with each season following a new case.

It’s also a big week for animation, with Get Jiro! premiering on Toonami and HBO Max, and the Ranma ½ remake premiering its third season on Netflix.

1

East of Eden

• Available on Netflix
• Genre: Drama
• Episode count: 8
• Cast: Florence Pugh, Mike Faist, Christopher Abbott, Hoon Lee

Zoe Kazan is not only a great actress. She’s also a great writer, having worked on scripts of films like Wildlife and Ruby Sparks. East of Eden marks her first TV show, adapting John Steinbeck’s epic novel, which recreates the myth of Cain and Abel over different generations and two families: the Hamiltons and the Trasks. Kazan’s adaptation will center on Cathy Ames (Florence Pugh), Steinbeck’s primary antagonist.

In an interview with TUDUM, Kazan shared that she drew inspiration from Steinbeck’s description of the novel, where he called it “the story of my country and the story of me.”

“I really took that as my credo,” Kazan said. “It needs to be epic and intimate. It needs to be as personal for me as it was for him, even though he’s literally writing about his family.”

2

War

Image: HBO

• Available on HBO Max
• Genre: Drama
• Episode count: 8
• Cast: Dominic West, Sienna Miller, Archie Renaux

War has already been picked up for two seasons, with each one planning to follow different cases where two of the most prestigious London legal firms are pitted against one another. Season one centers on the bitter and escalating divorce between Morgan Henderson (Dominic West) and Carla Duval (Sienna Miller). The show kicks off with a scheme, with Carla, suspicious that her husband is cheating on her, orchestrating a honeytrap. She gets a woman to seduce Morgan and later feeds the evidence to her lawyers, kickstarting an ugly divorce.

3

Get Jiro!

Image: Adult Swim

• Available on HBO Max
• Genre: Animation
• Episode count: 10
• Cast: Brian Tee, Alison Pill, Titus Welliver

Anthony Bourdain-heads, this is for you. Get Jiro! is an adaptation of Bourdain’s graphic novel, which he co-wrote with Joel Rose, with art by Langdon Foss. The series follows Jiro, a chef who lives in a futuristic Los Angeles where warring gourmet factions fight for dominance. Our early review of the series called it the perfect blend of John Wick and Delicious in Dungeon.

From our Polygon review:

While Bourdain invented Get Jiro’s absurd world where restaurant staff beat each other to death with kitchen utensils, many of the Adult Swim series’ best parts aren’t from the comics at all. Tanaka and Gatewood made this decadent version of Los Angeles feel alive by adding family restaurants just trying to get by, a disciplined health inspector looking for justice, and an overeager young apprentice for Jiro. They pack original humor into scenes involving hungry beat cops, corrupt politicians, and frustrated investors. The season ends by teasing an entirely new adventure, and I would gladly sit down for another serving to see what the showrunners could do if they weren’t rushing to cram two graphic novels into 10 episodes.

4

Ranma ½

Image: Netflix

• Available on Netflix
• Genre: Animation
• Episode count: 12 episodes per season
• Cast: Kappei Yamaguchi, Megumi Hayashibara, Noriko Hidaka

Ranma ½ was a big anime hit in the 90s. It has one of the best anime premises, following Ranma Saotome, a boy trained in martial arts who, after falling into a cursed spring, transforms into a girl. He returns to his natural form of a boy when he’s splashed with warm water, and learns how to use his powers as the series develops. As he copes with this new development, Ranma also has to deal with his engagement to Akane Tendo, the daughter of one of his father’s friends. The remake has aired two seasons, with a new one dropping this weekend on Netflix.

5

Coven Academy

Image: Disney+

• Available on Disney Plus
• Genre: Sci-fi
• Episode count: 10
• Cast: Malina Pauli Weissman, Malachi Barton, Tiffani Thiessen

If you’re looking for witches with a YA twist, Coven Academy is Disney’s latest series, following three witches in an elite boarding school for magical people as they balance their studies with crushes and supernatural threats. It was created by Tim Federle (High School Musical: The Musical), who told The Hollywood Reporter he drew inspiration from 90s teen TV shows like Dawson’s Creek and Charmed, blending them with witches, a topic he’s always loved.

6

Marshals

Image: Paramount+

• Available on Paramount Plus
• Genre: Western
• Episode count: 18
• Cast: Luke Grimes, Ash Santos, Arielle Kebbel

Taylor Sheridan is back with a new series that expands on his universe of TV cowboys and the modern American West. Marshals is premiering its second season, continuing the story of Kacey Dutton (Luke Grimes), who has left the Yellowstone ranch behind to join an elite team of U.S. Marshals in Montana. It kicks off with high stakes, with Dutton on the hunt for his son, who’s been kidnapped and taken hostage.

7

Kill Jackie

Image: AMC+

• Available on AMC Plus
• Genre: Crime
• Episode count: 8
• Cast: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Christine Adams, Hattie Hook

Adapted from the novel The Price You Pay, Kill Jackie gender-swaps the book’s lead to cast Catherine Zeta-Jones as Jackie Price, a glamorous art dealer whose past as a drug dealer returns to haunt her, threatening to destroy the life she’s worked so hard to build.

8

Tip Toe

Image: Starz

• Available on Starz
• Genre: Drama
• Episode count: 5
• Cast: Alan Cumming, David Morrissey, Elizabeth Berrington

Alan Cumming is not just the host of The Traitors. He’s also an incredible actor. In Tip Toe, he reminds us of his dramatic skills, playing Leo Struthers, an HIV positive gay bartender who’s found dead in his apartment at the start of the series. Through its five-episode run, the series flashes back 10 days into the past, examining what happened to Leo and what led to his death.